Date: Fri, 10 May 1996 06:02:22 +0100

To: transpsych-l@asylum.org

From: Thomas.Jordan@geography.gu.se (Thomas.Jordan)

Subject: Love and communication, once more

As an afterthought to the "love and communication" exchange (by Larry, Wendlyn, SageDream, Amba, me, Robert, Terry):

I didn't think I had something worthwile to add, but I find that I can't let go of it. I still think there is a significant difference between unconditional attention and free flow of love, or "soul merging".

In the last few years I have become increasingly aware of a source of unconditional love in myself. This centre of love is independent of the ego, and I feel it as an energy source in my breast, radiating undiscriminatingly in all directions. Gradually I have acquired a certain ability to "switch on" this love in relation to other people, in all kinds of contexts. I experience this as a kind of field, with a specific feeling quality ("love") that reaches out to connect with other people. In some circumstances a true meeting may result, a genuine shared experience.

However, there have been some occasions (in relation to women I know) when the other has reacted negatively to this "reaching-out in love". The reason has been that the other has been occupied with frustration or anger, towards a third person, or towards me, and has had a need to process these negative feelings before entering some kind of boundary dissolution in love. When one is full of frustration one wants to be able to express this frustration, and that requires a certain emphasis on distance and emotional freedom.My partner wanted a space to express this anger, a response to her anger, and perhaps then closeness and love. Trying to connect in love in such a situation may be experienced as an effort to manipulate feelings in a disrespectful way. Perhaps this example can make clear why I want to differentiate between unconditional attention and soul merger. Unconditional attention, as I understand it, is about making oneself available to another person: listening, receiving, affirming whatever needs to be expressed, while staying centered in a feeling of unconditional acceptance of the other's essential nature. Soul merging, or free flow of love, is another kind of experience, where two (or more) people let their boundaries dissolve, and share the same feeling of love. This is a true meeting, two (or more) people co-creating a shared feeling experience. It requires a mutual attunement in a very, very direct and intimate way. Healing hurts, Robert's central concern, usually needs the former, unconditional attention, first. The hurt part needs attention and compassion. A complete soul merger is not easy if one is not free in relation to one's own hurts, too much energy is bound up in the defence mechanisms. That is at least my experience.

Terry made an interesting comment about transmission, where an experience of non-dual awareness is communicated from one person to another. But is it not only a glimpse, a kind of foretaste of what will come? Are there enduring consequences? Can one really fundamentally influence another person's form of consciousness through occasional events of interpersonal communication? The TM people maintain (and supply quantitative studies as evidence) that if a group of experienced meditators gather, a field is created which affects the states of consciousness of people in the wider neighbourhood (measured e.g. through a reduction of crime rates in the area). To me these methods of raising other people's levels of consiousness seem a little too simple to be effective, but I certainly hope I will have to change my mind.

Thomas