NO ARCHETYPES FOR INTIMATE RELATIONSHIPS
The first step any religion must take before it is able to assist us in awakening to Truth is to acknowledge that it has lost its way.
There are no formulae for activating authentic intimacy within a relationship between two human beings in this world. There is no healthy archetype for lovers that support this aspect of our human experience as a means to awaken vibrational consciousness. All the Relationship archetypes fed into our consciousness are presented to us by religion, business, and politics. As such their agenda is sedation and control, not liberation. Everyone in some way or another seeks an intimate physical, mental, emotional, and vibrational relationship with another human being as this is a rite of passage into full awakening of human consciousness. However, because we seek this experience according to the parameters of our past collective programming, we find only failure, heartbreak, and continual frustrating disappointment.
The first step required to authentically enter an intimate relationship with another human being is to do so from the point of awareness that we have no idea how to accomplish this. It is therefore only from a point of "not-knowing" that we can succeed in manifesting such an encounter. Because authentic intimacy is nothing like the "falling in love" experience we are programmed to unconsciously reenact, we cannot possibly recognize it. We must not assume we can easily identify that which has been lost to humanity for over 2000 years.
All the relationship books that have been written giving us advice on this subject, from The Karma Sutra to our modern day publications, are basing their wisdom on a model that is inherently faulty. Because they do not honor The Pathway of Awareness within the mechanism of "loving relationships", every step we take into the experience using their guidance effectively only serves to kill the relationship; their approach to manifesting authentic intimacy therefore only succeeds in assisting us to metaphorically bandage a stiff cadaver.
We have all programmed ourselves to replicate the past. Therefore, if we seek authentic intimacy unconsciously we automatically do so by attempting to replicate "a program". Authentic intimacy is not "a program".
Authentic intimacy, like present moment awareness, has no formulae; it is a state of being that exists within every moment but is not confined by the parameters of any given moment.
Our experiences in all our past relationships keep telling us that what we are attempting to do does not work, yet we remain deaf to the voice of our personal experiences. For some reason we prefer to believe the programming installed within us by our religions, politicians, and businesses over and above what our personal experience tells us.
We consistently enter relationships based on the preconceived notions fed to us by the outer world. Predictably, we fail. With seemingly little hesitation we then repeat this same pattern of experience. This is delusional.
To enter any authentic experience it is necessary to embrace our personal experience as our teacher and not what the world tells us.
If we sincerely seek this extraordinary experience with another human being it is beneficial to become aware of how some cultural aspects, like religion, impact our approach to "love" so that we do not unconsciously navigate ourselves back into an experience of inevitable impotence. Most of us enter an intimate relationship with another human being based on the programming we received from conservative religious organizations. This may initially not be evident, but this is only because we do not yet comprehend the impact conservative religious philosophy has on intimate relationships in the "modern world". We do not even have to adopt a conservative religious belief system to be influenced by these belief systems; by reactively resisting or rejecting conservative religious views we are unconsciously giving them power over us anyway.
Defending ourselves from anything is a form of attacking it because we perceive it to be something real.
There is no need to attack or defend ourselves from conservative religious beliefs to perceive and acknowledge the impact such organizations have on our individual perceptions. By simply observing the archetypes they subtly ingrain within our psyches, and then the affects these energetic patterns have upon us, we can perceive what has transpired without having to entertain an emotional charge about it. The intent of such observation is not to wield blame, for we are not victims; it is to awaken ourselves from the widespread religious programming that permeates every aspect of our approach to intimacy.
Bringing awareness to the currents of such conditioning also assists us to perceive why reentering an experience of intimate relationship founded on these confining religious programs is futile. Once we have recognized some of the effects of religious archetypal conditioning within our own experience, within our behavior towards another, and within our "dreams and fantasies" surrounding relationships, we can begin releasing the stranglehold this dogma has on us. We can then open our consciousness to a possibility that there may be another way to relate to each other. Maybe our entire approach to relationships is deluded? Authentic intimacy may be an experience so foreign to our awareness that it may be unrecognizable even if shown to us. What if we have it backwards, inside out, and upside down? "Being mistaken" about what authentic intimacy is, is only an issue when we are unaware we are in error. Awareness is the antidote to such a predicament.
