“What is the secret of happiness in a couple relationship?

Love together the same divine things!”  (Anthony De Mello)

Here are some fundamental ideas that give a deep and initiatic perspective upon the couple relationship and underline its spiritual value.These ideas can represent a genuine revolution in the view of couple relationships since they are reformulating the frame of thinking about this important aspect of our life.

• The Law of polarity:

As I referred to in the first article about the Tantric system, and I will have to mention that a fundamental notion that will help us to understand the phenomenon related to the couple relationship and the way it can become the genuine “engine” for our spiritual evolution is ENERGY. There are many possible definitions of energy but I will only mention here one that is useful in the practical applications: energy is a movement that is born out of a difference of potential between two poles. This difference of potential is in fact born out of the game of polarities that structures the entire creation at all its levels, for this reason it is of a high interest to take polarity as one fundamental law.

Tantra states that everything in the whole universe results from the free, spontaneous, endless and ecstatic union between Shiva – the Supreme Masculine consciousness – and Shakti – the Supreme Feminine Consciousness – the game between Yang and Yin.

For this reason Tantra reveals, (for the ones who are ready to look carefully and without preconceived ideas into these aspects) that the universal dynamism mysteries are found in a synthetic way expressed within the mysteries and fascinating game of the relationship between a man and a woman in the same way the mysteries of galaxies we find condensed within the deepness of the atoms. This is the reason why the conscious and initiatic approach of a polar couple relationship represents much more than the inevitable result of some game of individual forces, but the expression of a Divine Game that is structuring the whole universe in this manner.

For the tantric initiates, the couple relationship is viewed upon as an open gate towards one of the great mysteries of the universe, a great chance to directly experience this mystery and to understand it through direct and conscious participation. The couple relationship is thus understood as an expression in the human existence of the Universal Couple Shiva – Shakti, Consciousness – Energy.

Thus the couple relationship would become a genuine “spiritual workshop” in which the two lovers learn how to awaken first their individual polarity to a large extent and then – by empathetic union with the other lover – to awaken the complementary polarity.

This makes the couple relationship become not only a pleasant aspect of life, but an occult element of great importance for our spiritual evolution, with the obvious condition that we look upon it from the right perspective or in other words to have the proper initiation. This is possible by consciously engaging in this game of complementary polarities, amplifying first our own polarity and gradually awakening through assimilation from the other one the complementary polarity, thus gradually heading within the couple relationship towards the glorious state of androgyny. The polar couple relationship becomes in this way the most simple and in the same time efficient method through which we can approach and become tangent with the glorious state of androgyny, the state which will allow us to have afterwards exceptional spiritual realizations very easily.

The purpose of the tantric path with regards to the couple relationships

The essential goal of the tantric system as well as of any genuine spiritual path is the awakening towards our true nature, the God within, the Supreme Self-Atman. The second stage of this realization implies consciously realizing the identity which exists between this ultimate reality of our being and the ultimate nature of the entire creation, the Supreme Absolute or God.

The first and most important step in this spiritual search is the revelation of the Immortal Supreme Self – Atman – step which is realized by the direct experience of that perfectly neutral “something” within, the luminous and silent witness which is the one who knows everything. In order to achieve this state of centering in the “silent eye” of the storm (as sometimes we call the Supreme Self); the Tantrics propose the spherical expansion of the consciousness by the amplification and union with complementary pairs of energies from the universe.

This neutral centre is expressed in our consciousness through the fundamental experience of TO BE, through the feeling of I, free from any other associations.

Tantra teaches us that the intensely lived life experience in all its plenitude and maximum lucidity, transfiguration and adequate knowledge generates in itself a state of centering on this central axis (The Supreme Self) of which at a certain point we begin to be aware. Therefore all that is needed is to awaken steady attention in the middle of the most intensive experiences of life. States like happiness, harmony, goodness, extraordinarily intensive pleasure, as well as states of frustration, sadness, anger can become as many reasons to become centered in the superior state of the detached witness.

The condition for this state of self-centering to appear is, besides having a steady and powerful attention in the middle of the experience, is to have an exceptionally intensive state. The more intensive the experience is combined with a sharp attention, the faster the process of self-centering is. If the experience is a medium one then we risk having less capacity to centre in the superior state of the detached witness. This observation represents a fundamental mechanism which is revealed by the tantric system and represents the foundation of many of its techniques. If the attention and the lucidity can be trained through different exercises performed individually, the other “ingredient” to expand our consciousness until the state of detached witness, namely the exceptionally intensive states, will not always depend on us. Life sometimes provides us with exceptionally intensive states, but when and how they come is not always under our control and consequently it might be a problem to use this mechanism as a steady spiritual practice. For this reason the tantrics always sought the source of exceptionally intensive states to which we can naturally have access to at any time and which, together with our well-trained lucidity and attention, will become the basis of an exceptionally efficient spiritual practice.

The super sensual experience of eroticism with perfect control over the sexual function in a transfigurative and loving couple represents such an important source of extraordinarily intensive states which will help us to realise the state of self-centering.

Love is one of the fundamental experiences that a person will have in the process of spiritual awakening and the sensual expression of it through love making with perfect control and transfiguration will become the closest way to consciously experience the state of pure existence.

Through these intensive experiences which we have with lucidity and relaxation our consciousness will tend to expand to include complementary states and to complete our spiritual experience. Tantra doesn’t imply a fight with the elements of life, but rather to assimilate them through the conscious experience.

Since tantra suggests to live as much as possible all of life’s experiences with intensity, some mistakenly consider that it is an inferior path which leads to exaggerated carnality and mere orientations to pleasure.

Beyond this misunderstanding the initiates consider Tantra as the SUPREME ASCETICISM because it implies a perfectly controlled and lucid gradual expansion of the consciousness into the exceptional experiences of life, the control here being done not by force, but rather through realising our options.

