EXCLUSIVE PLW EXCERPT

BEING ONE
B Y   S T E V E N  H A R R I S O N

transcendental relationship

True love is like a ghost: everybody

talks about it, but few have seen it.

—FRANÇOIS DE LA ROCHEFOUCAULD

THE IDEA OF STAGES OF RELATIONSHIP IS JUST THAT, AN IDEA. It is a way of talking about relationship, but it is not relationship itself. Language is not what it describes; it is symbolic or representational. It may convey accurately, but often it distorts, interprets, and confuses.

We are so in love with our words and ideas that we forget the direct experience from which language arises. We build concept upon concept. In the end we have abstracted our contact with life, a contact that is fresh and vital, into the rote regurgitation of thoughtbound ideology.

When we use language like "the three stages of relationship," let us use that language, but then forget that we used it. Don't enshrine the language. Cremate it and scatter it in the wind. Or better yet, leave it for the vultures to pick over.

If the use of our created terminology or the classification of phenomena through conceptualization allows us a glimpse of the underlying structures of our life, that is fine. Otherwise, throw all the language out. Its usefulness is over.

We can try to figure out which stage we are in, which stage we should be in, which stage we will be in (if we just figure out which stage we should be in). But we are only in one stage—the stage of confusion.

One of the curses of human existence is the tendency to misconstrue language for actuality. Relationship has nothing to do with language, name, or concept. We cannot analyze relationship. We cannot control relationship. We are already in relationship, but our view is so obscured that we do not recognize that fact.

If we are particularly alert, sensitive, and open, we may discover this fact. We are already in relationship.

If we have not discovered this, if we do not fundamentally experience this in our moment-to-moment existence, then we have fallen victim to the great curse. We are stuck in language, concept, thought. We are entombed in our own brains.

We are thinking our lives, not living them. We are thinking love and relationship, not living them.

Now we think about the problems all this thought is creating.

We pick up a self-help book, a book of spiritual advice, a religious book. We pick up this very book, thinking it might help with our thought-bound world. We read about being one, and we think that is quite interesting

We think we will read more, until we are reading this sentence. We are not sure where all of this is going, but we think we will read more and find out.

It is not going anywhere.

Thought has nowhere to go but its own isolated, endless, fragmented repetition.

Blow it up. Discard it. Take this book and rip out every page up to this sentence and throw them all away. Now throw away this page and sit still for just a minute without the obsession of thought.

Now, read on with fresh eyes and the space of openness. In that freshness, with no past, no memory, no thought, we have entered into relationship. This is not the relating of a person to a person, of an ego-center to the object of its desire, of fear to the world it must try to control.

This relationship is transcendental. It is the recognition and the _expression of the energy of consciousness and space in which we and the other coexist in such profound contact that there is nothing that definitively divides us.

The mother whose just-born child suckles her breast cannot say where her life and the child's are divided. The child's cry is the very energy of the mother's response to quiet him. The child's openness and intimacy are the reflection of the mother's own heart.

The lover who truly loves, the guru who truly shows the way, the teacher who truly mentors, the parent who truly guides, and then, each lets go—this is the reflection of relationship.

We search for this relationship of profound openness, without guile or armor, vulnerable, trusting and, at the same time, intimate, intertwined, boundaryless. This transcendental relationship constantly slips from us as we experience it and then try to institutionalize it. Relationship is the natural state of our being, when our minds are absolutely quiet. When thought is still, it is apparent that all of the world is in relationship. Then thought, the ego-center, enters immediately to catalog, analyze, and capture the beauty of the vision.

We seek the rare butterfly. Upon glimpsing its beauty we stalk it, catch it, drive a pin through its head to mount it, and put it on our wall with its Latin name. What we had was spontaneous beauty existing as freedom, not owned, not controlled. What we now have is a dead specimen.

Why do we trade the moment of timeless beauty for the endless stultification of a dead symbol, an artifact, a word, a concept?

We can use language here to approach that which is beyond language. We can use language here to amuse ourselves. We can use language as the poet does, as the bird sings its song. But, let us not forget that these words, any words, bring us nowhere in actuality, only somewhere in the mind, in thought.

To enter into this relatedness we need do nothing, we need know nothing, we need learn nothing. We are there already, now, here. For the active mind this is difficult to conceptualize. .

To allow our minds to conceptualize this, we say we need help. We need books, teachers, courses—books on the philosophy of something that will help us understand nothingness. We need teachers of something, courses in the miracles of something, that will help us conceptualize this nothing. Slowly we start to get it. We think harder. The concept begins to gather its wits. At last, we understand nothing. We are so relieved finally to have a concept to hold onto. Even if it is nothing, at least it is something.

Soon, with study, with practice and, perhaps, with the grace of God or the guru, we get it. The concept is complete. We can explain it to our friends and family, we can teach others, we can gather power, prestige, and security. With our newly found concept of transcendental relatedness, who knows, we might even impress someone enough to get a relationship going.

We have an "ism" or an "osophy." Thank God, we are safe—unless there is no god in our concept, then we thank the stars, karma, or gaia. But where are we? Are we indeed where we conceptualized we should be, or are we back in the bubble, are we staring in the pond admiring the reflection of our own thoughts?

Let us find out where we are. Today, let us remove all concepts from our viewpoint and place them on a shelf (where they can easily be retrieved).

Now, let us begin our day.

What shall we wear? What shall we say? Are we happy today? Are we sad? Are we fulfilled? How is our life going?

Without our concepts, our patterns of belief, we are lost. There is no reference point. Without the concepts cluttering our view, we have no viewpoint, no vantage point, no place from which to "be." We cannot even become disoriented or afraid, because we cannot find these concepts.

Supreme Court Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes was on a train when he discovered he had left his ticket at home. The conductor was more than accommodating, saying, "I’m sure the railroad can trust you. Just mail in the ticket later."

"Dear sir," replied Holmes, "that is not the problem. The problem is not where my ticket is. The problem is, where am I going?"

Indeed, where are we going? We have nothing, which is what we have always had. There is no vantage point, but there is space. This space is not a concept (although we can try hard to make it one). It is empty of concept, empty of us.

This space transcends us, because it transcends our concepts. This space connects us, because in this space all actuality exists related not in a conceptual framework but in existential reality.

We have lost ourselves in nothing, and we have found our existence stripped bare of everything but its interrelatedness. We are not in relationship, we are relationship. In this moment we glimpse that this is the simple nature of what is. It has always been so, with or without our view or understanding.

This radically changes relationship to another, because we find no entry point to relationship and no exit from it. We cannot look for relationship; there is nothing to see that is not already in relationship. We cannot get anything from relationship; we already hold everything. We have no place to go and nothing to do.

Then thought arises. What about me? Where did I leave those concepts? Aha, here they are. What an experience I've just had. That was so profound, perhaps now I'll be happy. After all, that was a very special experience.

This is thought.

Wake up. Love does not sleep, we do.