Our parents did not experience authentic intimacy with each other. They may have experienced fleeting moments of it before they submitted to and drowned in the programming of our culture. Our priests, nuns, monks, politicians, business leaders, celebrities, and cultural heroes do not portray authenticity in relationship. Therefore, there is no example for us to follow but the parameters of our own experience. In other words, no one can really tell us how to accomplish authentic intimacy, and if they attempt to, it is most likely they only do so to sedate and control us.
How dare anyone tell us how to love another human being!
The awareness that there is no specific "method" or "system" that can awaken love between two humans is a very important point of realization to arrive at. It is one that begins dawning on us in a very real way when we are ready to commit to an authentic intimate relationship with another human being. Once we consciously and willingly enter the experience of intimacy it then becomes crystal clear that we have leapt into "the unknown".
To experience authentic intimacy we have to enter a place we have never been. This predicament remains unchanged no matter how deep we merge into such an experience. An encounter with authentic intimacy is always new, completely unpredictable, and ever changing.
Religious organizations deliver a two-fold crippling blow to the possibility of experiencing authentic intimacy:
They shun or diminish the role of intimacy between human beings within the adventure towards achieving God-realization by portraying such an experience as a "sinful" hindrance to our spiritual development.
They then present us with dysfunctional archetypes to which we unconsciously bow as our inspiration for the roles we play within the experience we call "a love relationship".
As a way to illustrate this let us examine this play of influence briefly within the context of conservative Christianity:
The primary archetypal arrangement presented to us by the conservative Christian belief system is of a celibate Savior, Jesus, who is closely aligned with Mary, his Virgin Mother. Jesus the Savior, being male, represents the mental body, the teacher. Mother Mary, being "a mother and a nurturer", represents the physical body or the nature or matter. In this light, by presenting us with this archetypal arrangement, the church is subtly conveying the message that we are to be saved by our mental body (by our thinking and analysis), and that we are to receive support in this endeavor by turning to the physical body (matter). The emotional body, being Mary Magdalene, has not only been eliminated from this arrangement, but diminished completely in her absence by being called "a prostitute". This is why the emotional body does not feature in the world that is influenced by conservative Christianity. In fact, the opposite comes into play; it is seen as "the source of sin". Subsequently:
We are afraid of our own feelings and do whatever it takes to sedate and control them.
We run from the insights of the heart and instead lose ourselves in the outer mental and physical experiences of this world.
We cannot perceive the causal point of our discomforts and therefore are impotent when it comes to restoring harmony to the quality of our experiences.
The only archetypal father-figure within this arrangement is Joseph, Jesus’ father, a man who hovers in the background and appears to have no real impact. The other father archetype is God, who is beyond the grasp of any mortal unless they listen to and honor the dictates of the church.
These primary archetypes as presented by the church are not inappropriate; it is their portrayed relationship with each other that distorts the influence they have on believers and non-believers alike. Outer archetypes are meant to reflect our inner attributes and assist us in integrating the fullness of our being. When our inner attributes are in balance with each other we enter an experience of wholeness, which may also be called "holiness". However, when we bow to archetypes that are out of balance we too mirror such a state. Just by banishing Mary Magdalene, for example, from her place of Grace, we who are influenced by the conservative Christian rod in the west become stranded in a state of emotional impotence, ignorance, arrogance, and inauthenticity.
Let us briefly examine how the image of "a celibate Jesus" (the brother) paired up with The Virgin Mary (the mother) and an ineffectual Joseph (the father), coupled with the simultaneous elimination and degrading of Mary Magdalene (the sister), destructively impacts our intent to enter "a loving relationship" with another human being:
Because there is no prominent father-figure in this archetypal arrangement men raised within this Christian perspective do not have a clue how to be authentic fathers to their children, other than to be distant; to be everywhere but nowhere, like God. Or else they become like Joseph - a seemingly non-participative, ineffectual, father-figure - nobody of consequence, tinkering around in a workshop making and fixing stuff.
Men seeking a positive religious role model aspire to becoming "a Jesus-type Savior" as portrayed by the church. Or else if they reject this image they reactively become "a destructive devil". Neither the act of becoming the Jesus-archetype as portrayed by conservative Christianity or reacting to it by becoming "an antichrist" can lead a man into authenticity, emotional maturity, or intimacy. Being "nice" or "nasty" are both reactive behavioral patterns and all reactive behavior is inauthentic, immature, and prevents intimacy.
