It is not for love of your wife but for love of the “Self” that a man says I love my wife dearly. (A Hindu text)
The happiness of individuals depends primarily on the quality of their loving relationships. When you are in love, all problems seem to disappear. However, the search for emotional happiness is a painful path, full of frustrations and disillusions. The days of passion frequently give way to conflicts, boredom, and various forms of dependency, jealousy, and possessiveness. These, along with many other destructive elements that soon occur in a relationship, make a great part of romantic life difficult and painful. A lot of people try to forget their love troubles by settling for superficial relationships; others try to hide their inner emptiness by investing their energies in the pursuit of power and money, focusing solely on appearances.
The problem is more serious today because many men are not prepared to adapt to the profound changes of our time. Following shifts in societal mindsets, a woman is no longer subdued by a man, considered an inferior being at his service, or viewed merely as a means of procreation with almost no rights.
For centuries, love problems were considered secondary because marriages were arranged by families, generally for reasons of interest and practical issues. Roles were accepted as an inalienable universal rule.
From the Sixties onwards, roles have changed entirely; however, contemporary man does not seem able to relate to a woman as his equal. He often appears nervous and insecure, or reactive and violent.
Separations and divorces are constantly increasing. Psychotherapists see more and more patients with relationship problems, not to mention the tragic reality of men killing their partners because they refuse to be left by a woman they consider their personal property.
I remember that, as a young student of psychology, I had the impression that all the books I was studying faced the real problem of every man or woman only indirectly: the problem of finding love. I found that psychology did not give enough importance to what I considered the most crucial issue for human beings: comprehending and overcoming the obstacles that prevent us all from establishing relationships of true love.
Freud considered sexuality to be of primary importance, but he did not speak specifically or in detail about love and completeness within a couple. He focused mainly on the development of sexuality and the overcoming of the different stages children go through in their first years of life, until puberty, genital maturity [1], and the impulse to reproduce take over.
I believed the only truly fulfilled man was one who could live an authentic and happy love relationship on every level, not just one who had solved his sexual problems.
I remember that one day, I expressed this idea to Prof. Beluffi (head of the department where I was training at Paolo Pini Hospital and my mentor in my psychiatric studies).
I asked him: “Don’t you think individuals are sane and psychologically balanced when their inner evolution allows them to love with maturity and harmony, and to build a truly happy relationship with their partners and their families?”
He answered me with a short question: “Don’t you think, on the contrary, that evolution may lead to individuals developing not only their male but also their female side?”
I thought deeply about this notion, which I had never considered before. I perceived the cultural contradiction: on the one hand, men desire a relationship with a woman (or women chase men) while considering it a handicap to spiritual life; on the other hand, men search for romantic love and see the union of male and female as a sacrament, a universal symbol of completeness, the summum bonum for ordinary people.
It’s like saying: “God is love, but if you aspire to freedom, you had better avoid relationships that involve you deeply.”
In fact, a woman was often seen as the main obstacle to a man’s self-realization. If he wants to become wise and spiritual, he must go beyond being a slave to love—a situation that darkens his reason—and beyond the slavery of his sexual instinct.At the same time, the Hieros Gamos [2], or the mystic marriage between the male and female principles (King and Queen), was the heart of the alchemical symbols I studied when learning about Jung’s psychological interpretation [3].
The Philosopher’s Stone symbolized the inner realization of the alchemist and was externally projected onto the level of matter. The union of male and female principles in matter had the power to convert ordinary metals into gold, in the same way that within a person, the integration of opposites led to the realization of the “Self”.
To give one of many possible examples, the symbols of Hindu Tantrism have as their zenith the union between Shiva and Shakti, the male and female principles, emptiness and form. A Yogi can reach the Absolute through erotic rites [4].In Hinduism, Shankara’s [5] philosophy is highly valued, and his commentaries on the Upanishads still represent a peak of human thought.
