We Need Each Other

You have to forgive this reality for being different than you have always imagined it to be. You have to forgive yourself for not being able to make it on your own, because you have realized the impossibility of doing so. You have to forgive yourself for being what you are, a being who exists only in relationship. (ACOL, C:6.2)

We are beings meant to live in relationship to each other. A holy relationship that features love as its predominant feature.

We have tried, and failed, to be independent, autonomous, needing nobody and nothing. When we failed at that, we reached for a special someone who would answer all of our needs. And we failed at that, too.

Now forgiveness is in store, for ourselves and our God. Our ego got it wrong, believing that autonomy was the way to go. We are made for each other, interdependently. If we stop and think, we realize this even on a secular level.

Our society thrives on competition, but this competition, bottom line, means that there is somebody else who is very, very important to us. The few among us who recognize that cooperation gets us farther in the long run are surely coming to see that we need each other. And not only for love. We need each other simply to exist side-by-side in our crowded world.

Passing through This World Can Be Easy

“The image of intersection is simply meant to represent the point where the world intersects with you—where your path crosses that of others, where you encounter situations in your daily life, where you experience those things that cause you to feel or believe in a certain way—and it is at this point of intersection that not only relationship, but partnership is found.” (ACOL, C:22.7)

At one memorable point in A Course of Love, Jesus employs the metaphor of the layers of an onion, pierced by a needle. Of course, this metaphor has no practical application in real life, but as a metaphor of our intersection with the world, the image does work. We are meant to “intersect” or to interact with all in our lives in this world.

And there is more: This point of intersection with the world gives us partnerships one with another. We do not, indeed should not, feel alone and lonely. We are meant to be in relationship, for we are one with everyone. This oneness is the “unity” that Jesus speaks of, unity with our inner Christ Self as well as unity with others. The unity and relationship, repeated so often, is a metaphor for how we are to proceed in Christ-consciousness. Our hearts and minds form an union with each other, and then this first union expands to include others. We live in a telepathic universe, with no thoughts private. We will get used to this when we are willing to be transparent. But this does take some getting used to.

Our lives are meant to be in partnership with each other. As we join with others, we live at our best. The way is clearer and the living of that way is much happier.

Give up a solitary nature today. Don’t try to go it alone. In our intersection, at every point, with this world, we will live as we are meant to live. We will live interdependently. We will not be dependent, we will not be independent. But we will live in cooperation with everyone whom we encounter. This new way is the way of the future, the way ahead when more and more of us will have reached Christ-consciousness.

Prayer

Dear Father/Mother,

As an onion has layers, our world has layers. As a needle might pierce these layers, we also intersect with all the layers of the world. Help me to understand this metaphor. There is a depth of meaning that I need to make my own.

May this day brings with it good things. May the tiny matters that have been irritants just fall away. There is nothing that we need to lament in our world; we can be shown a way out and through.

Help us to enjoy each other. Help us to be there for each other. The way is smooth when we are interdependent.

Amen.

End the Charade

“Despite your bravest attempts to remain separate, you must use your brothers and sisters in order to even maintain the illusion of your separation.  Would it not simply be better to end this charade?  To admit that you were not created for separation but for union?  To begin to let go of your fear of joining and, as you do, let go of use as well?  (A Course of Love, 9.49)”

Affirmation:  “union–not separation”

Reflections:

1 – Independence

This desire that we all have had, and many of us still seem to have, in being separate, is actually the laudatory way that we look on independence (an interpretation, not stated in ACOL).  We think that not to “need” anybody, except perhaps “special” bodies, is all to the good.  But has it ever worked for very long?

2 – We Need Union

We need union, and not just genuine union in holy relationships with our brothers and sisters, but also union with God.  While union with God has never gone away, and could never go away, for we are part of Him, we can stay oblivious to this union.  And when we are oblivious, we are unhappy and we feel separated.  So in an unnatural way we turn to special relationships to solve our problems.  And these special relationships seem to work for a time, and then they fail us, for they were not made in heaven, but in hell.

3 – Interdependent

We need to recognize that we are meant to be interdependent, which is quite different from the dependence that we all fear, to one extent or another.  And interdependence is different from independence, which we never can sustain for very long at all.

4 – Union

Our union is a more positive, a more exalted, way of expressing our love with our brothers and sisters, and also, of course, with God.  And union is also a more positive way of expressing interdependence.

5 – Joining in One

We can never be satisfied or happy alone, solely alone.  We need God, and most of us need each other.  Very few people are spiritual enough to rely solely on our union with God, and in all likelihood, we are in this world with other people because we cannot sustain separatism.  May we join together today in the holy relationships that we are all intended to have.

Prayer:

Dear Father/Mother,

May I see interdependence as the blessing that it is.  May I no longer strive to independence that leaves my brothers and sisters out in the cold.  We all need each other, and likewise we all need God.  May we come to laud the interdependent nature of our world, and may we understand enough to carry out a relinquishment of independence.

The way in which I discuss independence with You does not rule out isolated times of independent thinking and doing.  But we cannot sustain isolation from You and from others for an extended period of time.  We are social creatures; that is the way that You created us.  May we accept Your intentions today.

Amen.