First love was like magic, a pure experience of falling in love. After that came other loves that sometimes turned out to be failures, bringing frustration, heartbreak, and great disappointment. What does it take to succeed in building love?
Let us begin with the highest definition. According to the integral approach to education, a true relationship is one through which partners begin to see the world differently, more deeply. Their connection builds a new instrument of perception that enables them to see the integral connection, mutuality, and complementarity among all elements of reality.
Such a relationship is a means of expanding perception. Through it, partners come to know themselves and their surroundings more deeply. They learn to discover an integral force that permeates the entire system of nature, the source of life, connect with it, and draw nourishment from it. The more this takes place, the more they develop an elevated attitude toward their relationship. They need each other in order to grow, advance, and develop spiritually.
Once people have such a definition of a relationship before them, it influences their approach to finding a partner. They look for partners who will understand them, feel as they do, and be able to operate with them on the same wavelength. This happens when single men and women undergo a process of learning and development in a group framework.
The integral approach to education teaches them about human nature, the nature of the world, and the conditions required for optimal human connection. Through discussions, examinations, activities, connection workshops, and special connection exercises, participants begin to sense who might be suitable for them as partners. They feel who is close to them in perception, outlook, attitude, and opinions, and to what extent they begin to play together, as it were, in mutual complementarity.
In this process, we first remove all the external layers that we have absorbed over the years—all the artificial values, patterns of thought, forms of behavior, and egoistic standards imposed on us by Hollywood culture, the media, social networks, and other influences. We peel all these away in order to find our inner point, ourselves, simple and pure.
In addition, we scrutinize what we want to become, what kind of attitude we want to develop toward ourselves, our qualities, our partners, family, children, and life in general. In other words, what do we want to build, and what kind of partners do we need?
Gradually, we revive within ourselves that special feeling of first love, that inner thirst for a mutual connection. What filled us back then was the thought of the person we loved, the desire to bestow upon that girl or boy all the good in the world, to give them everything we possibly could, to connect with them as closely as possible, to truly become one heart. It is a desire to have someone to give to, a desire to feel that someone is happy because of us and also returns our love. To the extent that each lives in the other, the connection brings flourishing, development, and wonderful happiness.
No one can ascend to such a level of life alone. It can be attained only through love, giving, and coming out of oneself. Therefore, both in relationships and in social life, the entire secret lies in the depth to which we realize the principle, “Love your neighbor as yourself.”
May we succeed.
Based on “New Life 198 – Falling in Love, Part 2” with Kabbalist Dr. Michael Laitman. Written/edited by students of Kabbalist Dr. Michael Laitman.