The purpose of creation is connection, or fusion. To that end, an irresistible force draws us toward union with one another. Such fusion with another person happens on four levels: mental, emotional, physical and spiritual.

When our inner conflicts have been healed, our intimate relationships become fulfilling, joyful, nourishing and sustaining. They will add creative power to the universal reservoir.

Relationships, then, are one of the primary ways we discover where we are still divided within ourselves.

Everyone has fragmented aspects that need healing. So the question is: how do we heal these inner divisions so we can experience the richness our partnerships are meant to offer?

Growing beyond childhood

For infants, closeness is passive—babies only receive. This is as it should be. But for adults, closeness must be mutual with both giving and receiving by both partners.

Too often, though, our distortions create hard inner walls so that energy cannot flow. As a result, we cannot give and we cannot receive. When we are blocked, there is no fusion and no pleasure, only perpetual frustration.

Learning to speak the truth

On the mental thinking level, we must learn to express ourselves—even when this is difficult to do. Not doing so is dishonest and is due to fear of unpleasantness. There is also an unwillingness to risk exposure and confrontation.

At its root, this is an unwillingness to risk the vulnerability required for genuine connection.

What we discover, as we do this work, is that we can only communicate in a healthy way—and without guilt—by eliminating our own cruelty. We must release any hidden motive to hurt the other.

The energy of our inner tyrant needs to be converted into positive aggression so we can take care of ourselves and set healthy boundaries. Then, when our cruelty is gone and we are no longer stuck in blame, we can speak up.

When we hesitate to speak honestly, we might ask ourselves:

• If we can’t exchange honestly without cruelty, where is the fear in us?
• What cruelty in us makes us afraid to say what we see?
• Where is our blindness that makes us unsure, defensive and hostile?

Growing through love

A loving connection on the emotional level is expressed by perceiving the complexities and potential of the other. We put aside our ego needs and expectations and make ourselves empty so we can receive the expressions of our partner.

Our deepest yearning is to really know another—to find true belonging through two people revealing themselves to each other. The Guide tells us that a lifetime would not be enough time to fully know another soul.

We also have a wish for a close physical connection that is in harmony. But if attraction on this level is only for procreation or pleasure, it will not embody this fuller connection, so it will be superficial and disappointing.

To enjoy the full wonders of a spiritual connection, then, we must attend to whatever arises in our relationships. We must become willing to risk being vulnerable, and exposing and confronting whatever calls our attention.

This is the doorway we must go through if we want to experience bliss.

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The Pull: Relationships and their spiritual significance explores this topic more deeply.

The path to mature love

The Guide calls close relationships a “path within a path.”

This is because our ability to be in a loving relationship depends on our ability to give and receive.

Giving and receiving depends on our ability to perceive reality.

Perceiving reality depends on our willingness to live without defenses.

Living without defenses depends on our willingness to feel pain and frustration without manipulating our response.

To be in a close relationship, then, is to have our spiritual work laid out in front of us.

For fusion, we must give what we long to receive, including: tenderness, trust, respect, patience, and recognition of another’s capacity for growth. We must offer the other the benefit of the doubt, allowing room for alternative interpretations. And we must let them unfold their inner essence.

When we can let others be who they are, we have the freedom to be our real selves. These are all aspects of mature love.

As we search together for inner freedom, the source of our self-created prisons must surface. These are our images, or mistaken conclusions about life.

Images are not really the cause of problems in relationship—the Lower Self is. It uses our mistaken beliefs to hold us in patterns that cause us to stay locked in negative intentionality that says, “I don’t really want to give myself to this relationship.”

We take self-responsibility for this when we delve into how we are the ones recreating our childhood hurts. We want to do this with a loving intention to heal ourselves, and not from the inner tyrant that drives us like a slave-master toward growth.

We can only dismantle old patterns bit by bit.

Finding security within

Self-knowledge, self-love and security are all prerequisites for loving another. Of course, there are degrees and it is not an either/or.

These will grow and develop as we go.

 Sometimes we try to overcome our insecurities through outside pursuits, such as doing good deeds for society. But this often belongs under the heading of escape. Because security cannot be found outside the self.

That doesn’t mean one should cease doing good works. But we need to accompany our efforts with work that establishes a secure center of gravity within.

To the degree insecurity permeates our soul, the capacity for loving is absent. If we are insecure, we cannot trust ourselves. And if we do not trust ourselves, how can we love ourselves?

As we learn to love ourselves, our capacity to love another naturally grows.

So healthy self-love and inner security are linked. Together, they lead to the ability to love others, which is the highest point on the scale of loving.

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Learn more in Living Light, Chapter 10: The Five Stages of Love | Insecure and in love: Is this even possible?

The deep longing for union

The Guide offers a unique perspective on why our longing for intimate relationships runs so deep. During the Fall of the Angels, as explained in Holy Moly: The story of duality, darkness and a daring rescue, our souls split in two. One aspect of this is the division into masculine and feminine halves.

But it is never a perfectly clean split.

This means a person will be male or female for most lifetimes, but will also experience the other gender for some lifetimes.

Our longing for union comes from this inherent knowing that another more complete way of being is possible. In some cases, we will be able to reunite with our “soul mate” in this lifetime. In other cases, for a variety of reasons—all of which are in keeping with God’s laws and our karma—we may not. When that is the case, we can still be united with another whom we can love.

Both activity and receptivity exist in both men and women, but we each manifest different aspects. Our work over the course of many incarnations is to focus on the aspect of development that will bring us more into harmony within ourselves.

The woman’s activity should enliven her receptivity, keeping her vibrant and in fluid perpetual movement. Man’s active currents should bring out his receptivity, preventing the active current from becoming too aggressive.

The same holds true of other supposedly male and female aspects. Without the soul qualities of love, kindness and intuition that open the road to understanding, intelligence and reason will not bring constructive results.

On the other hand, love, kindness and intuition, if not kindled by discrimination—which is the result of reason and intelligence—can easily be lost in wrong channels and become destructive.

Further, we need to overcome our mass image—a collective mistaken belief—that love is weakening and dangerous.

Then we will find the courage to love.

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