Exploring Close Relationships - Exit the Soul Mate

Introduction

The following notes are not intended to be a lecture to people as to how they should live their lives, but are included as an encouragement and inspiration to anyone who senses that there is something inadequate about the close human relationships that are recognised in our cultures. This is part of my personal programme of helping to create the reality in which I want to live. We all have the power to do this, if only we'd give up our negative and restrictive beliefs about ourselves.

On the physical level it would appear that I myself can claim no expertise on the subject of close relationships, having had no significant close relationship so far in this lifetime. I am, however, an explorer, who is getting inspired and excited at what he's finding through sweeping away all preconceptions and uncovering the reality that our cultures and religions train us to deny. My own discoveries are of nothing new; many other spiritual seekers have found these things before and indeed find them today. However, what they have missed is the fact that the actual practice of those ideals falls far short of the intellectual understandings that they have gained. My special interest here is in moving beyond that intellectual understanding and actually putting it all into practice in everyday life, so that we can  let go of our needless limitations based upon gender and sexual orientations and preferences, and instead we can open up fully to each other as fully loving companions regardless of how briefly and at what level we interact.

I am therefore putting these ideas out again in my particular way in the hope that they will touch people who have not been touched by them before. And yes, I do realize that my writings on this subject will probably stir up some negative and highly critical responses. At least if I do get that I can be well assured that I've done something right!

One point I want to make here is that prior to its revision in May 2007, with an update in December that year (the important final section), this article contained what I now recognise clearly as distortions which had got in because I was being 'guided' off-course by astral ('dark') entities posing as my higher consciousness and other high sources. I was thus making a lot of the notion that supposedly we'd become very ready to get erotic with each other when we are enlightened and getting deeply realized. This was actually a story being given to me by astral entities which were seeking to get me very preoccupied with eroticism and to get me disseminating this distortion, so causing problems for others and of course also getting myself discredited.

While I certainly want to counter the rarefaction of personal relationships which is in some quarters associated with being enlightened, I also have to say that now that I'm not accepting any channelled 'information' (i.e. stories) at all because all channelled information gets at least some distortion sourced from 'the dark side', I see the correct way forward as being the way of a completely open mind about how one's relationships or potential for them would develop as one's self realization deepens.

Yes, we would become free from inhibiting patterns and fears that currently restrict or prevent many relationships and very positive, healing interactions between people, but also we would be free from desire and attachment, and many other changes would occur in our emotional and energy makeup, so that it's not possible really to know what truly enlightened life would be like. It's thus best to live in the present, not assuming anything (nor believing anyone's teachings) about how we'd function in the future, because the future is only speculation; only the present - the 'now' - is what we really have. No teachings, from any source, can fully reflect 'What Is'; only 'What Is' itself can do that!

For 'love' read 'attempting not to feel loneliness'!

Love is the way we naturally feel about ourselves and each other, when all emotional traumas and painful emotions are out of the way. However, the almost universal situation is that we have stored memories of painful situations such as loneliness. isolation and insecurity, which become restimulated the moment we experience the feelings of personal love, so that this becomes buried under something else which then takes over.

So, the fact still goes widely unrecognised that when we feel that we want a close relationship, or want to hold on to one, much of the driving force is not actually our love, but unacknowledged feelings of loneliness and insecurity that spring from probably forgotten events in our childhood, and also experiences which are not of this lifetime*. This doesn't mean that we don't feel love too, but it routinely gets hijacked by our compulsions. Because we are conditioned to act out of our loneliness and insecurity rather than allow ourselves to feel and release those painful emotions, we imagine that the desire and compulsions that we feel towards others, whether or not including the sexual element, are love.

* According to many, these would be experiences in one's previous lifetimes, but another interpretation is that they are actually not the person's own experiences but the result of certain 'lost souls' or thought forms having attached to one at the start of one's life. Allegedly, these interfering entities or thought forms were left behind in the Earth consciousness or human collective consciousness when various people died, often a very long time ago. Thus in practice you are affected by experiences and memories which are from previous lifetimes - but quite likely not of yours.

