Advanced Awareness in Personal Development #30 Work life balance bring home the love by Chris Walker

INSPIRED WALK

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By Chris Walker - Advanced Awareness Course #30 WORK LIFE BALANCE BRING HOME THE LOVE If you can love one person you can love a thousand. We live in a sea an ocean of thought ambition, technology and passion. And within the turbulence we call life we are all hoping for a relationship that lasts forever, we know this relationship we feel it in our bones it is part of us. Love is at the heart of our very being. Sometimes we are confronted at every level, but we canâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t give up, we must never give up the idea that we can have a sacred relationship and share love in a way that it was meant to be. The challenge of this circumstance can seem like a selfish ambition until we realise that the desire for love in our relationships and our personal commitment to a better world are one and the same thing. The experience we create in our homes affects the world far, far, far, beyond the boundaries of our own reality.

Chris Walker - Innerwealth - Coaching, Adventures, Retreats, Education, Consulting

Chapter 1

Introduction

Two things are important to most of us - family and our ability to pay the bills. On that platform it seems we are able to launch ourselves into the depths of the volcano and still remain balanced, centred and calm... Letâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s see how to preserve that foundation.

Section 1

Introduction MAIN POINTS

If you can love one person you can love a thousand. We live in a sea an ocean of

1. Love one Love All

thought ambition, technology and passion. And within the turbulence we call life

2. We need a change in perception

we are all hoping for a relationship that lasts forever, we know this relationship we feel it in our bones it is part of us. Love is at the heart of our very being.

3. Nature’s law is woven into the fabric of everything

Sometimes we are confronted at every level, but we can’t give up, we must never

4. Love can exist everywhere

that it was meant to be. The challenge of this circumstance can seem like a selfish

give up the idea that we can have a sacred relationship and share love in a way ambition until we realise that the desire for love in our relationships and our personal commitment to a better world are one and the same thing. The experience we create in our homes affects the world far, far, far, beyond the boundaries of our own reality. It is time to change our perception of relationships. It is time for us to recognise the importance and the impact of our relationships on the world around us. Just having more love in our everyday life can have a greater impact than we considered possible. Our relationships have an effect on the environment that we create around us and so the world. What we do day to day in our relationships is far more important than we can appreciate at first glance. On a global healing scale, we may feel powerless to act, but our actions in everyday life reveal us and have an affect on the world whether we intend it or not. Violence causes violence, anger causes anger, love creates 2

harmony. Therefore harmony in our relationships is far more

The laws of nature are the key to great relationships. To fall in love

important than just how we feel. It aﬀects our children, our work

is easy but to stay in love we need to understand these laws of

and our extended family, the world, more than we can know.

nature. They help us grow through emotional challenge, rise

Harmony in love, sacred relationship, is an activity not just a feeling. Harmony at home means that we need to accept the diversities between ourselves and one other human being, and if we can love through this challenge, we can love many. Love one, love thousands. It begins at home. We need to rise above the separatism and righteousness to live in harmony with nature. There are just five simple laws of nature that can help us bring the love we seek and so wish to give our beloved, into action. Those laws do not conflict with religion but sit above it, an umbrella, an insight to what life can be like before the religions divide life into competitions for diﬀerent Gods and Goddess.

above uncertainty, return to the state of in-love anytime we choose. Those laws of nature are actually natural. We know them already, however, they can be in direct contradiction to most of the emotion we have and therefore we can find ourselves rejecting what is natural. This is the source of disharmony, living in conflict with what is natural. There are many people who, in their righteous stand, argue that they are right. The environmental lobby, the anti globalisation lobby, the save the whale lobby, the chop the rainforest lobby. These groups fight for right, they have no trust in nature, or the powers higher than themselves. Their small views of life separate them into war and enemy. They are stuck in their own specialised perspective and their relationships at home would reveal the

Nature’s law is woven into the fabric of everything. At a personal

same broken link. Disharmony in the human heart is an infection

level we have choice, and at this level religious leadership can be

that pervades a whole life, not just an attitude to the environment.

healthy. However, at a grander level, we have no choice but to be

(as an example)

obedient to the laws that existed before humans translated them, defined them and divided them into diﬀerent faiths. Nothing, even if we try, can defy those laws. They are the truth behind the truth, they are what exists before religion.

