Ask The Readers: What Is Romantic Love?

I had such a great time reading the responses to my 4 Questions For My Readers.  You guys are so wise and helpful!  So now I’d like to ask for your input again.   

In Creating The New World, Part 1 Love, I defined Love as “the awareness that we are valuable for our individual uniqueness and yet we are all part of the whole”.  It’s about unconditional acceptance and blessing of who a person is.  At the same time, it’s based on the awareness of our interconnectedness.  

In the same article, I also discussed the future of romantic relationship and marriage.  But I skipped the definition of romantic love. 

What is romantic love?

Because I’m so perplexed.  So many people seem to be crazy about getting into romantic love, and keeping their love “alive”, yet I’ve not seen a good definition of romantic love.  It seems people take it for granted what it means.  

I’ve been thinking about this ever since I wrote that article.  What is romantic love?  What is the difference between romantic love and Love, as I discussed in that article?  Is there a difference?  

How do I feel about love myself?  Well, I love pretty much everyone.  (Until, perhaps, someone attacks me.  Which seldom happens as I am spiritually protected.  And if I do get attacked, I’ll see if I can forgive.)  (Oh, but I admit I had a hard time loving George Bush.)  I’m emotionally, mentally, and spiritually poly- or pan-amorous.  Or, at least I’d like to be, and if there are still some kinks (as a physical being, we all have some twists and challenges, which make life more interesting), I’ll see if I can let them go.  

On the practical level, however, I have only certain amount of mental energy in each 24 hour day that tends to go to certain individuals.  In other words, I’m personally more interested in a handful of individuals than others.  So romantic love is love plus intense personal interest?  

At the same time, I feel physical attraction to only certain people.  To make things even more complicated, the person I’m personally interested in is not always the same I get turned on with.  So romantic love is love plus physical attraction?  Or, romantic love is love plus intense personal interest plus physical attraction?  

Is commitment necessary in romantic love?

 
I’ve heard people say something like, “I’ve decided to love him / her for life.”  That is wonderful, and I respect the sense of responsibility this person exhibits.  I assume this means the person is committed to their partner in the same way they are committed to their own lives.  

I, Akemi, is bound in my physical body and to my physical history.  Whether I like it or not, I’m committed to follow through until it’s time for me to go.  I — my body, my thoughts, my emotions and spiritual beliefs, along with all my external situations and conditions — change with time, but I will follow through.  This is what I mean by “committed to one’s own life”.  

If your commitment to your partner is this much, I really think it’s great.  One lifetime’s uncertainty is quite a bit to take, and you are willing to take another’s in addition to your own.  Honestly, I’ve never felt good to take this much of responsibilities. I want my lovers to be on their own and be happy with or without me.  For me, this is love.  

So I don’t think commitment is a necessary ingredients in romantic love.  I also don’t think shared time and experiences are necessary part of romantic love.  It’s a good part of relationship, but not romantic love.  Dante saw Beatrice only twice.  

What constitutes romantic love?

But this is just how I feel.  What is your idea of romantic love?  I identify at least three ingredients that seem to be necessary for romantic love: love, personal interest, physical attraction.  Are there anything else?  Are all the three necessary?  How are they related to one another?

I appreciate your opinion very much.  Please share in the comment below.  Thank you.  (Photo by Lutz-R. Frank)

Creating The New World, Part 4 Abundance

Many people say they want to change the world. But how? What is your vision of the New World? In this fourth installment of the Creating The New World series, we tackle with the sensitive discussion of Abundance in spiritual context.

Alignment with Divine Abundance

In my Akashic Record Reading practice, I see quite many people who are well aligned with Divine Love, Light, and Truth, but are widely misaligned with Divine Abundance and Power. They know they are spiritual beings that transcend physical bodies (alignment with Divine Light) and they live in Love and Truth, but they have hard time exercising their power and creating abundant life. They limit themselves in receiving boundless abundance.

On the other hand, there are some clients who are well aligned with Divine Abundance but poorly aligned with other energy flows. They have money but they are unhappy.

And the truth is we don’t need to be one or the other way. It is entirely possible to align with all five energy flows, to live fully in this physical world while nurturing our spirituality.

The key is to free ourselves from the false beliefs in scarcity and limitation.

Beliefs in scarcity and limitation

Do you see the world to be abundant? Do you see boundless abundance you can enjoy?

Until you acknowledge abundance wholeheartedly, there is no way to receive it. It’s like asking for a candy when you don’t think there is one. Most likely, you wouldn’t even bother with the asking.