The reality is that if you systematically allow yourself to feel and release those various painful emotions such as loneliness, your love shines ever brighter, and it eventually becomes shorn of desire and clinging, and sexual arousal occurs under your direction in appropriate circumstances instead of coming up unbidden in all sorts of inappropriate circumstances and driving you wild with desire. The love energy itself, shorn of the compulsions, glows - even shines - on the one hand like an outgoing radiation which excludes no-one, and on the other, as a beam of splendour that shines upon a partner or lover in a way that envelopes the two people in a most beautiful and powerful mutually uplifting and healing resonance. How different all this is from what is called love in most close relationships, which involves to a considerable degree shutting everyone else out and stunting each other's opening-out and spiritual progress into the bargain!

Most of the time, in our relationships we are seeking to make ourselves feel comfortable and good, rather than giving our full attention to the other person and considering his/her needs. If you think you love a person because (s)he is one way or another, then that is not pure love but a desire of yours to be comforted by the particular way the particular person is or probably looks. You would find it difficult to allow or encourage that person to change from that way, even if it's what (s)he really needs. Similarly your partner would reckon (s)he loves you because of the way you are, and would resist any change affecting that. Such mutual restrictiveness is what I see going on in most marriage and similar relationships. This sort of restrictiveness in relationships, where perceived needs are attempting to be fulfilled to the advantage of neither partner, is what we commonly refer to as a codependent relationship.

One good indicator of how much the 'love' in a relationship - and indeed the relationship itself - is off the rails is, to what extent the relationship is based on a sense of need. If even one partner is 'loving' or otherwise entangled in a relationship on the basis of need, then that is not what is meant by love in any spiritual or deeply human way, but is instead just the gratification of one's own wish-fulfilment urges without regard to the true needs of the other person.

The 'need for sex' deception

How many people have you encountered who claim that sex is a need (and usually they 'need' quite a bit of it)? Or who brag, discreetly or volubly, that they are satisfying such a 'need' - even perhaps calling it an appetite? Perhaps you are one of them, in which case you may find the following note to be uncomfortable or infuriating reading.

The truth is that unbidden sexual arousals, and hankering after sex, are the product of emotional hurts from early in our lives and, particularly importantly, from extraneous sources such as previous lifetimes or attached entities or thought forms, and are NOT our natural sex drive. Virtually all of us carry these interfering emotional energies and the behaviour patterns which they cause, but most people, particularly in the area of anything to do with sex, prefer to live in denial of the underlying cause of their feelings, hanging onto the compulsive desires and behaviour, defending them as though their whole identity and indeed existence depended on them. Typically they will insist that their own sexual feelings are 'normal' or 'natural sex drive' and anything different is unnatural or abnormal (and therefore implicitly bad).

The truth of my assertion was brought home to me when I was active in the Re-evaluation Counselling community, and learnt that a small but steadily increasing number of people had used the procedures of Re-evaluation Counselling to release and heal all their emotional hurts and tensions relating to sex and sexuality. I learnt that in every case where people had fully worked through and released such material they no longer had sexual arousals coming up unbidden, and neither did they have sexual arousals when they weren't in a situation of physical closeness and it was clearly appropriate. In such appropriate situations they could choose, with full command of theirselves, in a relaxed way and with the agreement of the partner, to allow arousal and consummation to occur, and this could then be a truly magnificent experience. I can vouch for this challenging scenario on the basis of the remarkable changes that have occurred within me relating to my sexual feelings as I've continued to clear out the old hurt feelings.

So, what are these hurt feelings that we hang on to and which manifest as sexual desires? Among the various loneliness and insecurity issues mentioned previously, more precisely we should look at early deprivation of aware, warm physical contact, especially in our first few years of life*. Virtually none of us had enough of that when we were very young, and at that stage, when we were so emotionally vulnerable, it was a real, present-time need. Undoubtedly some parents manage to give a lot of warm and loving contact, but in few cases indeed is even the most loving, caring parent sufficiently self- and spiritually aware and clear of their own emotional hurts to give sufficient closeness and contact, and of sufficient quality, to prevent some of these deprivation hurts from occurring. The occurrence of such hurts wouldn't be any great problem, if only the parents also had sufficient understanding and awareness to encourage the child's natural emotional healing processes - particularly crying, trembling, laughing and bright angry tantrums.

* Actually that is only part of it, for often and probably generally there is a bigger underlying factor of various separation traumas prior the the present lifetime. Whether these reflect experiences of the person in previous lifetimes of hers, or whether they are really memories of past experiences of other, unconnected historical people which have become attached to oneself via entities or thought forms, I don't know (and nobody can absolutely know).