Love can exist everywhere, however, it requires more than love to stay in a relationship. It requires capacities and skill to deal with life. It certainly requires the capacity to find the right occupation and to be happy at work. These five laws of nature are an oﬀer to help you know what is already within you. They are a way of

helping you act with consciousness, love and an open heart in all your life, not just at home. If you can find true harmony with one person, you can find harmony with a thousand. Then you can really honour diversity and in doing so, move forward in love and life without so much violent righteousness. Let nature be your guide recognise that love and harmony is a life style.

Chapter 2

Back to Nature For many people the experience of falling in love is limited to that once in a while whooppie feeling we get with a lover or partner - According to natureâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s law, we can fall in love over and over and over again.. which is sort of how it feels right ....

Section 1

Back to Nature – Stillness - The art of Falling in Love MAIN POINTS

Life in the city has been strangely cut oﬀ from nature, so we have to learn, actually

1. Stillness is the art of falling in love

relearn the practice of mastery of perfect stillness. Stillness is an essential art and

2. Connection with nature is vital

a great asset for any great relationship because it leads to spontaneous acts of falling in love over and over and over again. The key, in perfect stillness is to learn

3. Get out of our head to fall in love

how to do nothing, to sit under a beautiful tree, to watch the movement of water,

4. We are all connected

to listen to rain on an old tin roof. It is like lying on your back dreaming, but you do it together, and in those moments with the phone turned oﬀ and nothing to do, you and your lover can fall in love any time you choose. The key is to be doing nothing. Be still, Perfect Stillness is about the art of falling in love over and over, and over and over again. It means that the first time you fall in love with somebody is not the best time, it is just the first time. Perfect stillness is also about falling in love with life. Being alone, with friends, at work with an open heart. In our lives we experience that connection with nature, that perfect moment of truth, it’s called falling in love. Falling, because it bypasses the ego, now this involves your mind, and your emotions they are completely out of the way and this is an art we have lost. In the moment of egoless ness, there is no time, so you are not worrying about the time, there is no space so you are not worrying about who you are and where you are and where you are going and where you came from. So all your worries and particularly all your expectations are gone.

Now think about this, all your expectations what does it mean?

fancies, no Champaign to dull the mind, just emptiness, simply

You are not expecting yourself to fall in love, you are not

being together.

expecting yourself not to fall in love, you are not expecting to be sexy, you are not expecting to have great experiences, you are just lying there surrendering. So you have to create an environment, and this what a lot of people don’t have in their lives, an environment where they can relax and bond in stillness. The kids come in, the phone will ring, they don’t know how to turn off or they don’t have the opportunity to turn off. In Perfect Stillness, you are for that one perfect moment in stillness, completely stress free, and disarmed, totally in love. Now you may not think you are in love but this is what we are going to learn. Reconnecting with nature, and the Perfect Stillness it creates, is also a physical experience. What do you see when you see someone who has found stillness or fallen in love? Their ageing drops away, their posture changes, their whole mechanism operates differently, it is a totally beautiful moment, the stillness of love. So this is the foundation on which I am suggesting we can base a relationship, the sacred experience of being in nature,

That’s why we call falling in love sacred. In this moment the ego just looses control and without warning we fall past the defences and become in love. Actually we can fall in love anytime we like because that love in our heart is always there. It is hidden behind our mind, our beliefs and our expectations and our worries and our fears all those things that construct the ego sit in front of our love, so for most of us falling in love happens when we least expect it. When we are relax when there is no tension, agitation, or ambition or struggle. Now in this sacred moment we are fully present in love there is no time, no space, no fear, no judgment. We are spontaneously thrown back into ourselves, and this is the great sign that we are lost, disorientated, we can’t remember our own name, we don’t even remember where we are, time and space vanish, and out of the thin air we fall in love. It is the most amazing experience in life, in fact many yogis and meditators go trying finding the space, but you can find it every, every day by falling in love.

