MQ: We saw earlier that conditioned attention to thinking is the most prevalent state of awareness in the world today. Because of this, you tend to form relationships based on your self-image. Regardless of the geographical location of your upbringing, ‘your life’ can be an endless effort to nurture and protect the picture of yourself in your mind’s-eye - your self-image.
P: So, because of my attachment to the ego-mind, I unwittingly craft relationships to conform to this internal image or ‘me’ sense – my self-image?
MQ: Yes. If you have an ambition to be materially successful, you will surround yourself with those who can affirm and support that self-image. If you see yourself as ‘giving’ or ‘caring’, you often have many friends who are ‘needy’ and ‘victimized’ and vice versa. Because of concealed conditioning, you learn to manipulate the world around you to match the image you have of your separate-sense-of-self.
EVOLUTIONARY POINTER: To paraphrase Andrew Cohen, ‘we wear people like jewelry’.
P: And if everyone is doing this, where is the true relatedness?
MQ: Where indeed?
P: But you are not condemning the ‘giving’ and ‘caring’ souls amongst us?
MQ: Of course not. Their work in the world is appropriate and essential at that level of development. But you can only truly help your neighbor when the unhealthy ego, as the primary medium of response, has been replaced by awakened compassion that is driven by your higher and deeper Self.
P: So conditioned relationships can never fully gratify my self-image, no matter how hard I try or how much I wish to give of myself?
MQ: Life-long ‘givers’ can very often end up being drained; not empowered. Conflict inevitably arises when the self-image of one of the participants is being threatened, is no longer being supported or when too much is being asked of the ‘donor’. In such cases, disagreements quickly undermine the ‘love’ and you get caught in a vicious circle of defend, attack, apologize, affirm and so on for the life of the relationship. This is often the point at which ‘irreconcilable differences’ appear. This is ego-speak for, “You no longer gratify my self-image so I need to find another donor”.
P: So the presence of personal conflict in a long-term relationship implies that I am forgiving unconsciousness in my partner or in me?
MQ: Naturally. As you attempt to love and accept yourself in an unawakened relationship you are compelled to condone actions that cause you and others unneeded suffering.
P: Sometimes the bickering goes on in our primary relationships for fifty or sixty years!
MQ: Repeated struggle is only normal at the level of the malevolent ego. This is because the unhealthy-ego does not care for, nor respect you, your partners or your relationships - just itself. Be clear about this.
EVOLUTIONARY POINTER: In an unawakened relationship, two or more incomplete individuals are seeking completion where it cannot exist - in a relationship with each other.
P: What do you mean by incomplete?
MQ: Look to your own experiences. Have you noticed that after years of following promises the world offers toward completion, satisfaction and self-love, you still get the sense that something is missing, that you are as yet incomplete? So you naturally seek out other people in an attempt to heal the deepest aspects of yourself. They, by the way, are doing the same thing, and often, neither of you are aware that this is happening.
P: So in unawakened relationships I am trying to find myself in a connection with another person who is seeking to find himself by interacting with me?
MQ: Yes. You go about this task, convinced by the unhealthy-ego that you are interacting consciously and as completely as possible. There is even a tenet of the ego’s dharma that reminds you: Nobody’s perfect, so there’s no point in even striving for perfection. The malevolent ego backs up this nonsense with a long list of viable excuses to put up with, or justify, your ‘almost’ perfect relationships that can be nothing more than emotional minefields.
EVOLUTIONARY POINTER: The gap between your life as it is today and the awakened life is often populated and fortified by a network of interactions that have been exclusively structured to maintain the separate self-images of the participants.
MQ: And yet, even though you may be aware of this gap, you will simultaneously be convinced that many of these relationships comprise a significant portion of a conscious spiritual path. This reveals a tenet of the ego’s dharma: Your primary value is ‘love’, even though your most cherished relationships are plagued with varying levels of divergence and conflict. True love must glow first within you. Then you do not need confirmation from others, and your reasons for relating become transparent, because you do not enter relationships in search of affirmation, but for the sake of the other person.
EVOLUTIONARY POINTER: The liberated life unfolds when your choices no longer support the malignant ego’s objectives to sustain superfluous disagreements amongst your significant relationships.
Jasmine’s Story: As Jasmine worked to awaken, she was developing clarity on the motives for her relationships. She discovered that the basis for many of her interactions was a fertile ground for the unhealthy-ego. For example, a number of her relationships comprised only of gossiping or the relentless sharing of personal problems. She also discovered that other than a connection to an individual as a result of her place of birth, there was really no conscious basis for the relationship at all. Even Jasmine’s most cherished relationships, with her boyfriend, parents and her siblings, seemed to oscillate through varying degrees of loyalty and disappointment, caring and discord and trust and deceit. Jasmine was beginning to realize that only the unhealthy-ego would condone such behaviors. As her awareness continued to expand, Jasmine also noticed repetitive conflict in some of these relationships was commonly driven by motives exclusively related to unwholesome ambition and control. In order to transcend and fully include this conditioning as part of her new perspective, Jasmine saw that she could continue to sustain relationships that were prone to repeated disagreements; or let go of the appearance of the unhealthy-ego in her. This she could do by a simple expression of her intention to be free more than anything else. So Jasmine continued to disregard the thoughts and ideas of the unhealthy-ego that prodded her to engage with conditioned limitations in others. Her subsequent attempts to not instigate, invite or sustain personal conflict were wholeheartedly welcomed, strongly rejected or completely ignored. When her efforts were met with curiosity and openness those relationships immediately began to awaken. With consistent effort, Jasmine redeveloped the basis for all of those interactions to a point she had only dreamed was possible.
P: So, Jasmine realized that freedom and personal conflict are mutually exclusive. Her story also exposes one of the most ridiculous tenets of the ego’s dharma: Repetitive conflict in personal relationships is unavoidable, normal and healthy.
MQ: This is only true when you do not realize that there is an alternative.
( © - "The Uncommon Path" by Irish author Mick Quinn.)
Our Amzon sponsor link
is.gd/YlIR 