Because full healing is rarely allowed, the child accumulates more and more of these deprivation hurts, the old ones actually getting restimulated every time some new situation - even an intrinsically unhurtful one - reminds it of a previous situation which was experienced as hurtful. When this happens, the new situation also is experienced as a hurtful one, and once again full release of the feelings isn't allowed, so that the growing child becomes more and more disposed to experience that feeling of deprivation in many or all areas of her life. When sexual feelings start to occur, they are initially disturbing in themselves and inevitably, because they very much concern closeness, they get all tied up with all the stored feelings relating to closeness, which, as we've seen, include a considerable sense of deprivation and frustrated need.

In this way the feeling of a deep need for warm and aware physical contact becomes ingrained in the system, and all tied up and confused with sexual feelings, even though during the growing-up process the original need for a lot of closeness has fallen away because as we grow up we understand the world around us (well, to a point!) and, at least theoretically, don't any longer need all that very close contact to convince us that our surroundings are safe. You could call this feeling of need a 'frozen need', in the sense that it is all the feelings of an early need and deprivation, just lodged there, stuck in the mind, pretending that it's still a current need. But because it's just stuck there as a repetitive pattern of feeling, to get close contact now doesn't meet the need because there is no such need at all at the present time! That is why so many of us have constantly felt the need for more and more, or again and again, when it comes to sex. Gratifying the feelings doesn't clear the perceived need, so we continue to feel the desire for 'it'. In fact our true natural sex drive and sexuality has been hidden from us by all these compulsive feelings.

The good news is that it is possible to release ourselves from these compulsions and reclaim our wonderful, relaxed non-compulsive natural sexuality - which is not at all like the 'drive' which most of us experience. Read on...

The 'I love you' myth

A conspiracy of circumstances caused me even in early childhood to wall myself around to avoid close relationships of the sorts I could see around me. I longed for a degree of shared awareness, acceptance, openness and total trust that seemed to me so simple and natural, yet was not in evidence in people's relationships around me. Everyone was manipulating each other, playing all manner of roleplay games, mostly quite unaware of what they were doing. I myself was tormented by longings which made my own loneliness, and it took me many years to work through my =confusions - not helped by the fact that I had no contact at all for my first 30 years with any model or description of what in my mind's eye would constitute a healthy and fully nurturing relationship. Some spouse-type relationships theoretically could be such, but I didn't observe this working out in practice, even though many people around me blandly accepted the limitations of the relationships they got into and thus could claim that they were living happy lives. You don't miss what you're not aware of.

It's an old and ubiquitous trick, to shut down your self-awareness to whatever level hides most of your discomforts, so that you can then seem to be more or less satisfied with life. Healers have an apt term for that behaviour - living in denial. One trouble about living that way is that you unwittingly water down your positive experiences as well as negative ones, so the 'happiness' of living in denial bears no comparison with the deep contentment, wonder, joy and sense of loving power (not ego power!) which can be opened up by facing and releasing all the painful emotions and limitations.

On the extremely rare occasions I mentioned to anyone what I really wanted in a relationship I was at once criticized for being naive, unrealistic, idealistic (using the latter as a term of abuse - the fools!) , and out of touch with the 'real' world.

It was in the 1970's, when I took up Re-evaluation Counselling, that I learnt about how hidden painful emotions distort all 'normal' relationships and hide the real nature of love, which latter is the way we would naturally feel about each other without exception if we released all our painful emotions. But then, when in 1997 I recognised the innermost nature of my consciousness (crossed the threshold of enlightenment), I perceived directly that love was in fact not something you do at all.

"What?"

Double take! Yes, I found that true love isn't something you do. I hereby declare the verb 'to love' redundant!

"You're nuts!"

Of course this monkey is deliberately being provocative, but nonetheless he's making a serious point. If I told you I love you, in a sense it would be true - truer probably than anything you'd dare imagine! But yet it's also a nonsensical statement. What I discovered was that I am love. That is, love is my true nature. This love is an energy which shines upon all without fear or favour. Lest that sound like a megalomaniac's boast, let's quickly add that the same is true for you. Your true nature is love. Loving isn't something we do, because we are love anyway. How can you 'do' what you simply are - any more than you could talk of a tree treeing? What we are doing, indeed most or all of the time, is hiding our love, our true nature, because we've forgotten who and what we truly are! When we feel the love energy it's because we're temporarily trying less hard to stifle it! You'd be astounded if you perceived all the work and energy you've been habitually expending - indulging in fantastic feats of complexity - to hide and stifle the splendour, radiance, healing and inspiring qualities of that love energy which is your true nature. If you were not doing all that you'd be remarkably like Jesus, Buddha or other great people who were open manifestations of universal love.