when everything disappears stillness comes over you and you are

When we fall in love, our friends laugh at us, they see us, they see

just there, in love. It doesn’t mean making love although we do

us, we are gone, when we fall in love, we are illogical, we are not

find perfect stillness at some stages during the time of making

even rational, And here we are enlightened, just for a few

love, but this is actually the act of sitting down, lying down, under

seconds, hours or days, we are enlightened and it does not take a

a tree, in the lounge, everything oﬀ, no fire burning, no frills and

partner to cause this to happen. When you fall in love the whole mechanisms of the ego is gone. You have touched your being 7

and your centre and you feel you are at the source of truth. That

can be the bravest hero the greatest tycoon, the greatest athlete

means you don’t care about global warming, you don’t care

even a rock idol or a movie star, but love does not care who you

whether the children got home from school, you don’t care about

are, or what you do it cuts through you it reveals you and brings

your bank account, you don’t care about that contract at work,

our whole being into the vulnerable space of uncertainty, you are

you are absolutely there in presence.

lost, your feet leave the floor, this is what you dreamed of and

Now, if you can achieve this experience which is not so diﬃcult, a

only your ego can save you, prevent it or stop you.

bliss fills you, a fragrance surrounds you, suddenly you are not

Lets be clear about this point, the ego means the self; you have a

the same person you were and it hits you very deeply. That is why

working-self, you have a healthy-self, you have a business

love transforms so much of life, if you are able to feel in love, you

banking-self, you might have a socially conscious self you might

can not hide it is impossible, this is what people fear when they

have a father or mother and therefore you will have a parenting-

feel love, they fear being exposed (like some single people who

self, a self-self, so we are talking about falling pass these selves,

had a bad relationship and they fear being exposed again so they

these selves we define as the ego.

kind a stay single) or some people dance around love with a bonk mate or something like that so that they can have the physical intimacy but escape the exposure of love.

And this is what we have to deal with in relationship. The problem we have is that the ego has become so strong, and disguised, we can’t tell which is real and which is ego. We go to spirituality

That is not what we are talking about we are not interested in this

which is meant to eliminate the ego, but spirituality and yoga just

book about physical experiences that lack the experience of total

becomes another ego trip, legitimised, so instead of breaking

bliss and stillness we are interested in the whole bundle, true

down the ego, we most often build it up. The reason for this

love, heart, mind, body and soul.

uncontrolled dominance of the ego is consumerism. We desire

This is what happens when you fall in love; the mind can’t work,

more of everything, and the king or queen of desire, is the ego.

its whole function becomes useless, it is absurd, you don’t even

Once we were connected to nature, the ego remained a valuable

need it, the person that you were longing to become and the

asset, to be used when needed, but held in check by our

person you were longing for are all here. Now what? Your heart

connection to the earth, the spirit of nature lived in us and we in

was searching for love and now it is here, the ego can’t think, it

it, but life in the city has been cut oﬀ from nature. The ego is in

goes into shock, but this is it spontaneous truth, it is sacred. You

control of most of us. We have these buildings that have taken 8

the place of mountains and the roar of traﬃc has been

being started to change. We walked on and came to a grassy

substituted for that of a beautiful stream so something definitely

hilltop. It was damp from the rain and I lied on it I soaked myself

happens to city people because they become brutal and polished

in the warmth and the smell and rolled down the hill like a kid I

they have church and museums and drinks and theatre and

began to laugh he followed reluctantly to get wet but in the end

beautiful clothes and endless shops, there is people everywhere

he was soaked and he was laughing his head oﬀ and after a while

in the buildings in the streets in the rooms but while all this

we walked on, and there was a bridge and we stormed right over

happens a beautiful cloud sails across the sky and few people

that bridge on that first time round but this time we stepped oﬀ

look up. There is the rush and turmoil and so little time for

the bridge and I put my feet into the small creek and searched

stillness.

below the crystal clear water for rocks and stones and he did the

I was traveling recently and a friend asked me to go for a morning

same.

