The Collapse of the Sense of Separation Between You and Others

Where you say love is the recognition of our shared being. That's correct right? Okay so so if that is so then that means in that recognition we love everyone and everything if we remain in that recognition. Yes it doesn't necessarily mean we like everybody. Right I understand. You don't have to like everyone. I understand that difference. I do yes. Okay my question is where so if we assume that we are in that recognition we manage to more or less remain in it and are in that well state if it is of loving everyone and everything. How does falling in love with someone come into that equation? I mean what's what is it that makes us fall in love with someone and not with someone else? What is that difference I guess? When you've been in love with someone and you you feel you taste the quality of the love that you share and then you take another friendship where you're not in love with the person but you love them deeply and you compare these two different compare the love not the expressions the two different expressions but the actual love itself. Is there a difference? I don't think that there is a difference no and and I don't think that that's so much my question if it's a different quality. The question really is more what mechanism is behind it that actually makes that happen? That makes the the falling in love? Yes as opposed to just recognizing your shared being with anybody and experiencing that as love if you will. What is what is going on that that happens? I mean I don't know if you have an answer to that in that way or if I'm phrasing my question properly. Falling in love is usually associated with some kind of physical attraction physical sexual attraction but that's really that's not really about falling in love that's just one particular expression that's one particular way that being in love with someone can be shared and celebrated and expressed but it's quite possible to fall in love with someone and not feel any physical attraction to them. It's quite possible to fall in love with a stranger I'm sure you've experienced that where you just you fall in love with a stranger no physical attraction at all you don't want anything from them apart from this this passing moment you know you're never going to see them again but there's something about your connection where you just feel in love with that being for for that moment. So falling in love I would separate it in in your mind from them the physical or sexual intimacy that very often accompanies it that's just one possible outcome one possible expression and in them you see I mean all friendship is really falling in love isn't that what friendship is when you when you feel friendship with someone you you love that person to a greater or lesser extent it may not have them that the full intensity of love that you feel with someone that you're very intimate with and you feel completely in love with but nevertheless all friendships to a greater or lesser degree even the friendship with a stranger someone you just pay at the checkout there is a moment of friendship it is a degree of love it is the same love it is you haven't completely fallen into love together you haven't completely merged there is still some sense of separation but even the the smile at the checkout person or the cab driver or the homeless person that we give $5 to in that moment there is there is just there is a momentary collapse of the sense of separation or at least a diminishing of the sense of separation and you feel you come close okay you maybe you don't come all the way close that the complete falling in love where we feel utterly united with the other but nevertheless there is a collapse of the sense of separation and what we call falling in love is usually that the full collapse the full merging together but actually all friendship is is on that same spectrum all friendship is to a greater or lesser degree the collapse of the sense of separation everything whatever it is that separates us and the more that sense of separation dissolves the closer we feel we come until when there is a complete collapse of everything that separates us we say we are in love we have merged we feel we are one we feel with the same being but actually that feeling of being the same is also the content of our more ordinary friendships although it is not quite so fully felt it is shaded still veiled still by a degree of separation you see even when you smile at someone it when you smile at someone it's almost impossible to feel separate from someone you smile at so what what is a smile it's the way the body expresses a momentary collapse of the sense of separation in other words it's a little moment of love making it is it's not it's not the the full experience but nevertheless it is an expression at a physical level of the recognition of friendship but that is the recognition of our shared being and the minute we feel it that the minute we feel this shared being the body relaxes one of the ways that relaxation is expressed is is through smiling or through a hug or even shaking hands very difficult even to shake hands with someone unless you're Donald Trump that you really dislike remember all those images in the beginning of the presidency with his awkward but but actually even when you you shake hands you I felt it this afternoon with my I was playing tennis and it was the last session we had so I I just shook his hand and thanked him and wished him the best he's moving on to it and and it was such a sweet meeting when we shook hands it was like a little merging a little in it so much was said in in our handshake I didn't know him well enough to give him a big hug it was just a formal English handshake but so much sweetness was was conveyed in it it was like a little love making a little expression of our the recognition that underneath all our thoughts and our feelings and our activities in that moment it was a recognition of our shared being and we both felt it so what we conventionally call it falling in love it is when when when there is this full dissolution of thoughts and feelings and the body when whether there's a complete collapse of the sense of separation it's not a partial collapse it's a full collapse collapse and the impulse therefore with these two people is to come together physically because that that is a way of expressing this this absence of the sense of separation it's just a natural it's the same natural it's the same impulse