Finding Joy in Our Call: Couplehood

Meditation and Pat’s and my coffee time – Friday January 25 (morning after my helper session with Moira)

Arisings in Meditation…

Joy comes from within. It does not come from fitting into roles or from outside applause. Feelings arise from within: love, higher consciousness, creativity, beauty, joy. Joy in the presence of Pat during coffee time and other times. Joy in the presence of brother Paul, my kids, my Pathwork buddies, my friends. Eventually with all. Joy as a state of being.

Joy comes in each moment – time with Pat, with Pathwork Lectures, with writing my blog, during my helper sessions – giving and receiving, joy from being in the graduate program with other Pathworkers.

Joy is a born again experience, as Jesus told Nicodemus

Pat joined me for coffee.

Pat: A friend of mine recently took a bodhisattva vow. I found myself seeing this as so beautiful. She has found her way, her path, her home. Gary: Ah yes. The parable of the treasure in the field in Matthew 13:44: “The kingdom from heaven is like treasure hidden in a field that a man found and hid. In his excitement he went and sold everything he had and bought that field.” Or the Pearl of Great Price in Matthew 13:45-46: “Again, the kingdom from heaven is like a merchant searching for fine pearls. When he found a very valuable pearl, he went and sold everything he had and bought it.” This speaks to the radicalness of the experience of finding our Call. What we held to be of value before is worthless when compared to the riches of finding our Divine Nature and Call from within.

Pat: Why do you say radical? Gary: Because finding your Call, finding your Divine Essence within, changes everything! This is awakening. This is being born again. We can truly celebrate what happened to your friend. There is no hint of jealousy. Rather, being with a person who has found and answered his or her Divine Call is like being inspired by a fine piece of art or music.

Pat: How very specific each of us is in our journey Home. It is important to do our inner work, to cultivate a deeper consciousness – on behalf of the whole. I notice how, in my mind, I don’t hold an awareness of the Divine expressing itself in every being: folks in Africa, Afghanistan, etc. Yet what’s there in their lives that is so different from my life? Gary: Yet we are not all at the same level of consciousness. We are not “lesser” or “greater” in Essence, but we are “lesser” or “greater” in consciousness. Ignorance is a lower state of consciousness and leads to unconscious acts of violence – such as Jesus saying on the cross, “Father, forgiven them for they know not what they do.”

Pat: There is a field of consciousness among people. A greater field of consciousness exists when you and I are together in our couplehood. Maybe I am seeing how I participate in this greater field of consciousness. And as I sit here this morning I am seeing that we are all in this field of consciousness. Gary: You and I together – a very practical expanded field of consciousness: you help me grow in awareness and I help you grow in awareness. Being present to another is sufficient, bringing fully who we are in our Essence. Pat: Truly being with one another is powerful. Gary: Yes, and it is beyond our words. Truly being with each other is to show up in our Presence, which includes our love, consciousness, creativity, beauty, joy, and wisdom.

Pat: Isn’t this all fascinating. I ask myself, “Who’s here?” I am appreciating my life and recognize that my life and mine alone is embodied in this body. But I’ve developed an alienated position toward who is here! I’ve identified with my egoic small “s” self, AND yet I have my Essence at my core. I am here to purify and to unify my ego and my Essence. LIVING is doing God’s work. Gary: Because we are all God! This is like the hologram images that contain the whole in each piece that is broken off. No piece has less of the image than the entire piece, and thus it is with us – each of us has all of God, yet each of us is not God. The Mystery of our Divine Nature.

Pat: It is just fascinating being here in Life – having the felt sense of the puzzle pieces falling into place. No wonder the Dalai Lama has said, “Buddhism is a science of the mind. The Buddha wasn’t even sure whether or not what he knew could be taught.” Gary: Religions often create concepts and frameworks that are not “it.” The “IT” is within. Like the treasure in the field or the Pearl of Great Price, the IT is discovered, not learned.

Pat: What if I’ve come for you and for your benefit? What if you’ve come for me and for my benefit? That’s hard for me to take in. Gary: Is it easier if you’ve come for the benefit of all beings? Pat: No… Worrying about myself is enough. Gary: There is such an irony here. When I’m here for me to do my work of purification and transformation, then automatically I am here for you and all beings.

Pat: Yes, a delightful paradox. What comes up in me when I consider that I am here for you is an immediate pull back – and I have to sit with this. That is too much to sit with. I do not know how to sit with this or how to be with you. Something inside of me has to change for that reality – I can see that. Gary: Perhaps what has to change is simply one’s perception – since that IS reality. It’s obscure. Our job is purification – purification of misperceptions, images, wrong conclusions, etc. In purification we are chipping away all that is not real – like a sculptor removing all that is not part of the final sculpture.

Pat: My illusion is that I have to be a better person, or I have to do great things. But in fact all I have to do is be aware of what is arising in and around me. How hard I hold onto everything – so tight, so close. This morning it’s clearer. Even as we talk, share, and put words to things I can see that the WAY is to open into the Vastness. So this matter, this particulate, is best transformed when it is in the greater field, in the vastness. We are marinating our particulates here in the morning. Or maybe the particulate is marinating in the field … May we be open to the process!

Gary: To not be open to the process is suffering! Yesterday in my session with Moira she asked me, “Do you allow yourself to feel the joy that is present in your coffee time with Pat rather than finding joy only in efforting?” I confessed this was hard for me! I am so caught up in efforting!  Pat: How do we open to the simple pleasure of being in each other’s company? Gary: Unstructured beingness – this is a real learning place for me. Pat: The risk of opening to that is huge for me too. Gary: This unstructured beingness takes us out of our very familiar “on task” living patterns, out of our focusing on, “What are we getting done here?” This is as if getting something done is all that matters.

Pat: This is amazing. It drives you crazy when I’ve focused and “on task” so much of the day – and this is a projection of your being so “on task” for so much of the day. And it drives me crazy when you are not present when we are together – and this is a projection of my being so not present to you so much of the day. We are well matched!  Our Calling is US. Gary: Like your friend being called to become a bodhisattva, so our call is our couple’s work supported by our individual work and vice versa – our individual work supported by our couple’s work – the path within the path. 

Shared in love, Gary