walk, it was an awesome park we went through, we left home and

This is a great example of how it feels just reconnecting with

we started talking about the corporate strategy of his business

nature. The spontaneous act of reconnecting with nature, and

and new ideas for the renovations of his house and a lot of

therefore falling in love, can become an essential part of your

personal things, we walked for an hour and I listened to all his

daily routine. The idea of meditation at the beginning of the day is

information and was very intriguing and when we arrived to his

more than sitting with your legs crossed staring at a statue or

house I asked him if he would like to do the walk my way all over

some icon that you have invented, trying to become a person you

again.

are not. The idea is to be yourself and to go for a little walk and

So this time I asked him to follow my guide in silence, we got to a tree I put my hand on the tree and motioned to him to do the same, just to touch the bark to get his fingers dirty, to feel the

find things you like and find things you admire, take the iPod throw it away for a few minutes in the morning, just experience life and try to get life, nature itself to be your meditation tool.

texture, imagine the journey the bark had been through just to get

When you commit to be open you truly back fall in love from any

where it was now. Then I pointed to the bird that was shuﬄing in

time you choose, we go straight pass the ego, straight pass the

the leaves near by, a beautiful bright colour bird and we both

intellect and that is what we are trying to practice in the morning

smiled at each other and I saw the glint in his eye that was not

out there. There is no me, there is no I what do I think, what do I

there before and you know something, suddenly his physical

feel what is happening to me, it is all gone, we are looking at 9

nature we are experiencing the reality of life around us that is the

and embrace all that humanity has to oﬀer. We realise, we are

meditation we are all searching for.

just a fragment, a fragment of such a big story, story of love as

Now the great thing about getting up everyday and connecting with nature, is that finding stillness in the morning sets you up for the whole day. It’s like practicing real life meditation in circumstances like walking around the house, lighting a candle looking at a picture you love, picking a flower, touching the earth even sipping a glass of water or eating a piece of fruit, the great

told in this book. Fragmented humanity unifies with magnificent understandings of that universal vista. Look at the stars and think how small is this planet how small must my worries be and ultimately how small are my dramas that keep me from living to my fullest potential to understand the whole of creation not just a fragment of it, it is a great gift.

thing about this everyday stillness it means it is not

Look up and see the universe, see your life, your religion and your

circumstantial.

world in a bigger context, a great magnificent order. Think about

Now we so often become dependent on practices that make us feel good that require a room or a teacher or an environment we go oﬀ to but really what we have to try to do is be there now, in our practice, be there everyday, and be able to return, if we loose our stillness, be able to return to it, whether we are on the bus, or the tram or in the back of the taxi, driving the car and something happens, we need to click get back into the stillness and that is why the practice of connecting with nature everyday, especially in the morning, is so important for you. You ask yourself this question, when was the last time that you and your lover lay on the grass on a starlit night, looked up the heavens and opened your heart to love without action, lying there on the soft grass looking out from a tiny home the perfection is

your worries and your judgments and your opinions and your values and think about them in terms of tree billions years of creation nature has been running this planet and another 3 to 8 billion years they said it is going to be here and we are worried about the woodchoppers and we are worried about the whales how biased and self righteous have we become no wonder we are finding it hard to really surrender to a moment of stillness in love we think we are in control. Lying there, far away from the claustrophobia of air conditioned oﬃces, digitised button pushing television watching lounge rooms let your thoughts drift don’t try and do anything, surrender. More and more in love you become, be alive in this world of nature, let your heart and mind wonder and stay warm, just rest.

obvious even to a troubled soul and under the canapé of the stars one can reach out way, way beyond this little perspective of life 10

Consider that to find love within ourselves and therefore promote

and they see the miracle and they experience the awe the

love within our relationships we must learn to be alone because

absolute awe of being in love. But we all can’t go to Nepal or

when we are lying there underneath the stars and we are lying

seat in Zen retreats every five minutes to learn this art of stillness

there looking up at the stars we are alone, even if we are beside

all we need to do is seat in nature.

somebody. Then our mind is no longer in the action of frustration if we can really, really come to peace within ourselves.

