What is the connection between romantic love and the One Consciousness?
My 50th wedding anniversary is approaching and I’ve started thinking about a vows renewal ceremony. The longer I’ve lived, the more deeply I’ve learned that our relationships mirror and magnify our own true essence. For example, my husband’s pain is my own pain, and his happiness is my own happiness. What is loved here, is not my husband’s words or actions, but rather his essence, which is a reflection of my own essence. And so, despite the stresses and challenges inevitable in every marriage, especially as we age, I find this milestone of love a fitting opportunity for a renewal of marriage ceremony.
But what do I mean by “my husband mirrors and magnifies my own true essence”? What I’m hoping to communicate here is that love is more than just the two of us. It gets expanded to embrace our friends, our neighbors, and all beings. It is the collective consciousness, the One Consciousness.
But how exactly does my ode to human love on the planet Earth relate to my boundless love of the creator of all that there is — the One Consciousness? We are never so lacking in free will and so enslaved by desire as when we are in romantic love. It is the love that can break our heart or expand it. Love, that subjects us to the polarities of pain and joy. We can make ourselves immune to heartbreak by detaching ourselves from desire, but without desire we become inhuman.
The divine love (which I’ve described in Connecting with the One Consciousness) is transcending, yet containing the romantic love. Let me repeat. The divine love transcends, yet contains, the romantic love. The divine connection we feel for everyone on the planet may resonate with a single person’s secular characteristics (such as intellect, spirituality, emotions, or physical looks) leading to a strong attraction and desire for connection. What attracted me to my husband, for example, was our deep and stimulating discussions. We were sapiophiles, complementing each other intellectually.
Still, the love we feel for one another in this earthly world, especially the intense love of a romantic partner to another, is a key factor that brings us closer on our journey to oneness. Romantic love is the testing ground for the growth of spirituality. Such a love is a gift from the divine to us. It grows rather than diminishes, even if our romantic partner drives us insane.
This assertion that earthly love brings us closer to divine love does not negate the possibility of detachment from the earthly love for the love of the divine. All forms of love (such as the love of a mother, a friend, or a child) are reflections, albeit sometimes faint ones, of this supreme love, which eventually liberates us from not only this world but also the next. Divine love is what is left over when being in romantic love has faded away, and we find out that we are not two, but one.
What about your love story? How do romantic and divine love interact in your life?
Be well,
Sheida