How, then, can we learn to stop doing all this that gets in the way of our true nature manifesting? In fact there are many ways, but for me undoubtedly the most powerful method us The Work, especially when used alongside the EFT. If these or other suitable methods are used thoroughly, then all those compulsive patterns relating to closeness and sexual feelings will gradually weaken and eventually dissolve, leaving us free.

I find that, now that my own life is belatedly opening up to close relationships, the very concept of 'I love you', with all its connotations of exclusivity and very likely desire and possessiveness, is abandoned in favour of simply opening to the wonderful experiences of closeness, however simple and transient it may be on the physical plane. The only words I can find to replace 'I love you' are expressions such as 'Wow, this is beautiful!' - but essentially the experience of the mingling of auras and mutual charging-up with love energy is totally beyond words or even worldly concepts. Without desire and clinging, it's the easiest thing in the world to accept not only the beauty, power and splendour of aware closeness but also to accept each other's free will to develop and change, and for any close friend or partner to move away, developing in different directions. This way, the present cannot be clouded by hurt feelings or emotional aftertastes from what is past; there can be no significant 'separation blues', and jealousy is meaningless.

So, you think that at least your own close and exclusive relationship is based on healthy and pure love? Well, then, in your mind's eye just try separating, or have your partner involved in an additional close relationship or become stronger, more upright and independent, and see how you feel then! That's when you come face to face with the feelings which have caused all that clinging and exclusiveness, and you then have a golden opportunity to recognise those feelings for what they are and start releasing them, so that future relationships can be freer and more aware.

On being HONEST with yourself!

One important guideline to use when reviewing what you imagine to be your love for another person is, to consider carefully to what extent you are seeking to bend the will of that person to meet your desires. If you are doing that at all, you are not in the healthiest possible relationship. If you are already in a close relationship with the person, consider carefully - are you at ease with that person changing according to his / her needs? Indeed - more to the point - are you positively supportive to such changes in the other person, even if it could mean your both eventually going off in different directions? If you are not, love is not your primary motivation, never mind that your feelings are masquerading to you as 'love'. Similarly, if you are seeking a close relationship with a particular person, consider carefully what is going on for you. Are you seeking a close and even physical relationship with that person regardless of what his / her wishes and needs are? Indeed, are you actually intruding on that person's space and right of self-direction by pestering that person with your unsolicited attentions?

This latter phenomenon is a very common compulsion among men towards women, and unfortunately in our deluded culture it is often regarded as chivalrous and even noble to behave in such inconsiderate and unloving ways. Think how many instances there are in our literary and operatic heritage of such behaviour being portrayed as noble and heroic! The 'chivalrous' man keeps pestering some frightened and insecure woman with gifts and 'love' messages that simply frighten her more and deny her personal stature and dignity. The 'chivalrous' man decides out of his own egotism what he thinks the woman needs, and of course also 'knows' that he is the answer to those 'needs' that he's decided that she has... And because most women have had patterns of passivity or/and diffidence towards men's advances ingrained into them during their upbringing, the chivalrous man will take any diffidence or uncertainty in a woman's rejections of his advances as an invitation to continue his pressure upon her, with the aim of 'conquering' her... Conversely, the kindest thing the woman could do in such circumstances would be not to be 'a nice little girl' and let the man continue like that, but instead to stand her full height and say a firm NO!, in thought, word and deed. If her suitor doesn't take 'No!' for an answer she may need to give up any allegiance to the 'niceness' that she was taught in her childhood and show a hard edge (responsibly!) toward him.

It's not my intent simplistically to paint men as the 'baddies' and women as the 'goodies', for all manner of manipulative roleplay games can occur one way or the other between the genders. A favourite women's ploy is to pester and burden the man of her desire with acts of helplessness, or / and to keep presenting herself to him when dressed and made-up in such a fashion as to arouse his desires. It's a bit disingenuous of her then to complain of unwanted attentions when at least part of the answer is in her own hands!