Lie under the stars, sit by a lake, go into a local park during lunchtime and watch a tree grow. You will find it there, nature will

We often stay busy in order to avoid love, sometimes in this

guide you, if you are in love, it will show, in your eyes, in your

stillness of being alone we don’t like our own company and there

face, in the way you walk, in the way that you see everything and

is no one to blame for it. Like the monk that used to meditate on

the way that you feel about life. Try to avoid staying in an oﬃce

a boat and one day in deep water, when the boat was floating he

from 8 o’clock in the morning until 6 o’clock at night without one

fell asleep and it bang into something he woke up and raged and

breath of fresh air, even going down the elevator and walking out

started to scream before he turned around and realised that there

the front door of the oﬃce and standing under a tree for a couple

was no one to scream at and he realised that the boat had

of minutes will help.

become his guru.

The stillness that comes from nature, helps in dealing with

A great example of the power of reconnecting with nature is

emotional drama too. More than 20 years ago I went though a

when I take people up to Nepal, it is the most beautiful place on

bad divorced. One day I was a successful, wealthy, healthy and

earth, and I take them up and along the way they are talking and

happy businessman, the next I was not. My wife and my three

they are chatting and they are excited about seeing it and we

children, I loved them so much, sailed oﬀ into the wide blue

walk through villages and trek up mountains and then they get to

yonder. I was just broken down and I could not think of what to

the sacred lakes and they are chatting and they are talking and

do. I sat on a beach one day it was 2 years since they had left

they take a few photos and then I watched and they just sit on the

and I was still going through hell on earth, and I sat on a beach

rock by the edge of the aqua blue water surrounded by the most

and I looked up and there was the moon in the middle of the

beautiful mountains in the world and they stop, they stop, they

morning, and I was so surprised to see it was a full moon and I

stop thinking they stop talking they stop photographing they even

looked up and I thought, my kids are looking at that moon, in fact,

are not hungry for the few moments that we are seating there, 11

I bet they are looking at it right now, somewhere in the world and I thought I am not disconnected from them at all. We are all connected it is just that I am physically not with them I am not able to control them and in some senses what I expect from them has no bearing and then my heart so opened, it is quite amazing, my heart so opened because all I could do was feel love for my children and the guilt went away and the blame went away and the anger and the disappointment went away, and all of the sudden I was seating in absolute stillness and I understood what it was like to get behind my ego. I understood what it was like to get passed my father-self my money-self my parent-self my partner-self I understood that what was behind that was pure love and this is the journey of this first chapter getting passed the ego, getting passed the busyness appreciating the fact that great relationships need moments of nothingness, absolute emptiness in order to celebrate the very foundation of my heart and soul, in love.

Chapter 3

Respect And Romance We remember too much. Our Ego can’t let go. it’ gets hurt and we’re often not even big enough to reboot, refresh or be humble enough to re-love. Every person has every trait. So, how come we think our partner doesn’t. Romance means see two sides and focus on the best. Ego means, want only one side, half human’s don’t exist.

Section 1

Respect – Romance In a Busy World MAIN POINTS

Nature grows at the border of chaos and order. No matter what happens,

1. Nature grows at the border of chaos and order.

everything evolves at that border. We have no choice about it but if we distance

2. We need to stay consistent 3. Love is cumulative

ourselves from nature, and all that it represents we can get very heady, and forget some very important truths. Our relationships, business and health all evolve along this continuum, along an invisible line between order and chaos, support and challenge. If we are disconnected from the laws of nature, we’ll wobble along that

4. Desire is the mind playing tricks

line happy one day, sad the next. Totally emotionally up and down and this is

5. find appreciation for what you already have

sabotage for our relationships.