Even though Shankara never explicitly refers to sex, he expresses the same concept of the union and integration of opposites found in other mystical paths. According to Shankara and the Vedanta Masters, only Non-Dualistic Consciousness leads to true reality, beyond the illusions of the mind [6]. I was very impressed by a dialogue attributed to him. To the questions, “Which is the most difficult thing?” and “Who is a real hero?”, he answered: “Understanding women” and “The one who doesn’t let them confuse him.”With regard to Tibetan Buddhism, this passage from the Mahamudra [7] by Tilopa [8] suffices to indicate the importance of tantric sexual union: When serving a karmamudra [9], the pure awareness of bliss and emptiness will arise: Composed in a blessed union of insight and means, slowly send down, retain and draw back up the bodhichitta [10], and conducting it to the source, saturate the entire body. But only if lust and attachment are absent will that awareness arise. Then gaining long-life and eternal youth, waxing like the moon, radiant and clear, with the strength of a lion, you will quickly gain mundane power and supreme enlightenment. May this pithy instruction in Mahamudra remain in the hearts of fortunate beings.”
In ancient Chinese philosophy, man was a mediator between sky and earth; in Taoism, the union and balance of Yin and Yang (male and female principles) leads to the path of liberation.
Through experience, I realized that the union between a man and a woman is possible and can be happily achieved only if an individual accepts his essential loneliness, which is the acknowledgment of the real Self containing both male and female polarities.
A man will resolve all his problems with the opposite sex only after he has achieved self-sufficiency and the integration of opposites.Most men and women live unhappy relationships because they avoid reality.
Through self-analysis and the observation of many cases, I realized how wrong it is to search for happiness and completeness outside oneself without first recognizing the inner emptiness we all want to fulfill.IN OUR THINKING WE WILL NEVER FIND REALITY BEYOND OUR THOUGHTS
If there is no integration of “animus-anima” within our consciousness, if we don’t surrender to our most intimate feelings without being confused by desires and identification with the ego, this lack will be projected outside of us and continue to manifest in unsatisfactory relationships.
As long as we hope to find (or fear we won’t find) something in life, our attitude of desire and fear will keep us trapped by our thinking, which distorts a correct perception of reality. If we continue on this path, we will always be deluded.
In our tension towards the outside world, we lose contact with ourselves—that is, with a clear perception of the present moment originating in a free mind. Endless illusions and delusions stem from this lack of clarity.
The alchemy of the male-female union must first occur inside ourselves. The union between Shiva and Shakti, Sky and Earth, Purusha and Prakriti, emptiness and form, to be or not to be, is the mystical marriage of an individual who holds within himself a complementary polarity, representing the awareness of the individual in the Self. It is not a solipsistic androgynous perception, nor a closure into ourselves leading to loneliness, but rather the certainty of being self-sufficient as an indispensable condition for establishing healthy relationships.
Emptiness, “non-being,” and death scare us because we don’t see them as polar and complementary processes of being. We must find the courage to embrace the reality we cannot escape from.
OUR IDENTIFICATION WITH MENTAL IMAGES IS THE ROOT OF SUFFERING
When we are internally ready, when we have accepted reality, our relations become harmonious, and we are free from dependence. Alternatively, it will allow us to leave troubled relations without resentment, recrimination, or regret, and without fear of the future and solitude.
That is the time when the partner we have been looking for all our lives will unexpectedly appear.
Being self-sufficient, having the courage to show ourselves as we really are, and accepting the inner solitude that nobody can fulfill, are indispensable conditions for not being dominated by illusions and for understanding others. Thus, we avoid establishing relationships of dependency, which inevitably end in trouble.
The inner balance of self-sufficiency is therefore a prerequisite for any healthy relationship [11].
The mistake occurs when we relate to life by trying to resolve the problem outside ourselves, looking for someone capable of filling an inner emptiness we have never dealt with. Nobody will ever fill this emptiness completely: we can fill it only if we recognize it and accept it as it is, without escaping into illusions and hopes.
It may happen that we must go through painful experiences to grow, which allow us to recognize our neuroses in the theater of projections. Only if we are sincere with ourselves and can recognize them can we be free from them.
In love relationships, it is also easy to delude ourselves. For example, we do things to please our partner even if these actions are not spontaneous. When we do this, even if we feel loved, we still harbor the doubt that the partner does not love us, but rather the persona we have tried to project. What’s more, acting in a non-spontaneous way will soon become a burden.Certainly, with these premises, relationships become a reason for suffering. In this perspective, love relationships are “dangerous” for those who seek inner peace. This is why men and women sometimes choose the monastic life. They are not always moved by a spiritual conversion; more often, they want to avoid entering the dangerous arena of romantic life.