So the first step in creating the New World based on Abundance is to see through the lies of scarcity. Yeah, it’s just a system of lies. Just because many people have believed in them don’t make them true.

Here are some of such lies based on the belief on scarcity and limitation:

False belief #1 “There are only limited amount of wealth / success, so I need to compete for it.”
This is by far the most destructive false belief there is. It has lead to general sense of distrust and hate in other human beings, occasionally resulting in wars and crimes.

This belief can also manifest in reverse, “There are only limited amount of wealth / success, and I hate to compete, so I volunteer to lose.” It’s just the flip side of the same scarcity belief.

But is it true? Is there really limitation of wealth / success and are we destined to be either a selfish (and often play-dirty) dog or a poor self-sacrificing saint?

When your perspective is superficial, yes, you’d see limitations including limitations of the physical resources such as oil or land. However we don’t need oil for oil’s sake, what we really need is energy source to heat our houses and move our vehicles. Energy sources in the universe is huge it’s practically unlimited. We just need to figure out how to use them, which will create new businesses.

Similarly, when you look at your company’s profit & loss statement, you may think there is only a certain amount of money that can be shared among employees. Within that context, yes, there is limitation. However, your company’s profit can increase. Ignoring this fact and believing there is always scarcity and limitation is a short-circuited way of thinking.

I also think a lot of scarcity is man-made, spurred by the fear of scarcity itself. For example, there are starving people in Africa. Well, actually, we don’t need to look that far … right next to the US, people in Mexico typically have far less than Americans. And there are homeless people in the US. Why is this so? Is this because there is innate scarcity in the world?

I doubt it. I also see tons of foods going to trash right from the storefront in the US (because the produce is getting old, etc). If we can figure out how to share foods worldwide, most, if not all, the problems would disappear. And with today’s technology, figuring out a good way of distribution wouldn’t be difficult. The only thing that is blocking us is the fear of scarcity.

Creative solutions, sharing, and cooperation will make everyone well off.

False belief #2 “Life is short, so I better specialize in one niche I can be good at if I am to succeed.”

The physical time we have in one lifetime is somewhat limited. Our resources to learn and develop new skills, however, are not. A piece of knowledge or skill can be utilized in multiple ways, contributing to multiple areas of specialization. By cross training, we get better at all the related areas.

For instance, as a former professional foreign language teacher, I can say people who learns foreign language quickly and well are those who has mastered their first language well. Say you are an American who want to learn Japanese. English and Japanese are two completely different languages. Yet, when you come to the first Japanese class, you already have huge amount of knowledge and skills you can utilize in your attempt to learn Japanese.

You already know a word represents a concept. And you know many concepts such as “red” or “to swim”. You also know there are certain systematic rules to construct a meaningful sentence. Whether you know grammatical terms or not is irrelevant. The point is you know there are rules and you know you need to learn these rules, not just individual words. And you know much much more.

Someone who has learned to express their thoughts and emotions appropriately in their first language is highly likely to master a second language. And they are motivated to learn foreign languages — they like expressing themselves in words, which made them good at their first language to begin with. So there is no point in limiting them to one language. Their internal resources multi-function. Resources are abundant.

Similarly, many musicians juggle multiple instruments. Visual artists do this, too, and I think combination skill sports like ironman race is a very healthy development. A good salesperson can sell pretty much anything after a brief learning period, and they are likely to make good motivational speakers as well.

Further, you can jump beyond the naturally related fields. Tim Ferriss pointed out the benefits of this approach. (HT: Hunter Nuttall) “The jack of all trades maximizes his number of peak experiences in life and learns to enjoy the pursuit of excellence.”

We are born with natural curiosity that leads to multiple interests. Willingness to dive into new areas of interests is based on abundance thinking, and in tern reinforces abundance and confidence. And you can be wonderful in many areas.

False belief #3 “There are only certain amount of love, so I better hurry up and grab a desirable person as my lover.”

This is something I’ve been thinking hard recently. Again, the number of desirable single individuals are limited, but that is just the superficial aspect. There is no scarcity of love. I suspect this false belief has been promoted by social authorities because if we connected with many people with love across the board, that could be a serious threat to those few people in power who want to control us with fear. So they have been brain washing us, teaching us to stay in our tiny homes of security.

I will write more on this issue of scarcity and limitation of love. It’s a huge issue by itself and covering it properly is outside the scope of this article.

The above three beliefs are just the biggies. There are many other false beliefs that are based on scarcity and limitation. Scarcity thoughts puts you on deferred life plan, making you believe you don’t have enough — yet. Scarcity thoughts keeps your house cluttered by preventing you from getting rid of old and unnecessary stuffs.