when we hug someone it's just a way of expressing the the absence of distance it's a way it's a little mini it's our two bodies just merging briefly to express this this feeling we are one we share our being I guess I mean that makes complete sense what you're saying and thank you for that I guess the the part I'm still trying to we'll get an answer on is probably not the right way to say it but it's I mean if it's since we all share the same being with everybody essentially and yet at the same time some people come along and it's it seems completely out of your control I mean there are no more the same being as you in that moment than anybody else but yet there's such a different uncontrollable dynamic yes why is that according to this teaching anyway when we feel this quality of with a cab driver or a tennis coach although we feel shared being there's just a very small part of our life our external life our thoughts activities we only share a very small part of our objective experience we chat with the cab driver on the way to SFO for 15 minutes about his family or so only that although this shared be is still felt it impacts only a small part of us and we've don't sense that it has the potential to impact anymore it's just a casual meeting but there are some people that we meet and we have this intuition that if we were to come together and express this shared being that every part of our body and mind would be touched by the relationship that no part of us would remain unseen or closed so that kind of relationship has a much greater power to to to permeate every aspect of our lives so there is a the shared being is expressed intellectually emotionally physically in every way that there this the sense of our shared being touches every aspect of our lives and that there is a kind of dance that goes on intellectually emotionally and physically in which that one's entire body mind is opened up to the love that is shared that you can't do with everybody you can't do with your taxi driver or the tennis coach you can have a so the but there are some relationships that have this this this potential the love is the same but the impact that that love has on the configuration of our body mind in some rare relationships is is very powerful and usually there is a and please don't ask me to explain this because I can't that there is somehow a recognition and that was exactly the explanation we recognize the potential exactly and what that is is is something very mysterious because we might also meet someone with whom we share a great deal intellectually and emotionally and physically and and yet you still don't feel this potential and another person who doesn't tick all the boxes in fact some of the boxes may even conflict a little bit and yet somehow you you sense at a pre rational level that if you go into this relationship every part of your body mind will be exposed in this love yes exactly that's exactly what I mean yes so maybe it has to do with how you just said the configuration of the body mind and the configuration of the other body mind and some mysterious process between the two yes it's um it's a it's a deep intuition okay because at the moment very often at the moment of falling in love you don't know much about the exactly that's where my question comes and of course we're not talking about infatuation we can see another body with that we think is it attractive physically that that's another thing altogether this is something quite different where you can meet someone and even before you've spoken to them you may and very often it it is not at first accompanied by physical attraction sometimes it is but but very often you don't think oh that person is gorgeous he or she is beautiful no that's not the first that may come later but very often it's a it's a deeper attraction that's not just physical attraction that may or may not be included to begin with it's it's another kind of attract it's a sort of recognition and it's obviously very powerful it's like an inner recognition that your entire body mind wakes up in in the presence of this possibility thank you I just wanted to go back to the previous conversation it occurred to me this this recognition that we were talking about this recognition of being in love or falling in love when we do fall in now very often we end up getting together with that person and spending time with them maybe the rest of our lives or a long period of time and during this time what we felt what we intuited was possible when we first saw the person we then live out the exploration at all levels of our experience and that inevitably we meet places that are difficult and then conflicts inevitably develop and the tendency is then of course to move away from the relationship but then if we go through those conflict the relationship gets deeper and deeper and deeper but as I'm sure all of us if not all of us know it's quite possible to be in such a relationship deeply loving deeply committed relationship and to meet somebody else with whom you feel this potential in other words to meet someone that you fall in love with because you because you you may not know hardly anything about them but you feel this same possibility that that if you were to become closer this your entire body mind would again be touched by this love and that can that can be a crisis in a relationship and it's again it's not something that is it's often considered to be something that is wrong in a relationship or a failure in a relationship or an expression that you're not you don't really love each other it's not it's it's perfectly natural to see someone else or to get begin to make a friendship with someone and to begin to sense this possibility it's not it's not a lack of loyalty it's not a lack of integrity it's not a mistake and it's not a mistake it's not a failure but it has implications for our relationship of course so if we are in a relationship that we are deeply committed to even though there may be conflicts and there are conflicts in all relationships we may have to make a conscious choice I'm gonna turn away from this person because it's too powerful it's to the potential there is too strong that I don't want to I can't I can't play with with both and sometimes you just have to make a rational decision I'm not going to go there whereas to somebody else you could love them very much it could be a completely a very deeply loving and platonic relationship that was not in any way threatening to our intimate relationship