I had two friends of mine meet each other for the first time. One was supposed to give a bag of my stuff to the other to take with her, on her way to visit me. This simple act of arranging to get a bag turned out to be a huge challenge for both! Oddly enough, they described each other in the same terms to me, although personally I thought no two people could be more different.
“She only wants things to be done her way!” “This friend of yours, she wants the whole world to revolve around her!” “I’m glad I don’t have to meet her again!” “I’m happy I don’t have to see her any more!” “She could only come when it’s convenient for her!” “I could only come when it’s convenient for her!”
The feedback was so identical in its essence, I thought it was hilarious, but since neither of them realized it, I was the one left with the spiritual lesson of the encounter. I am sure there were many times in my own life when someone else saw the lesson instead of me.
These women are very different on the surface level. One is a quiet type, another is social and gregarious. One is feminine and is the type that prefers men to do things for her, the other is not even interested in men. One is more conventional, the other a real anarchist at soul. But the chance meeting of both uncovered things about themselves that they absolutely did not want to see!
Most of us have had a similar experience, when a person we have to interact with, someone we would not intentionally choose to be a part of our circle, seems to trigger all of our buttons, and we just go away happy that we will never have to see them again.
But what I was drawn to consider is the bigger picture of what these encounters tell us about ourselves.
One of the most important steps in life, one of the most important steps of the journey of awakening is to come to such an agreement with ourselves that nothing is hidden, nothing is in the dark, that we are not hiding from ourselves in any way. And I believe establishing this brutal self-honesty and transparency is the greatest, and the hardest, work we can do on our path towards Union, enlightenment, self-realization — whatever you call the process of realizing that all is One.
Internal division takes up a lot of energy and focus. When we are not turning from ourselves, we find energy, clarity and vision to support us on our mission. But for most of us, most of the time, the energy goes into hiding from ourselves. Into blaming the Other — or maybe worshipping the Other! It is very difficult for the conscious mind to grasp that there is no Other.
That’s when the “enemies” and “adversaries” and simply annoying people come in. Their sole purpose is to wake us up, to shake us up to a more conscious awareness of our own dark spots. It’s not a matter of judgement or the Universe beating us with a stick on the head for doing something wrong. It’s our own “dark matter” waiting to be released, brought into conscious awareness, felt and let go through this integration.
Sometimes people come with this romantic notion of twin flames or soulmates, as a perfect match, as someone who could never hurt them, who will complete them, who will be everything they ever wanted from life and love. And they are shocked to see that it doesn’t work out this way. But I think a lot of resistance and “running” comes exactly from unwillingness to see ourselves. Many twin flames, at some stage of their journey (usually at many stages!) react to each other in exactly the same way my two friends did.
I know for certain that I did. For many years, my twin was an embodiment of everything that was wrong and everything that one shouldn’t do in life. But oddly enough, until that perspective shifted, until I stopped seeing the Other as separate from myself, until I was willing to face every dark corner of my soul, we were stuck — and I was stuck, feeling separate from God, from my Twin, and from my own Soul.
In my experience, this process of integration goes in spirals. It’s not a one-time-fix-all moment of awareness. It is very difficult for most of us to grasp everything at once, and remain in that awareness. But the purpose of each encounter with the Other is ultimately to crack us open, so that more light can enter. And rather than run away from it, rather than put up a protective barrier, the call of our Soul is to surrender even more, to open deeper, to love more fully. And ultimately, this is what Union is. Not a romantic idyll, but lack of separation, lived out in daily life…
