In spite of what I said about ‘love in the moment’, nonetheless, the fact an adept is orientated to survival, while everyone surrounding her is disinterested in that subject, does make a difference. You can love a pet animal or bird, knowing full well their time is far less than your own. But somehow that is not the same when it comes to people. It is not that they will die before you, it’s that the orientation of their soul is temporary. We don’t expect anything more of a pet, although I did try my best with one special dog I had, and I think I may have succeeded, though I can’t be sure just yet.
I explained something quite real about love, in my first post responding to the questions. Where we accept the moment as sufficient. Except it doesn’t deny the equal reality of a vast chasm between one who has dedicated her life to the penetration of awareness beyond death, and others who have no interest in that whatsoever.
In order to become an adept, one has to build an unbroken, unbending, constant and ever-present struggle towards firstly unravelling the secrets, and secondly sustaining and deepening the knowledge revealed in those secrets. This is no easy road. In fact I can’t think of a more difficult road, because it is an internal struggle. Many have extremely difficult external struggles, but it is a very rare person who choses to take on a path of inner struggle. In the early stages of my path, I was bewildered as to why people couldn’t see such a path was the only quest worthy of life. As I grew older, I became accustomed, though never really understanding, to the choice of almost all humans to allow their spirit to slowly die.
I did understand the attraction to giving in, especially when I live in a world which doesn’t value the path of inner aspiration - this has not always been the case in the history of humanity. And yet, by the time I lost my romanticism of spirit, I simply couldn’t give up. Something within me would never allow me to just sit back and watch TV - time now is always precious, and insufficient. My yearning strangely grew in step with another side of me that felt more and more satisfied and accepting. I speak of this only to give some insight to the huge consequences of choosing a path of knowledge of the tree of life, so that you can see how difficult it is to engage in loving relationships with others who have very little interest in such a path.
To be honest, an adept rarely spends much time with those who have no inner awareness of spirit - it is in the nature of the double, about which I explained a little above, that we will always mix with beings of like spirit in some form or other. But who we associate with, tend to be those with an unconscious or naive level of spirit. They intuitively have this sense of being old souls, or seekers, yet never grasping the nettle with all hands and feet. Unfortunately being of a natural inclination, is insufficient.
The adept is faced with loving others with whom she is never able to share the most overwhelmingly powerful force within her being. This is unavoidably difficult. The path of an adept is almost always a hidden path. It is possible to join with others of like-mind, and many traditions have set up such communities throughout the ages. Although such communities do provide a lot of nourishment, nonetheless, it can never relieve an adept from being on a solitary path.
There is a fundamental reason for this. While it is essential to learn from others in the early stages of the path, ultimately it leads us to a profoundly singular experience with infinity. This is because in our core, we are one. There is only one point of awareness for all beings, and everything extending out from that point is awareness-of. Community is precious, yet ultimately an illusion. At the final threshold, we are always alone with that vastness. All the work is in preparation to withstand that moment of final realisation, and survive.
Love for another can never fulfil what it pretends to offer. I know many will fight against such a conclusion, and I have no interest in convincing anyone. You are all welcome to your own view about such personal matters - I wish you well. But I must speak my experience, and my experience is one of quintessential wilderness.
It doesn’t end there however, because an adept is a strange being, with resources beyond the average person. A adept has the capacity to build a vast aura, within which others can shelter. But that is another matter, for another day.