What other false beliefs do you buy into?

The Female Principle

When we were hunter / gatherers, we operated on the female principles. Mother Nature provided our sustenance, and we cooperated in our work and shared what we received. As the society grew to more labor intensive agrarian (then industrial) system, male principle of separatism and competition became dominant.

The New World will once again embrace the female principle, but in a new way. In other words, we need to integrate the male and female principles and come up with the new principle that is very different from the current male principle.

Does this mean we will recreate the original utopia? No. It will be an updated version of utopia. This time, we will retain our individuality. In fact, we will be very conscious of our sense of self. At the same time, we will be clearly conscious of our connection to the Whole and our interconnectedness. This is what I mean it will be the integration of male and female energies.

Likewise, we may still compete in the New World. But the competition will be fun, like a good sport, not about rat race or exploitation. It will be about enhancing one another, and we will create wonderful results that we can all benefit from.

As individual, we each have both male and female energies regardless of the physical gender we have. As Ascension progresses, I see in many of my clients’ Akashic Records that their energies are starting to balance between the male and female energies. On the individual level, we are getting prepared for the new way of living.

How to bring in the New World

I’ve thought about how far I want to go in the action plan for bringing in the New World based on Abundance. The list can be quite detailed and elaborate, but I already wrote several posts in the Spiritual Money category and I don’t like repeating myself. So if you are interested in bringing in more abundance in your personal life, please check those articles. You may also enjoy posts in the Law of Attraction category.

Here is a skinny of the more “big picture” approach to the New World:

1. Work on your own abundance awareness before going out to help the needy. Check if you are buying into the false beliefs of scarcity and limitation and let them go. If you go out to help the “needy” before doing this, you may actually be reinforcing the social illusion, effectively keeping the poor where they are.

2. Spend time in nature. Many people find this is an effective way to cultivate the abundance awareness. Nature is always so abundant.

3. For your personal abundance, think of flow rather than specific amount of money. Wishing for, say a billion dollars, is usually a sign of scarcity thoughts.

4. Think of the New World of love and peace, where there are no borders. Borders and other various rules are enforced to keep the illusion of scarcity. Think in terms of Love, Light, and Truth rather than in terms of existing, conventional rules and regulations. How can you cooperate and share so we can all live in abundance?

What do you think of my vision of the New World? Please share your thoughts in the comment. Thank you. (Photo by carf)

Honesty And Freedom

Honesty is one of the most admired qualities.  Most people say they want their life partners, children, friends, and if possible everyone to be honest.  Yet we also know it’s so damn hard to be honest.  

Why does honesty elude us like this?  How can we retain our honesty and integrity? 

Freedom as prereq of honesty

I don’t believe we are destined to be dishonest.  It’s far easier to be honest and say things as they are, rather than twisting the facts and then remembering how we twisted them so that our stories are consistent, often leading us to tell even more lies.  Dishonesty doesn’t feel good and undermines our sense of dignity.  

Yet we lie because most of us don’t realize we have the prerequisite of honesty: freedom.  Complete freedom to say what it is.  Freedom not to worry about the consequences of our honest expression.  

Say you find your employer is compromising the law.  Can you stand up and say honesty that you don’t agree with the practice?  You know you will lose your job if you do so.  Can you still be honest?  Remember Arthur Anderson?  Many otherwise good people compromised their honesty because they were afraid of their job security (and ended up losing their jobs anyway).

Or say you find your friend eating so unhealthy, she is overweight and risking health issues, can you simply express your concern, without any manipulation nor sugarcoating the facts?  Why not?  Because you are afraid of offending her feeling and losing her friendship?  Are you and your friend in friendship voluntarily or do you need her as friend?  

Freedom and autonomy

To feel free, most people need autonomy.  Financial, emotional, and mental autonomy.  

It’s extremely hard to be honest to your employer when your (and your family’s) livelihood is dependent on it.  I don’t object the system of employment at this time, but to usher in the New World based on Truth, it’s a good idea to cultivate our inner entrepreneur.  (Whew, this blog Yes to Me started as entrepreneurship blog, and although it may appear I meandered around into spirituality, I actually have consistency at the base!) Financial autonomy promotes honesty.  

Emotional autonomy means you own your feelings.  No one makes you happy or unhappy.  With or without friends, you are you.  Without this emotional autonomy, relationships of any kind become more about codependency rather than free association.  

Mental autonomy is the ability to think for yourself.  It involves questioning widely accepted social norms and opinions of “authorities”.  

