Are You My Soul Mate?

Love is a union with somebody, or something, outside oneself, under the condition of retaining the separateness and integrity of one’s own self. It is an experience of sharing, or communing, which permits the full unfolding of one’s own inner activity.
~Erich Fromm

The minute I heard my first love story I started looking for you, not knowing how blind I was. Lovers don’t finally meet somewhere. They’re in each other all along.
~Rumi

Once in the middle of protracted and bitter breakup she said, “I believe you are my soul mate.” 

“Hmmm . . .,” I said mostly to myself. 

I had not yet given any thought to the subject.  There had been a recent book on it released in the new age world and I was suspicious of the whole idea.  More so because our “soul mate” relationship had devolved into mutual abuse, attempts at manipulation and recrimination.  If it was a “soul” relationship it seemed to be a partnership in Hell.  It was a battle of egos from which we both came away with multiple wounds and perhaps had learned a lesson or two. 

The spiritual tradition of Yoga is not big on relationship advice.  Yoga discipline is mainly about turning inward, examining and releasing the cognitive-emotional programs (samskaras) within us that block us from realizing our true nature as unlimited consciousness.  Conventional relationships can support spiritual work, sadhana, but most often they are distractions that keep us from entering into the peace within.  Sex is definitely problematic.  If we are honest with ourselves, we have to admit that sexual desire is basically uncontrollable.  “Resistance is futile.”  Not that some spiritual heroes have not overcome it.

The Tantric view, the path of awareness, suggests that there is nothing to “overcome.”  Instead of fighting we transcend.  This doesn’t mean retreating or rejecting but allowing and witnessing; being aware of ourselves without judgment.  Being present without judgment is love.  Guilt, accusation, shame and blame are all antithetical to love; whether turned towards oneself or another.  We allow everything to be as it is in the open space of awareness.  At the same time we gently apply some discipline.  The discipline, however, is just to increase awareness.

All relationships begin with one’s self and end with One Self.  We get stuck in personal relationships when we fail to move beyond our limited personal views.  We get stuck sometimes in the concept of the “relationship” as if it were something real instead of the illusory play of two illusory egos.  Problems always start when we start to take ourselves too seriously. 

Love does not consist in gazing at each other, but in looking outward together in the same direction.
~Antoine de Saint-Exupery

We can’t really love from the standpoint of “just you and me, baby.”  It sounds romantic but it is an evolutionary cull-du-sac on a spiritual level.  Love is expansive, it doesn’t confine itself to one object.  Like the sun it radiates in all directions nourishing all.  In order to know love we have to go beyond our ego-centric view.  Love is the power of transcendence.  It is Kundalini.  When two people can share this love they are truly soul mates. 

From a karmic perspective, we all have karmic connections in this life.  Most relationships serve to work out past karma.  This does not mean they are soul relationships.  A true soul relationship is based on a mutual vow to wake up together.