To these deluded people my message is clear. The way out is to STOP and give yourself time and space to look deep within yourself where the root of your compulsive feelings lies. There you will find pain. You will find loneliness. Take courage and feel it! You can release these hurts through the natural release processes of crying, trembling, laughter, etc, but this could take a long time to clear everything, so the best way is to use one or more fast-track emotional clearance methods, of which I particularly recommend The Work and the EFT. In this manner you get recovering your true humanity and become clearer in thought and perception. This way you can become more respectful of another's space and needs - and in so doing, you are uncovering the true, unconditional, love that was hidden by your compulsions before. Are you man (or woman) enough to be that honest with yourself?

The importance of physical contact - how well do you hug?

Another important aspect of opening up as loving beings is the giving and receiving of warm, aware physical contact. It's the most natural thing in the world for any two humans to embrace warmly and affectionately upon meeting and indeed at other times, regardless of gender. This has nothing to do with sex. The popular confusion here is that embracing and other loving physical contact has been associated in many people's minds with sex, as previously explained, so that people are either afraid of such contact or they tend to respond to it (positively or negatively) as though it were an invitation to jump into bed with them. In my culture there is still a huge amount of prejudice against man hugging or otherwise being affectionate with man because of this association with sex, with the assumption that it would immediately label the particular men as homosexual (and therefore supposedly abnormal and bad). But even when people do hug, all sorts of patterns take over and reduce the awareness and warmth of the experience, and can transmit negative rather than positive messages.

When embracing with men I find that 'normal' male patterns involve a lot of physical tension which pulls them back and communicates 'Look, I'm hugging you but I don't want you to imagine that I really mean it'! As often as not, the man will hold himself half-sideways to try to avoid or minimize front-to-front contact - perhaps partly through fear of getting or revealing an erection. Another common male hugging pattern I experience is the very hearty approach, which may be half-sideways or full-frontal, but involves a show of a sort of enthusiastic hand movement at the back - often a hearty patting, with the head also usually thrust well forward past mine to avoid warm face-against-face contact; such hugs are usually very brief, with much muscular tension, and the overall message is 'Ah, that's better; I've been seen to have done my duty and got that out of the way now!'. Women's hugging patterns that I experience are typically submissive gestures, often involving stereotyped placing of the arms and hands which suggest a submissive role. Or another one, as horrendous as it is common, is the 'hug' that involves holding the poor man more or less at a distance with very tense arms, and just giving a little peck of a kiss on the lips. That is an absolute abomination - a complete ritualization of physical contact that denies just about any possibility of communicating warmth and affection.

I have recently had the most extraordinary experiences from hugs with certain very spiritually open people, to the point that it has become clear that with more or less total openness and awareness in both parties even a one-off hug between strangers who may never meet again can be a major love experience which can keep both parties 'walking on air' and highly charged with the life-force of love energy for days afterwards. That isn't as outlandish as it sounds, for hugging can come much more naturally to spiritually open people who aren't hamstrung by social convention.

So, to help clarify the picture, from my own experience let's put down here a rough model of how we can bring the missing elements into embracing.

• Totally accept and learn to enjoy full frontal body contact. If you're male, take heart that the world won't come to an end if you get an erection. Insecurity feelings are commonly the cause of that happening. It doesn't mean you have to do anything about it, such as jumping into bed together - and in any case it will almost certainly stop happening once you've got used to such open, aware embracing, and the old insecurity feelings are not being restimulated so much.

• An aware embrace excludes any of the old stereotype dominant-submissive gestures and signals that are so ingrained in most cultures. If you are significantly taller than your hugging partner, bend your legs as far as is appropriate and practical, to bring you down to approximately the same level physically. As well as being much more satisfying for both parties this way, doing this helps minimize any dominant-submissive roleplay messages (especially between man and woman) which all too often try and creep into embraces.

• Putting your arms both above or both below your partner's arms can play into dominant-submissive roleplay patterns. Therefore it's better usually to put one arm over and the other one under; it sends out much healthier messages. And of course, if the taller person has lowered himself to equalize (or at least minimize the difference between) heights, then there would be no problem about this suggestion.

• Allow and enjoy the experience of the side of your face against that of your hugging partner. In other words, learn not to thrust your head over your partner's shoulder. It may seem to be a show of intensity of feeling to do the latter, but it's still denying you the aware body contact that is part of the greater experience and communication of aware affection. Beware of any temptation to make movements against your partner's face, and, if you want to do that, ask yourself why you want to. Most likely it's a hankering after sexual stimulation that's creeping in, in which case it's a signal that your awareness is getting sneakily clouded by your old compulsions.