To be completely clear, I’d like to note that autonomy is only a desired ground for freedom, not a necessity.  Because everyone is free on the spiritual level (more on this toward the end of this article) and no one is completely autonomous.  We are interdependent in this world and that is wonderful.  You can be honest while relying on a single source of income, while being emotionally supported by others, and while you are learning and building your own thoughts.  

Still autonomy is very helpful.  Without autonomy (in the conventional sense), we are like slaves.  For a slave to speak up honestly, it takes a degree of “dumbness”, to be ready to die or go on the street anytime as a consequence of his honesty.  And I put “  “ around dumbness because I think this kind of dumbness is good.  It may be based on spiritual belief that we are always supported by God regardless how things may look like.  

Teaching honesty to your children

Most parents want their children to be honest, yet they are unaware of the inherent dilemma they themselves need to resolve to let their children be honest.  Because children ARE dependent on parents.  Children don’t have autonomy, especially financial and emotional autonomy.  They are even dependent physically. 

So how can you let your child know they are free to express their thoughts and feelings honestly?  That they are loved no matter what?  And do you really mean it?  

As long as the parent’s mindset is like, “I want you to be honest, my child, but if you tell me you are the one who broke my favorite vase, I will be upset and won’t talk to you for the rest of the day.” (manipulation and lack of emotional autonomy), they are setting up their child to be dishonest, not honest.   And mandatory honesty is not true honesty.  

I know this is difficult.  Parents are humans, too, still in their development stage, with all kinds of shortcomings.  I just thought being aware of this dilemma may be helpful.  

Further, I think the key in this dilemma is to realize that your child is not your possession at all.  Your child came from the spiritual world to play the role of your child, just as you came to this world to play a certain role.  You are only serving them in their growth in this world.  (Some people call this, “Children are from God.”)  

Honesty to oneself before honesty to others

Honesty starts within.  Before we express ourselves honestly, we need to be aware of what we are thinking and feeling.  Really.  So often, we don’t examine our honest thoughts and feelings and prematurely adopt socially accepted ideas.  

For instance, many people have problem facing their desires, whether the desire is about luxury cars, sex, or the desire to quit the current cushy job to do something they really like to do.  If you resonate with this statement, you are actually better off than most.  People who have serious problem being honest to themselves are in denial.  They may get upset at people who honestly admits such desires and actively accuse them.  

Monogamy and honesty

It would be dishonest by omission if I skip the issue of fidelity in this article about honesty.  So here is my personal opinion. 

I quit subscribing to the idea of monogamy recently because I see inherent issue of honesty in it.  In monogamous relationship, each partner expects the other to be faithful.  This set expectation — lack of freedom — is ground for dishonesty.  If I meet another attractive man while in monogamous relationship, my choices are:

1. I lie to myself and decide I felt nothing to keep my self image of a “good” faithful person. 
2. I be honest with myself but choose to take no action, to stay faithful to my partner.
3.  I be honest with myself but lie to my partner to keep his dream of fidelity, leading myself to cheat. 
4. I be honest with myself and to my partner, leading to potential breakup.  

I may have no problem choosing #2, but I’m not sure if expecting my partner to always choose #2 is a healthy reasonable expectation. 
And I value honesty more than security and steadiness of relationship.  I’d rather have an honest lover than dishonest / confused one who makes love only to me.    

If I feel insecure when I hear him talk about other women (or men, for that matter), that is my issue, not his, not ours.  I own my feelings.  Same with differences in values and opinions.  He may have different opinions than mine, and that is fine with me.  I know that doesn’t undermine the worth of my opinion.  

I don’t want to lock up someone — anyone.  I don’t think I can justify doing so in the name of love.  And I don’t like to be locked up, either.

Does this mean I’m against monogamous relationship?  No.  If two individuals are happy together, that is wonderful — let’s celebrate!  It’s when such condition is enforced, either by manipulation or by social brain washing, that I have a  with.  (A common way of social brain washing is the promotion of soulmate.) 

Can you let your partner be who he or she is?  Can you let them express themselves freely?  Can you honestly say what is on your mind?    

You are free

In conclusion, I’d like you to realize you are already free.  Whether you have achieved financial, emotional, and mental autonomy or not, and whether you feel free or not, you are free.  It is yet another layer of illusion to believe you are not.  

Free will is the primary right and responsibility in this universe.  You can even choose not to feel free, to believe you are enslaved, and you are still accepted as you are.  Free will is such an essential part of life that God even allows us to go against the Light, to become darkworkers.   

I hope this deep sense of acceptance and freedom helps you build your life based on honesty and truth.  (Photo by victor nuno)

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