6. Love has no expectations

We need to stay consistent, committed to quality control in our relationships and doing so is automatic to the person who remains connected to the earth. Nature always makes us humble and thankful. I am a country person and people in the country are usually thankful for small blessings. They know how easy their luck can change. Putting all this aside, relationships in the city are notoriously volatile. We’re not connected to nature in our cars, oﬃces, boats, exercise gyms, yoga classes, conferences, hotels, buses and love life. We’re busy, and busy means gym equipment and yoga gear, get it done as fast as possible so we can do something else. We lose ourselves in ourselves. We lose the preciousness of eye contact because we’re disconnected from nature. We just the world and pollution and

green house gas, but our own lives are full of gas too. We’re the

person with abundance does not look into the world and see

pollution, disconnected from the beauty and slowness of nature.

what is missing; to them there is nothing missing it is beautiful,

Love is cumulative and little acts of forgetfulness add up to big problems of painfulness. Our relationships are a perfect mirror of the wonder of nature. And in nature, little things count. So, don’t wait for Christmas, valentines day, birthdays or especial occasions to show your partner that you love them. Make everyday of your life a valentines day, act like today is the most important day of your relationship; turn up on time, do something

perfect. Things just change in form, this is the abundance we crave, this is how we fall in love abundance is what the swami in the cave lives for, because he or she lives for the reality that the universe is an abundant place. God exists in everything, therefore, there is no mine and yours, there are no boundaries. In abundance there are no boundaries, no hate, nothing to change, just pure love.

kind, prioritise your lover over your work all compromises in a

Sacred love demands that you find appreciation for what you

relationship add to its demise. Never forget your relationship is

already have and therefore have an abundant mentality. By being

the most important thing in the universe.

thankful for what you already have you close the appetite for

Desire is the mind playing tricks and one of the worst tricks desire

wanting to fix the world.

creates is consumption. Never happy with what we’ve got, we

In modern society one is told to look outside oneself for

often hunt for more, even when we don’t need it. We get on the

happiness, it is an approach to life that causes so much suﬀering

“got to have more” treadmill and can’t get oﬀ. Too many people

because it begins with the premise I don’t have something or

come to their relationships wanting to change something or

something is wrong. Automatically there is a loss, because I have

comparing what they have with some ideal that exists in their

the premise that I am without and if I do the right thing, I will have,

mind, always wanting more and better. But such a perspective

and then I will be happy. This mindset kills romance and it

will sabotage their love they have.

certainly kills love. An abundant mind set brings out a smile about

Sacred relationships grow from the spiritual perspective that nothing is missing. Even the poorest person is wealthy in some form and therefore can appreciate life; even the most terrible person is beautiful in some form and therefore can be

life a sense of humour the ability to see beauty everywhere any time then appreciation is natural even in the most challenging situations you can hold the awareness of appreciation. This is romance there is nothing missing. It just changes in form.

appreciated. This is the universal law, the law of abundance. The 15

Nothing escapes, all of nature is interconnected, nothing is

Even if you could work for the whole of your life and try to

missing, it just changes in form. When you understand this

eliminate all the negative things within you, you would fail

transparency in everyday life, you don’t get bent out of shape so

because nothing is ever missing it just changes form.

easy, you get to process the drama that keeps many people out of love. Life becomes transparent you don’t get caught. With this mindset, you see with objectivity, respond with spontaneity and honest intent. You appreciate people for who they are not for who they could be. Within stillness you respond with love there is no in between. This is the spiritual perspective that all the great saints and all the great leaders that have walked this planet in a spiritual sense at least have demonstrated. Love needs appreciation; you are perfect, your lover is perfect, you are both perfect and everything else is perfect. Sometimes we don’t see that perfection and then we start being critical we start wanting to rescue people, we start trying to change what is, but that is the mindset that causes relationships to fail. It is the delusional mindset and this is the mindset that sabotages a

In our relationships we often feel we are not getting what we want but this is not the truth. We are just not getting what we want in the form that we want it in, but we are getting what we want it just may not be in the form we asked for it. For example, we might be wanting our partner to contribute in the cleaning of the house and we say you are not cleaning the house, but that is not the truth. Their form of house cleaning might be financial, their house cleaning might be in their consideration and love for you, their house cleaning might be taking you to a café or restaurant, so it is not the lack of something happening it is just that we want to change the form of it. And the truth of the matter is, if you don’t appreciate things the way you have them you won’t get them the way you want them.

