Integration in a Mate Relationship
A mate relationship is a superlative setting for integrating your Four Freedoms. A relationship is the ideal arena for learning to become whole. Lovers do not complete each other but rather comprise one whole relationship. Not only is committed relationship a testing ground for confronting issues of personal and spiritual growth, it also provides a secure haven in which to do so. In its cocoon, you can cultivate pleasure and explore desire.
One of the most powerful choices you can make on your path to total freedom is to select your relationship as the most important thing in your life. When you make this choice, your relationship becomes a spiritual practice. Three essential qualities of a relationship as spiritual practice are commitment, fidelity, and time. In a relationship covenant, commitment affirms your intention to grow old together. Monogamy provides the security you need to risk being emotionally vulnerable and transparent, so you can open the door to a shared sexual/spiritual ecstasy. Spending lovers' time together feeds the relationship through such simple activities as daily gazing into each other's eyes, sending love back and forth, and taking a weekly block of hours to be lovers.
As you engage in the intimacies of a relationship, as you learn the knowledge and skills to become fit for a relationship, you will naturally call upon, activate, and reinforce your Four Freedoms. No matter how irrelevant or frightening a particular freedom can seem, it is essential to embrace each of them, because they all interact subtly in an infinite number of ways. Synchronizing, integrating, and bringing the Four Freedoms (Body, Mind, Heart, and Soul) into harmony are some of the most important tasks you can possibly undertake. Your health, well-being, and happiness depend upon harmonization. The Four Freedoms are optional, not mandatory. It is your responsibility to reclaim and embrace your Freedoms.
Embrace all your Four Freedoms
Reclaiming your Four Freedoms is not particularly difficult. You do not have to search for where to find them, for they reside within you. You do not have to earn them, because they are your birthright. You do not have to deserve them, because they wait to be claimed in the lost-and-found room where you have forgotten that you left them.
The essence of Body Freedom is direct sensory experience of what you see, hear, taste, smell, and touch in the now moment. To reclaim Body Freedom, adopt a pleasure orientation. Touch, make love, learn the art of sacred sex, and set aside shame associated with your body, sex, and experiencing pleasure. Love yourself, love your mate, love life.
The essence of Mind Freedom is consciousness. The responsibility of Mind Freedom is to exercise two kinds of choices. The first is what you think about, your attention. The second is how you think, your intention. You can choose to pay attention to what you want, rather than what you don't want. The subject of your attention becomes a choice-you are saying that you want more of it. You can think about what you want in a consistently positive way. Then you must take action to support your thoughts.
The essence of Heart Freedom is emotion, the capacity to feel. The supreme emotion is love, which by its very nature implies a relationship, the lover and the beloved. The responsibility of Heart Freedom is to allow yourself to feel everything, both positive and negative, and, in addition, to act in spite of emotional discomfort. Your challenge is to repeatedly open your heart every time it closes.
The essence of Soul Freedom is faith. In spiritual matters, faith is what you believe even in spite of evidence to the contrary. With faith you know that however bad the current situation is, something better is just around the corner. The responsibility of Soul Freedom includes the necessity to take action in faith, regardless of how hopeless the situation might appear.
Excerpted from our new book Sensual Love Secrets for Couples: The Four Freedoms of Body, Mind, Heart and Soul, by Al Link and Pala Copeland, Llewellyn, 2007.
Al Link and Pala Copeland own and operate 4 Freedoms Relationship Tantra. They regularly host Tantra Sacred Loving weekends near Ottawa Canada, and weeklong retreats in exotic locations around the planet. For more information call toll free from Canada or USA: 1-800-684-5308 International long distance: 1-819-689-5308. Visit Page http://4freedomstantra.ning.com/profile/AlLink or Send email: 4freedoms@tantraloving.com. Their book, Soul Sex: Tantra for Two, is published by New Page Books, 2003.
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