Only when there is harmony between life and ourselves, and we spontaneously go with the flow without fears or hopes, can we establish happy relationships. There is harmony between us and life only when we are free from the conflicts that our thinking creates while we live amid desires, fears, and conditioning.
Our thinking creates the ego, with its memories and expectations. Until we free ourselves from the false identification with the character created by our thinking, we will not find harmony with our partners. We will not be in harmony with what is.BREATHING AND IDENTIFICATION
One of the reasons why the technique of Transpersonal Rebirthing is so efficient lies in the fact that during an intense breathing session, one is predisposed to feel both pleasant and painful feelings. We know we have entered areas of the subconscious, and through the recognition of what we are able to purge ourselves of, we free ourselves from its influence.
With this unconditioned attention to the strong sensations that breathing produces, we can tune in with the present, experienced from the perspective of the witness who has no desires or fears.
The absence of thinking leads to a state in which the observer—who is separated from sensations—disappears, and everything is seen in the clarity of a non-divided consciousness.
A clear perception of reality, beyond the cage of thinking, often helps the patient resolve deep problems and open new horizons in just one session.
The moment of awakening experienced during breathing sessions becomes a lasting characteristic of an individual when this attitude of being a witness, without alternatives or goals, is pursued in daily life.
At this point, we will perceive that it is sufficient to make this inner step of surrendering to reality in order to approach intuitive wisdom, which spontaneously manifests itself when the ego steps aside. We will live experiences we would never have imagined. And now that we do not need them anymore, we can finally establish happy love relationships.Notes:
[1] Take a look at the article “Maturità genitale” by Piero Priorini (). He analyzes love dependence from a modern psychoanalytic perspective. His analysis is similar to what I affirm here, even though I see the limits of the Freudian perspective compared to the Transpersonal one.
[2] Hieros Gamos (mystic marriage or holy union) was an ancient symbolic ritual celebrated in the Spring. People who attended it acquired a divine nature and often became a medium for the deity concerned. In alchemy, the union between the male and female principles of matter is the key to the Philosopher’s Stone, used to transform not only ordinary metals into gold but also the consciousness of the alchemist.
[3] See the inspiring book Psychology and Alchemy by C.G. Jung.
[4] A Yogi can experience the ecstasy of union with the Absolute through an erotic rite only if he does not feel any lust; that is, he identifies himself with the transpersonal Self and with the cosmic forces that express themselves through it.
[5] This is how Shankara analyzes Absolute Subjectivity: “If you recognize it [the Absolute Witness], you will be freed from the bonds of ignorance and obtain liberation. There is a self-existent Reality, which is the basis of our consciousness of ego. That Reality is the Witness of the state of ego consciousness and of the body. That Reality is the constant Witness in all three states of consciousness—waking, dreaming, and dreamless sleep. It is your real Self. That Reality pervades the universe. It alone shines. The universe shines with its reflected light. Its nature is timeless Awareness. It knows all things. It witnesses all things, from the ego to the body. This is your real Self, the Supreme Being, the Ancient. It never ceases to experience infinite release. It is unwavering. It is Spirit itself.” Consciousness is a witness of our “Self”. Ramana Maharshi calls it the “Ego-self,” Absolute Subjectivity.
[6] This fulfillment leads to Self-Realization, seen as an absolute subjectivity without any attributes.
[7] The complete Mahamudra instructions by Tilopa can be found at .
[8] Tilopa (928-1009) was a tantric practitioner and mahasiddha who developed the Mahamudra (Tibetan: phyag rgya chen po) method, a set of spiritual practices that greatly accelerates the process of attaining bodhi (enlightenment). He is considered the patriarch of the Kagyu tradition of Tibetan Buddhism. Nine of his books have been preserved and translated into Tibetan.
[9] Karmamudra: the practice of tantric sex.
[10] Bodhicitta: A Sanskrit word meaning “mind of enlightenment” or “awakening mind,” characteristic of Mahayana Buddhism.
[11] Naturally, this applies to homosexual relationships as well, since sexual roles are psychological attitudes rather than purely physiological conditions.
