The Pull: Relationships & Their Spiritual Significance

The Cosmic Pull Toward Union

There is a great pull in this world that is connected with creativity and creation. And since all humans are made from the same substance that fuels the creative process, one end of this pull is attached to each one of us. The aim of this pull is to move us toward union. So the whole plan of evolution could be looked at as one long slide that’s pulling us down a funnel in the direction of overcoming our separateness.

If we look at union, however, as being a mental process or as a venture with an intangible God, then sorry to say, that’s not genuine union at all. No, there’s got to be real live actual contact, the kind that happens between one individual and another. So this pull works by being powerful enough to pull us into relationship with each other—which takes a tremendous force—while at the same time making separateness feel painful and empty.

As this force pulls us toward each other, it is also drawing us toward pleasure. For in truth, life and pleasure are one. Said another way, we can’t live without pleasure. The cosmic plan rolls all this up into one goal: life, pleasure, contact and oneness. Because they’re all one and the same thing. So when pleasure through relationships is missing, there is a disturbance in our life force that comes from being in opposition to the great cosmic plan.

The pull toward unity is attempting to bring us out of our seclusion, as it moves us toward contact and the possibility to meld with another. To follow this pull is to follow our bliss. It feels at once exhilarating and peaceful. Jeez, who wouldn’t want that? Turns out, we wouldn’t. We—each one of us—oppose this pull out of the wrong thinking that giving into it means we’ll be swallowed whole. We think we’ll be annihilated. Our basic conclusion is that our life is best preserved by opposing pleasure—or life. Huh? We live with this deep inner conflict pulling our guts apart.

By fearing and opposing this pull, we’re bucking the natural flow of things. This is so unconscious in most of us, these words may sound completely off-base. Nonetheless, to whatever degree we equate loving with being annihilated, we’re going to have a struggle on our hands. Our confusion makes us profoundly distrust life itself. We can see evidence of this conflict when we look at our fear of our deepest instincts.

Often, we don’t trust the desire for pleasure inherent in our own bodies. Admittedly, the pleasure principle sometimes manifests in distorted ways, but we go on to use this as an excuse to stamp the body as bad, creating a dualistic divide between the body and the spirit. Then we claim that denying our very nature is right and good, causing us to reject the life principle as it shows up in our bodies. This, we think, will save us from annihilation. And that, friends, is why people have preached for centuries that the body is sinful, while the spirit is the opposite and therefore good. Good grief.

Even if we embrace such misguided thinking as being spiritual truth, these misconceptions aren’t the root of our problems. Our difficulties come from the deeper conflict that makes us think of life—which includes pleasure and union—as being the opposite of what it is—namely, something that will destroy us. This causes us to pull ourselves in two opposing directions, as we struggle to fully harness this powerful force—this pull. So part of us moves towards others, accepting our bodily instincts and our basic nature, while another part backpedals, leading to deprivation, emptiness, meaninglessness and a sense of waste.

Often, we end up overcompensating for our rejecting and withholding behavior by lashing out at others through blind rebellion and destructive actions. This of course leads to unpleasant experiences, seemingly validating that reaching out is wrong and dangerous. And there it is: we have created the kind of life-and-death conflict we feared was there all along.

There’s no single formula for what this looks like. But one thing’s for sure: the stronger our resistance to the pull, the more pain and problems we will have. For although we might block and oppose the pull, we can’t avoid it; it’s a master winch that just keeps on tugging.

Resistance only leads to further heartache as we allow this conflict to stop the flow of our creative force. In this way, our behavior is essentially saying that our own basic nature is in opposition to the divine evolutionary plan. What a colossal error.

Yet if that’s what we unconsciously believe, we might comply outwardly while inwardly we are thinking we can remain uninvolved and isolated. Eventually, though, this will become unbearable. Because nothing that opposes life can be maintained forever. After all, what we’re up against here is ultimate reality.

Our fears are all based on illusion, and those walls have to one day come tumbling down; illusions cannot go on indefinitely. And the anxiety they give rise to will only be eliminated when this deep conflict surfaces so it can be recognized and understood. Then we can harmonize once again with the creative process of living.

So there’s a pull, and then there’s a counter-pull. Even if we have a huge amount of resistance, the former remains. The pull is toward contact, so the counter-pull—fueled by fear, distrust and other negative feelings—must then create negative contact. Wherever this counter-tug is minimal, as found in healthy parts of our soul, our contact with others will not be a problem. We’ll be able to form relationships built on mutuality and genuine love. Oh, if only all of life could be such a bed of roses.

Indeed, there’s usually also a slug of opposition in us that throws a wrench into the works. Painful contact then ensues. What’s happening here is that our pleasure principle at one time—way back in childhood—got attached to a negative situation. Now, every experience of pleasure is accompanied by the activation of this unwanted negativity. This creates a pull toward contact—Onward!—coupled with fear of the truckload of crap that will come with it. Wait, reverse!