• The odd kiss is great too, again regardless of gender (yes, I mean that!) - but watch out! Unless you know the person you're embracing very well it may communicate the wrong things! I keep it only for the occasional individual with whom I have a considerable mutual understanding.

• Place your arms and hands round your partner positively but without gripping or grasping. If you feel compelled to make hand movements, ask yourself why you're doing that. Is it to comfort yourself? Is it to try and avoid feeling or communicating real warmth? Is it to try and stimulate your partner sexually? In general, though not always, such hand movements are out of place in ordinary embraces. Let your hands rest positively but gently on your partner's back, and become aware of what you can feel there - such as muscular tensions, particular heat production, small movements, heartbeats, the depth, speed and regularity of breathing, and so forth. They all help tell you what's going on for that person.

• Be aware of your own tensions and send little internal messages to parts of your body to let go of them. Most of us carry much tension in the neck and between the shoulder blades, which pulls the shoulder blades towards each other and detracts from the warmth and awareness of an embrace. Imagine your back and shoulders letting out and broadening, becoming free and loose, so that you are becoming more outgoing and with less sense of holding back in your embrace.

• Your state of mind is important, for it will communicate itself to the other person whether you want it to or not, both in the way you are hugging physically and in the communication through energy interactions in the aura. A lightness and sense of giving warmth joyfully to your partner is most appropriate. Typically other feelings come in too, so that you may feel "I want you so much", "You are mine", or maybe "I'm so lonely or rejected the rest of the time...", or you simply feel very serious about it, and so on. If you don't rise above such feelings and restore that light, joyful sense of giving warmth, you are no longer giving much aware affection and instead have become bogged down in your old hurts and perceived but illusory 'needs', no matter how wonderful it may feel subjectively. You are then at least to some extent drawing parasitically from that person's auric energy system and emotional well-being, and (s)he may well respond by similarly getting locked into patterns of old feelings, so that the typical interplay of patterned and unaware behaviour of 'normal' people becomes established.

• One great - and I mean GREAT - way of avoiding or stepping out of interfering feelings when hugging, is to recognise and observe those feelings as though from outside, and to allow yourself to chuckle at them; even to laugh openly. That indeed is why I very often laugh a bit when I hug someone - because I'm aware of odd little wisps of old loneliness feelings all coming up, and am allowing them to release and dissolve in the laughter, so that my loving awareness can be maintained. Often this causes the other person to laugh a bit too, because the same thing is happening there and I've given him or her the much-needed cue to start releasing the interfering feelings. I can remember the occasional fantastic hugging experiences where I and the other person were holding each other as we both laughed our guts out. What tremendous joy and positive energy!

  And - men, please note! - this approach also releases fear and embarrassment over getting an erection, and can quickly cause any erection to go.

• If the other person seeks to let go earlier than you would, it's best to respect his/her wish and let go yourself, never mind how much you'd like to hold on for longer. If you do that you are showing respect for where the other person is at. This is an essential part of aware embracing. In some cases failure to show this consideration can cause the other person to feel quite threatened and make the hug into a real negative experience. This may not apply so strictly, however, between people who already have a deep understanding between each other, as there may be some specific compassionate reason for encouraging the partner to maintain the embrace - such as to facilitate emotional release.

• If you're (more or less) strangers of opposite gender, in most situations it's greatly helpful for the woman to be allowed to initiate a hug. For the man to do so can be very threatening because of the dominant-submissive patterns that are liable to be triggered. Or if the man considers that he must take an initiative, he could in a very gentle and non-pressurizing manner tell the woman that she'd be welcome to a hug if she liked - or something of that ilk, making it clear that it's completely okay if she doesn't want to at the moment or at all.

Forget the spouse - Exit the Soul Mate!

It was really when I started involving myself in spiritual healing late in 1998 that I found that the ideal close relationship which I'd always longed for in my heart of hearts was recognised by many spiritual practitioners and particularly healers, who would use the expression 'soul mate' rather than 'partner' or any of the other familiar terms. Just to confuse us all, there is also a common loose usage of the term, simply to mean an ultra-compatible partner in a conventional sense, with whom one could supposedly live happily ever after in a stultifying state of attachment. That is emphatically not what I was concerned with. No doubt different people would have their own idea of what would constitute a soul mate relationship in my sense of the term, but in my view when I originally wrote this article it had the following characteristics:

• There is a deep energy resonance and spiritual understanding between the two parties, whether or not they think of it as spirituality, and a commitment to allow and even actively encourage spiritual growth, which implies accepting broadening horizons and personal change, even where this may result in the two parties moving apart.

