Unexpected Freedom

Unexpected Freedomseparateness, with its agonies of loneliness and dividedness.And, not surprisingly, around this time we have our firstexperience of falling in love. Something happens, we don’tquite know what it is, but we become incredibly interested insomebody else – and it’s not mum or dad! It’s magical, it’sfrightening, and there’s an excitement and enthusiasm thatpromises to free us from all our unhappiness.So we have fallen in love, but we still carry the wound ofseparateness that occurred in childhood. That wound meansthat there’s no longer the opportunity simply to be one withlife. Now we find that there’s ‘me’ and ‘you’ as well as the‘world’. When we fall in love there is the first majordisturbance of our separate identity, and the first hint of thetask ahead of us: as if out of instinct we passionately desire toreturn to at-one-ment. ‘How do I return to that beautifulstate I used to be in, where there wasn’t a care in the world? Ifeel obstructed, I feel cut off, I feel only half alive…’In presenting this particular perspective on falling inlove, I am not saying that this is all there is to it. This is onepathway of contemplation into an important and complexarea of our lives. Falling in love can appear extremelyattractive to a person at one time yet terrifying at another.What is called for is a way in which we can ask the mostchallenging questions of our hearts while feeling free andable to listen to the response.Initially it might appear that by following our passionatedesires we will get what we want; and what we want after allis to be happy. We think that by following our desire to behappy we will become happy. We believe that there is such athing as true happiness and that falling in love is a way to getit. Most of these beliefs and thoughts are totally unconsciousat the time.The difficulty which we encounter during these initial56