It’s that last part that carries the stinger. It creates one of two fundamental reactions: either the desire to hurt, or the desire to be hurt. Remember, pleasure and life are inexplicably intertwined, so there’s no eliminating pleasure. But pleasure can be morphed into negative pleasure. Then the pleasure of contact will be associated with hurting or being hurt. Cripes.

This fires off a vicious circle, wherein the more painfully the pull manifests, the more fear builds up, and the greater the guilt, and the more the shame, and the higher the anxiety and the tension. Opposition grows. Conflict increases. The vicious circle grinds on.

We must not get caught up in thinking that this is who we are, that this is our deepest nature, that this is life. No, this is not the ultimate reality of our instinctual selves. It just may be where we are on the wheel right now. But when we’re in distortion, we’re in illusion, and there’s always a way out.

Keep in mind, it’s not possible to distrust our innermost instinctual nature and yet trust the whole spiritual universe. As above, so below. They’re linked. So we may need to search to find a thimble-full of trust that developing greater awareness is a constructive process; we need to find the courage and honesty to face what needs facing. Then we can unwind our personal attitudes back to their constructive and trustworthy nature.

If we think about it, how can we possibly trust God, or trust nature, or trust life, if we distrust our own deep instincts? Where do we think our instincts come from? They are not for us to crush. Nor are we to deny them, uproot them or try to force them to be replaced with something we think is more palatable.

The way out is by seeing everything for what it is, knowing our instincts for connection are part of the divine power current and not hostile enemies. Our deep instincts are potential bearers of light and should be held in the high regard they deserve. To heal, we need to welcome all aspects of ourselves, just as they are now, into the fold.

Finding peace between the body and the soul is a natural by-product of self-realization. When we no longer fear the great stream of which we are a part, we’ll find that dissolving walls of separation does not cause us to lose our identity. Quite the contrary: we’ll discover that this is the way to expand and become more ourselves.

2

The Counter-Pull: Frustration

There is a feature in the human personality related to the pull that we tend to trot out on Opposite Day: it’s called frustration. Like so many human attitudes, it can go in a couple of erroneous and conflicting directions, and neither is good. Because if one extreme is wrong, moving toward the opposite extreme is never the solution.

So neither of the frustrating alternatives of denouncing happiness or intensely making rigid demands is going to ring the winning bell. In fact, our wrong attitude about frustration lures us down a dark, harmful alley that impairs relationships, self-respect and inner peace. Wah, wah, wah.

Let’s link up frustration with the pleasure principle, that innate inner desire we all have to strive towards life, pleasure and wholeness. We need to go back to babyhood to sort this one out, because that is where this all begins. Babies are hardwired to strive for pleasure. But they aren’t capable of tolerating any frustration—which is what humans experience when gratification is delayed—because they have zero awareness that there is a future.

If the baby psyche doesn’t mature, it will get stuck in this frustrating attitude of I want it now. From here we enter into an apparent contradiction: the less we can endure frustration, the less we can have pleasure. So, for example, when we rigidly insist on something, we lose the pleasure we were shooting for. Because either the act of our striving—typically by way of a forcing current—will make it impossible to get what we want, or when we do succeed, our nutted-up inner state will prevent us from enjoying it. Bloody hell. Can we not get a break here?

The fact of the matter is this: for real pleasure to be felt, we’ve got to have a relaxed inner state. With the benefit of a flexible inner climate, we’ll produce a positive, life-affirming attitude that includes all of reality—both the goody-I-got-my-way and the oh-well-not-this-time versions. But if we rebel against any delay in gratification, we’ll end up angry, tense and stubborn—real doggie downers for tapping into life’s pleasure stream.

Here’s the great error in all of this: we believe that what we want is more important and more capable of giving us pleasure than having a peaceful state of mind. So we totally misunderstand the importance of being able to tolerate frustration. We then jump to unhelpful responses like martyrdom, abstinence and resignation, putting on a mask of spirituality that makes pleasure out-and-out impossible. What does arise is a feeling of hopelessness. What a waste.

For human beings, pleasure is not optional. It will come to us either through genuinely pleasurable channels or by way of distorted, negative avenues. It’s a byproduct of being in the cosmic stream and can’t possibly be considered unimportant. But insisting on it with a do-or-die attitude that can’t tolerate even a wee bit of frustration is out-and-out erroneous.

So what’s the way out? We know there’s got be an off-ramp if we look for it. And here it is: we’ve got to learn to let go. We’ve got to allow ourselves to postpone having our own way, but without giving up on the possibility of fulfillment. Then and only then will we create the right inner climate for the cosmic flow to stream forth. We’ve got to learn to chill, people.