• A deep and permanent bond of love has been formed, no matter whether there is much physical manifestation of this, and this persists even when the soul mates develop in different directions and perhaps never see each other again in the present lifetime; the bond remains and transcends individual lifetimes, so that the soul mates are particularly liable to meet again and again in different incarnations and very likely in the spirit world too in-between times.

  Actually usually such a bond has existed over many lifetimes, so nearly all our soul mates are really defined by such a connection with oneself, even if we never actually meet in the current lifetime.

• As part of the commitment to each other's and one's own spiritual growth, there is no exclusiveness or attachment to each other; closeness is enjoyed to the full when it happens, but it is let go of with equanimity when it's no longer appropriate - and there's no limit, apart from plain practicalities, to the number of soul mates that one could have. However, anyone who is philandering, jumping into bed with a whole succession of people, would be deluding himself if he thought he was a soul mate for them, as that's not how love works when it is free of compulsive behaviour. I should say that even among people who understand the true nature of soul mate relationships it is common if not normal to assume that a person would have only one soul mate, but that doesn't make sense to me, and smacks of relics of the old restrictive view of attached, exclusive relationships.

  True, it may not be practical for me to live physically closely in an ongoing fashion with more than one such person at a time, but I see that as only a superficial physical limitation and not a restriction on the degree of closeness that can develop with other friends and companions. Perhaps the problem here is more in labelling individuals as 'soul mate' rather than simply loving anyone in that sublime way as the most simple and natural way to be. It may be, too, that the ability to be fully unrestricted in manifesting the the true, spiritual love, doesn't come to us without our recognising and beginning to manifest our innermost nature - effectively crossing the threshold of enlightenment - for when that happens you perceive directly that you are limitless universal love, so it is no drain on your resources to manifest that level of love all the time.

• There is no expectation or specification of what shape or outward appearance the relationship should take, apart from pure love being the kingpin and requiring total honesty and openness. A soul mate relationship can outwardly be at any level of closeness, regardless of age or gender (though bearing in mind physical practicalities and some ethical considerations which would be directed by the core of pure love - pure love considers and acts upon the needs of others, rather than grasping for oneself). Supposedly being soul mates would not normally be a valid reason for an adult to have sex with a child, for example, because the adult in such circumstances would in almost all cases not be thinking clearly about responsibility towards the youngster's true needs and the long-term effects of doing that; for this reason sexual relationships between adults and children could virtually never be regarded as healthy or appropriate, whether or not there were soul mate connections between the particular adult and child.

• Such a bond can exist between people who would appear only to be distant acquaintances in a particular lifetime, but it has no limits in the degree of closeness attainable in appropriate circumstances - spiritual, astral and physical, the latter involving anything from brief simple contacts to consummation in physical lovemaking. In the case of brief simple physical contacts, the connection at the non-physical levels would still be strong and constant. Because the bond, once formed, is at a level that transcends individual lifetimes, it places no restrictions upon gender. Gender is something which we have temporarily during each incarnation. I was allocated a homosexual orientation in this lifetime to help direct me towards a long-separated soul mate who happens to be male in this incarnation. You see how different this whole conception is from 'ordinary' restrictive relationships!

• When fully developed, because the relationship is one of mutual spiritual opening up and healing, it is a beacon of light for other people, giving them healing and inspiration too - we are all interconnected at the spiritual level. So it's not just a gift for a lucky couple but a supreme gift to humanity.

Gain clarity - forget the soul mate - enter enlightened living!

This is a later addition (updated to December 2007).

I now have a significantly different view of the situation, because I have let go of the distorted notions which have tended to get associated with healing and indeed the whole so-called New Age movement. I had got things right in many important respects, but had also taken on board the odd highly problematical distortions which are widely being cultivated in people by the astral ('dark') forces.

For one thing, I recognise now that not everyone reincarnates and has past life connections with people in the way that channelled information generally claims, for there is a serious problem about ALL channelled information, as I point out in Better Without Channelling. So, the notion of a permanent connection or bond having been formed, which would keep bringing you together with a supposed soul mate in different lifetimes is applicable only to some people, and even in those cases it is actually a trap set up by the astral ('dark') forces to keep the person away from true self realization (see further below). Undoubtedly there are particular people which whom one feels very distinct energy resonances and in some cases who one seems to recognise from a long time ago, even though it is a first encounter in this lifetime, but there are other possible explanations for what appear to be past life memories or connections, so it's most helpful to keep a very open mind on the subject and not surround it with unverifiable 'story'.