Because the emotional body is omitted from this archetypal arrangement, and when acknowledged, degradingly viewed as a prostitute, men shy away from anything "emotional" within themselves. The bigger and braver they portray themselves, the more terrified they are of their own hearts. They therefore do not grow up emotionally and in this respect remain boys despite their physical or mental stature. Because of this our world is run by boys for the gratification of boys.
To compensate for this emotional inadequacy these boy-men resort to false bravado, machismo behavior, sport-hero fantasy, and a desire to control and stamp out anything that has an emotional content to it. Such a deep fear has been instilled in men about the emotional body that those who succumb to this fear resort to belittling, battering, raping, and abusing it whenever they perceive its reflection in their world. This is why the most dangerous place for many women on this planet is to be alone at home with the man she is married to.
Because the Jesus archetype is depicted as sexually impotent, to the point of being completely castrated of any healthy sensuality, boy-men resort to outer objects to replace the energetic role of their penises. They accumulate big cars, big guns, big houses, big corporations, big cigars, and big reputations, even to the point of trying to conquer whole countries just to feel sexually adequate.
Even though all men are attracted to a Mary Magdalene, once they have entered a relationship with one, they automatically propose marriage and turn her into a Virgin Mother. Subsequently they lose all sexual attraction for their female companion. Who wants to sleep with their mother? Once this annihilation of the Magdalene occurs they immediately begin seeking another encounter with a Mary Magdalene outside their relationship.
Because men within this archetypal influence are unable to energetically leave a relationship with their birth mother (because they turn their wives into their mothers) they can never authentically commit to and enter the sensual depths of a relationship with a real Mary Magdalene. They are therefore deprived of the experience of authentic intimacy. When it comes to approaching the experience of authentic intimacy most men are still in kindergarten.
Because men have no archetypal example that shows them how to distance themselves in a healthy way from the mothering energy of their childhood they do not learn to nurture themselves. This translates into not being able to enjoy doing their own laundry, washing dishes, cleaning their home space, doing their ironing, or being able to cook and shop competently. They want "mommy" to do this for them. Nurturing behavior within most men exposed to these archetypes is only cultivated reactively as a means to create an impression or to attract a mate. It is not initiated out of self-love. Men within this orthodox influence usually behave as if "Jesus had a maid".
The Virgin Mother is not meant to be an archetype for women; it is an archetype that represents the earth, nature, the material plane, and its ability to nurture consciousness on its journey through matter into full vibrational awareness. No woman can become "The Mother" and therefore by having this archetype as a model for woman conservative Christianity leads all women astray; women within this archetypal influence mistakenly attempt to be Virgin Mothers instead of Mary Magdalene’s. Therefore all women within this influence "fail to become".
The authentic archetype for woman in this world is Mary Magdalene sitting with Jesus as his absolute equal, with her role, according to The Pathway of Awareness, being the causal point of all the energy flowing through their "love relationship". Because Mary Magdalene is omitted from this relationship and judged a prostitute, this is how woman are subsequently perceived, treated, and portrayed upon this planet. Women have no role in the conservative Christian world other than being Virgin Mothers or prostitutes. Most women behave accordingly.
All women naturally aspire to being a Mary Magdalene but end up allowing themselves to be transformed into a Virgin Mother. They then show their affection for the men they are attracted to by "mothering" them. This unconsciously supports a man’s inability to emotionally "leave home" or grow up. They then bitterly turn on these boy-men for "not growing up" and are met by a boy-man’s frustration at not being able to. This results in bickering and bitterness on one extreme, and wife/husband-battering in another. When a man kills his wife he is attempting to metaphorically murder the confining influence of his mother so that he can grow up and become a worthy companion for a Mary Magdalene. When a woman kills her husband she is trying to free herself of her son so that she can escape the impossibly confining perceptual imprisonment of being "the mother" and enter her destiny as a Mary Magdalene for a spiritually mature man.
Woman, perceiving they have no role in such a distorted world, other than being Virgin Mothers or prostitutes, react foolishly and desperately by seeking "equality with men". However, the men they seek to emulate are emotionally still boy-men who control and sedate their environments in order to prove they really do have functional penises. Therefore, in an attempt to find a place in the world, women mistakenly start behaving as if they too have dysfunctional penises and become boy-men in dresses.
Because the emotional body is not included within this conservative Christian archetypal arrangement it therefore cannot be known or recognized as the causal point of the energy flow from the vibrational into this world. Consequently, instead of being the source of all insight within their loving relationships with men, women allow themselves to be controlled, dictated to, and oppressed by them.