Therefore in tantra the experience is not “consumed”, but it gradually and lucidly unfolds so that it is enriching us. Therefore, the state of centering is obtained in tantra not by effort, but by lucid experience of all that life offers to us, the expansion of the consciousness which results from here allows us to include the contraries and thus to obtain the state of centering in the neutral point, accessing the zero level of personality.

In the couple relationship, both the positive extraordinary experiences and the negative experiences which result from the individual blockages are as many ways to expand the field of our consciousness and to surpass our limits.

The tantric initiates lucidly observe and thus effortlessly control any manifestation of the universal energy, Shakti, being able to transform its inferior aspects in as many spiritual states.

Through this spherical expansion of the field of our consciousness, everything which was established beforehand in a rigid way (which before was helping our being to live even through the moments of unconsciousness) is gradually eliminated; the walls of life regulations are falling under the enormous pressure of the conscious experience, of Reality. This way the being becomes free and spontaneous, permanently aware of itself. The more often these moments of awareness occur, the more accentuated is the state of spiritual awakening.

As a conclusion we can say that the gradual expansion of the consciousness will appear through the controlled and conscious union with the energies and experience of life, therefore, tantra is using the extraordinarily intensive experiences which life provides.

The plenary and full of love transfiguration couple relationship in which the two lovers practice sexual continence (the hyper lucid and perfectly controlled sexual impulse) becomes for the tantric initiates an exceptional source of such overwhelming experiences that are doing nothing more than expanding the field of consciousness of the two lovers from finite to infinite.

The exceptional value of these mechanisms recommend the super sensual erotic experience in a polar couple as an efficient method and from here we can understand why the interest to prolong the sensual experience is not any more a hunt for sensual pleasure but to gain new spiritual balances

• Essential aspects related to the couple relationship – the normal way in the couple

Statistics and modern realities:

• · The life duration of the couple relationship decreases in an alarming way. In 2001, statistics showed that the average duration of a couple relationship is 3 – 5 times less than the duration of a couple relationship in the beginning of the 60’s. Yet the interest to have a happy couple relationship remained almost unchanged, but “it seems” that it doesn’t depend on us. In reality, only people’s ignorance makes them unable to develop a couple relationship in the direction to which they aspire.

• · The way the couple relationship is perceived was subjected to drastic change. Some aspects represent a genuine failure in the modern couple relationships. Happiness and fulfillment in the couple relationship for example are often replaced nowadays with professional and material accomplishments. People have the tendency to “forget” about themselves through excessive work and through the use of psychic stimuli such as tobacco, alcohol, drugs. The time the two lovers spend together decreases both in quantity and in quality. If last century we could speak about the honeymoon of the two lovers, these days we can barely speak in most of the cases about the honey-weekend and even this one is often not so bright.

• · The concept of relationships tends to become something simplified to the maximum. For example in the Nordic countries the confusion at this level makes people often have an instinctual interaction reduced to the minimum. People prefer to live within groups of interest staying away from intensive experiences such as passion or love; these intensive experiences are sometimes even considered noxious and disturbing for what the modern person aims for in the daily life.

• · More families are now disabled in an accelerated rhythm. As an example, the majority of the families from the Nordic countries recompose a few times before children reach maturity, thus each child “enjoys” more parents. This fact might appear to be good, but in time it leads to the weakening and degradation of the couple relationship, its fundamental role being gradually replaced by the society, effect which is paradoxically corresponding to the ideals towards which the utopic communists from North Korea were heading.

• · At a more profound level, the erotic fulfillment in the couple is drastically reduced. Most women today are not fulfilled erotically and they seldomly experience states of orgasm. States of frustration and connected disturbances become more frequent. The way sexuality is experienced by women is in many cases a sacrifice (they sacrifice their own sexual fulfillment for the man’s sexual fulfillment) while for the man, sexuality leads in many cases to premature exhaustion.

• · Due to the continuous alienation from their own soul, the romantic phase in the couple relationship (phase which we will see occupies an important role in developing the superior levels of consciousness) becomes shorter and the routine and boredom arise earlier. Due to this fact more and more couples call without great success the couple counseling in order to re-ignite the flame of passion in their relationship. The consequence of this situation is immense. One of them is the fact that in many cases people remains emotionally retarded, being unable to sustain the couple relationship from an emotional point of view.

• · An improper participation in the couple relationship which destroys the passion faster leads to the proliferation of pornography as a desperate attempt to light up the interest for intimacy and sensual interaction. On a long term basis this aggravates the situation, leading to the sexual problems and disappearance of the libido.

• · Upon closer inspection one can notice that the forms of emotional and sexual education are primitive and the sources are almost non-existent. Yet the emotional chapter of life is a very important one. Due to emotional crises or emotional immaturity, people make the majority of their wrong decisions in life. For example, due to mistaking a sexual attraction with love, youngsters marry and try to establish a family which is based on something unreal. Rarely do we see people crying because of a mental mistake, but often we see people crying because of an emotional mistake. Even though this chapter of our life has such an impact on us, the emotional education is primitive, if at all. Children and teenagers are not taught about love and about love relationships and therefore the only educational sources at this level remain the characters in books and movies which most of the time present distorted, deviated and unrealistic models. This leads to the situation where people step into life and into relationships completely unprepared from an emotional point of view.

• · Another strong chapter in our life which suffers these days from lack of information is sexuality. Similar to the emotions, sexual education is very poor, being reduced to the basic biological mechanism of it. It shouldn’t amaze us that in this situation in the era of interplanetary travels, genetic engineering and supercomputing sexuality is still under the influence of medieval taboos and prejudice.

Next we will present how to make the couple relationship the genuine “engine” of the spiritual life….. stay tuned