Climb down off the ceiling. Letting go and relaxing is not the same as relinquishing forever. We’re talking about the subtle but strong power of gently letting go. We can relax right into pleasure. This may sound obscure if we’ve not felt this before, maybe even contradictory. But once we’ve had an inkling of this, we’ll grasp the power of this concept and want to learn to use it deliberately.

We can apply this to just about anything—to big wishes and little ones. All it takes is an awareness of an inner tension and a willingness to relax into an attitude of wise, positive reasonableness. Oh, and humility. It takes some of that too. We want to keep on seeking fulfillment, but without hanging onto it for dear life.

Here’s the thing: anger and self-pity can feel pretty darned good. They are energizing, even if unpleasant, and can therefore be a nice substitute for satisfaction. So there’s a great temptation to remain tense. Ego, are you listening? You’ve got a job to do here. Yes, the ego must make it its business to constructively let go. A tiny point of effort is all we’re asking for here.

Once the ego gets the ball rolling, it’s all downhill from there. The ego will get carried along by the inner forces it activates through the letting-go process. Abandon the tension and the pleasure will appear. The flexibility of relaxing into what is—even if what is happening at the moment isn’t what we want—will ultimately bring us what we want.

First, this is going to give us a good feeling about ourselves. Maturity feels good. And it puts us in harmony with the cosmic stream that runs through our system. So sooner or later, that thing we want will come. It can’t not come. Everything, in the end, follows the law of cause and effect. We can count on it.

We can work towards establishing an inner knowledge of this truth: all fulfillment is potentially ours. Our knowing this will make it so. But we need to know this in a relaxed atmosphere that lets go, so our wishes can come true. The state of I must have it is not it. In that climate, little can materialize. It’s like hostile territory to harmony, which is what’s needed for fulfillment.

Tension and resignation are two sides of the same coin. Look for one, realize the other is also there, and then consciously reach for the soothing balm of letting go. It’s just like relaxing into the pleasure of giving up separation. Yet we fight, tooth and nail, in not wanting to give this up, frustrating ourselves on the most important level of living.

We are fighting against our own best interest on this. The more we resist the pull towards union, the more we fear we’ll never get it—and the ensuing tension makes us incapable of hanging out in the frustration caused by our own cross-currents. Little by little, we need to remove these blocks that tie us up in knots.

The destiny of the cosmic pull is to love, in all its flavors and varieties. It pulls us towards a loving partnership with another person. It pulls us toward an expression of our God-given sexuality. It pulls us to integrate all this with our thoughts and ideas, accepting all of life, including ourselves and others.

But love can only grow where there is no fear. So if we fear coming into contact with others, we put up defenses that produce hurt and anger. Now contact feels like pain. That’s called negative pleasure. Not so much love. For that, we need to learn to trust the benign nature of life.

We can apply this to so many areas of our lives. Many of us have a fear of failure, which must be tied, on the flip side, to a fear of success. Like any happiness, success seems vaguely dangerous. It’s like a minor happiness that we actually fear just as much as a major happiness, like love. When we fear something, we block it. So then we flip over to fearing not getting it. Then we can’t stand the feeling of emptiness, so we battle against feeling frustrated. We pitch a hissy fit and demand instant gratification, in essence screaming, I want to feel good and be happy. But I won’t trust the universe and let go. Responds the universe: We’re on your side, but you make things utterly impossible.

Don’t forget: the pull is always stronger than our pushback. Eventually, pleasure is going to win. This whole thing is rigged—in our favor. There is nothing to fear in getting to know the machinations of our innermost selves. Running away from this is the real tragedy. The running and hiding is the cause of our pain. There is nothing whatsoever to fear about what we may discover. The more we uncover, the better equipped we’ll be to establish contact with others, and the more we’ll be able to feel and follow the cosmic pull towards love.

3

The Importance of How we Communicate

Union: it’s such a worthy goal. In fact, it’s the highest, most desirable state in all of creation. We don’t, however, reach union, have union, or get union. Union just is. It exists outside the laws of cause of effect. We may get a glimpse of it from time to time, so we get that it totally rocks. But then the moment passes.

So instead of focusing on union, let’s talk about something we can work with. These are the two preliminary stages that lead up to union: cooperation and communication. In general, cooperation is simply a more superficial form of communication, but we can’t survive without having both. Even on the level of our material needs, things like food, drink and shelter—all the stuff we need to physically survive—depend on our ability to cooperate and communicate.

In a primitive society, people may organize their communication with nature and the elements. As we become more developed and a community grows in size, people have to learn how to work things out with their fellow inhabitants. The better everyone can get along, the better the entire