Most men and women in the "westernized world" obediently submit to the physical, mental, emotional, and vibrational circumstances deemed appropriate by these religious archetypes without even being aware of the perceptual prison in which they are unconsciously confined.
Under these circumstance, in which men are walking around waving their penises in the air in an attempt to "feel" something, and woman are behaving like Virgin Mothers to try and suppress all sense of feeling, there is little or no chance of entering an authentic, intimate relationship with another.
Even if we believe we are somehow above the impact of this archetypal conditioning, we are not. The whole "modern" (or free) world runs unconsciously on this archetypal blueprint:
Everything we are led to believe about "falling in love" bows to this blueprint; "falling in love" is an entry point into the matrix of this program.
Everything about dating as we know it is influenced by this blueprint; "the dating game" as we play it today is an orchestrated environment that lays the snare for the institution called "marriage".
Every popular film, television show, and bestseller novel about "falling in love" is working from this blueprint; these depictions serves to support the fairy tale - the famous false happy ending called "marriage".
The institution of marriage as we know and embrace it is an instrument of this blueprint; the moment we buy into the marriage program we can be physically, mentally, emotionally, and vibrationally steered to the point that we become fodder for the agendas of politics, religion, and commerce.
Authentic intimacy has nothing to do with marriage; marriage is designed to destroy the possibility of such an experience so that we unconsciously turn to the forces within politics, religion, and commerce to bring us the joy and ecstasy we are supposed to find in each other.
If we continue to enter relationships with these distorted archetypal images as our guide;
We either head for marriage, or we head for the monastery; we either end up living together in quiet desperation, or alone in quiet desperation.
We enter relationship after relationship trying to make something that is inherently broken work, or we give up and close our heart to such an endeavor.
We get married, trapped by this institution, and then distract ourselves with work, golf, children, and affairs, or we get divorced and try again.
We join a celibate spiritual path.
Authentic intimacy is always shut down by religion, business, and politics; their purpose is to fill the vacuum created by our inability to experience real love. Because of this vacuum we seek an illusionary experience called "enlightenment" instead of intimacy and subsequently find disappointment, disillusionment, depression, and desperation. The path into authentic intimacy cannot be trodden by what we know about relationships and by what we have been programmed to recreate. Unless we are prepared to brush aside everything we have been led to believe and instead lay all our trust in personal experience to be our teacher, we will not find our way into authentic intimacy.
God is love and love is God.
When we seek to enter an authentic loving relationship with another human being we are seeking an intimate experience with God in the physical. We are seeking love; we are seeking a love that can be grounded in the physical but that also empowers us to awaken to the vibrational. Religion kills love by replacing "the lover" with "a priest". Politics upholds religion and business upholds politics. Religion, politics, and business are the trinity of fear and ignorance on earth. Love cannot fruit in a garden planted with seeds of fear. To believe so is delusional.
Religion as we know it today is the snake that crawled into the Garden of Eden and brought imbalance to the divine relationship between one human and another. It rendered men impotent and women incompetent by preaching the knowledge of good and evil. Organized religion is "the serpent" hidden beneath a frock of holy appearances. Do not believe a word any organized religion preaches if you truly seek to taste love as delicious as a ripe and juicy apple.
The question is: Do we have the courage to kick the whole fake romance porno-show over and enter the quest to experience authentic intimacy? We already know where this familiar religious blueprint of "permitted romance" leads us; definitely not to love. Never to love. Therefore never to God. True seekers of a loving, intimate encounter will know this just as true seekers of God-realization do.
To attempt to make peace with our family when we are at war within ourselves is futile and inauthentic. To attempt to enter a consciously intimate relationship with another human being when we do not yet feel peace toward our own family is futile and inauthentic. To attempt to enter an intimate relationship with what God is for us when we have not yet made peace with ourselves, towards our family, or yet entered an authentic intimate relationship with another human being, is just plain arrogant. The road is clear to all who can see:
We are first to achieve intimacy within ourselves.
We are then to achieve peace toward our family.
We then enter a consciously intimate relationship with another human being.
Only then do we approach an intimate relationship with God.
Do not believe what you have been told about love or God if you really want to know.
Enter your own experience, let it lead the way and trust what it tells you.
God is in our experience and our experience is in God.
Michael Brown ©
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