Indeed, my current understanding is that all relationship chakra cords - energy connections which link people who are or have been close in some way - are inappropriate and need dissolving, because they reflect attachment. Truly healthy relationships, however deep and fundamental, would be completely free of such attachment. From this perspective, the New-Age-type view of soul mate connections looks to be one of the many parts of the highly problematical, dark-force sourced illusory realities which are being cultivated in the New Age movement.

A particular New Age concept is the so-called twin flame, who is somebody with whom one purportedly has a unique soul connection, and with whom one is destined to come together at some very advanced stage of one's evolution. That, then, goes beyond the normal notion of a soul mate; you could call the twin flame the ultimate soul mate, perhaps. However, I see this whole notion again as being part of the illusory realities which the dark forces are seeking to lure us into, via channellings from invented higher beings such as the purported ascended masters and archangels.

That twin flame scenario exploits our weaknesses, for nearly all of us carry at least some level of emotional issue causing us to long for 'the ultimate' close, happily-ever-after relationship with one person. All that diverts people from living fully in the present and being fully in harmony with 'What Is' - which is the true way to become enlightened or deepen your realization and experience interactions and relationships with other people which are altogether healthy.

Some people experience strong and often persistent erotic feelings and/or sexual arousals relating to a particular person and thus believe, or wonder if, that person is their soul mate or twin flame. The 'sad and sorry' explanation is quite a come-down, for what is happening in pretty well every such case is that one's interfering astral entities are attacking with the feelings of sexual arousal or erotic ecstasy in order to get one into an unhealthy, attached relationship with that person, with whom one may or may not have a true and deep compatibility.

In fact the notions of both soul mate and twin flame have been given to us from the astral ('dark') forces for one very specific reason (in addition to any others) - and that is to divert us from cultivating and opening up our one most important relationship of all - with ourselves! That is, with our own deepest aspects, which are actually 'the Ultimate'. If you have any 'twin flame' at all, it is yourself!

The 'twin flame' concept is in fact an externalization of that relationship with ourselves (and thus 'the Ultimate'), with the aim of getting us to look anywhere but the right place to find that deepest and most fundamental harmony. It is thus another aspect of the same phenomenon as the externalization of fundamental consciousness (our deepest aspect or level of consciousness) into some external presence or 'God', in order to turn us away from enlightenment and true and full self realization.

When you are fully and deeply in love and harmony with yourself you love other people most healthily, and then the whole notion of soul mate and especially twin flame is meaningless. You simply recognise those people with whom you are in energy terms most compatible for any sort of close friendship or companionship, but do not actually need such relationships, even though for virtually all people some such relationships would be highly beneficial.

To most people the notion of actually living an enlightened life and having enlightened relationships with people appears to be a far-off ideal. It is in fact realizable, though it does require some work on your part. However, that work is in itself joyful and brings about a progressive increase in health and happiness, so that you get a much more balanced outlook that is not constrained or preoccupied with any longing or craving for any particular type of relationship.

So, how then to go about achieving that surely ideal state? -- Simple! As good a starting point as any is The Guide to Complete Self Realization - assuming you follow the links through for the various methods and practices and don't rely on the affirmations alone.

If you want to establish whether forming any specific sort of relationship with a particular person would be truly for your best interests at the present time, then the 'cool' and effective way to do this is by energy testing.

Warning! Ordinary dowsing, channelling, asking a medium or clairvoyant, or divining of any kind (including but not limited to Tarot, I Ching, palmistry, astrology, numerology, palmistry, angel cards or runes) aligns you immediately with the astral ('dark') forces, and any 'information' gained from such sources, however plausible or convincing it may appear, WILL contain distortions specifically aimed to lead you away from what is in your best interests. I say this not out of belief but out of hard personal experience and aware observations of what is going on for others. Interfering astral entities are unscrupulous and unremitting in their trying to get people into inappropriate and unhealthy relationships to an extent that is beyond most people's wildest imagination. Forewarned is forearmed!

Now we can altogether drop the weary notion of the soul mate, and the so-called twin flame too, and breathe one mighty sigh of relief - and then really get living!