relationships. Simple techniques can help; it is not an attainment

So it is fine to say, “it is not happening the way I wanted it” but it’s

but a discovery.

not fine to say “it is not happening”. Being critical complaining of

A discovery that there are two sides to everything, nothing is

something missing it is actually manifesting loss.

missing there is always two sides and the wise person knows that

If you see that you are getting what you want in a diﬀerent form,

there are two sides and appreciates the positive. This is the core

you are going to think abundance, but if you are always hunting,

of the most loving and potent state of mind that you can create.

wanting change, then you’re always going to come into your

Spiritually it begins with the acceptance of everyone, including

relationships with negativity and complaints. Then it’s like a

yourself and your partner possess every human trade.

broken record, this is missing, that is missing, this is not good 16

enough and this eventually will drive your partner away. Whatever

start acting and withdraw the very thing that you will like them to

you don’t appreciate depreciates. A great example of this is

present to you. Even if the sky falls and they leave you, if you

aﬀection.

really love them you will let go happily.

Let’s say you want a aﬀection from your lover and you believe

Love has no expectations; all pain in relationships comes from

that they are not giving it to you, and the only way you can

blocked love so an abundant mindset is a wonderful opportunity

comprehend that aﬀection can take place between two people is

to bring devotion to your relationships. The real issue is whether

with contact so you start grumbling that your lover is not

you are prepared to make the abundance between you and your

aﬀectionate, complaining because your friends have aﬀection you

lover a priority in your life.

see them kissing in the park, you say why we don’t kiss in the park we are not affectionate. But your lover might have different ways of expressing their affection, it might be in a sense of protectiveness or strength, or it might be in the sense of working for the long term to find you financial security. Nothing is missing, the real question is what form is it in. You are having all the affection you can dream of right now, no mater how your relationship looks, it is just in a form you may not appreciate. Real abundance means looking for what you are getting at and being thankful, for the form that it is coming in.

That means to change your mind when you see something that you don’t like. Look for the positive, look for what you can appreciate and even in the negatives there is a benefit there is a gift, even appreciate the down side. In the whole universe every molecule has a place a role a gift if you can just be thankful for what you have for the blessing of life it self and remind yourself of how lucky you are then your whole life will change. Even the immune system of the human body is hard wired into the mind of appreciation so when we have thankfulness for what we have our health improves. When it comes to romance every

People become as you treat them. Always remember this

thought you think every action you take and every feeling that

because if you are walking around bemoaning the fact that you

passes though your mind and heart aﬀects your relationship.

are not getting what you want in the form you want it, then you

Romance it is not limited to the small duties and tasks that you

guarantee that your partner will withdraw from you. People

perform, romance includes the way you think the way you feel

become as you treat them if you don’t appreciate what you’ve

and you have control of this things.

got, you will lose it. And it is the same with people, if you keep criticising and complaining they will become belittled and they will 17

Remembering what you appreciate grows. Your thoughts carry

by the way), has an eﬀect in your relationship more than any other

with them a power far greater than most people can guess at.

thing that you do.

Truth comes to the surface whether we are running or kissing or talking or reading or working or making love, so choosing our thoughts and our feelings is a vital ingredient of romance.

Without saying a word you project your feelings and then all of your emotions are transmitted to everyone around you but most particularly your partner. It is all about the way we think the mind

This is exactly what you can learn; whatever you are doing now

set we bring to life. If you can reconnect yourself with nature, get

do it with love, do it with appreciation, don’t avoid it, don’t run

out and get your hands dirty in the garden or simply enjoy a walk

away from things, appreciate what you’ve got, appreciate the

in a park, you’ll get to calm your mind, and your thoughts will

other person, appreciate yourself and in this ways your choices

automatically improve.

will be made wisely. It is the same as if a little pebble is thrown into the sea and stirs the water, it is hard to comprehend the extent to which this ripple is going to travel, even a great ocean is influenced by a single stone.

If you could, in your daily life examine every action that has created a disagreeable attitude or caused negativity or lack of appreciation and you changed those, it would change your life forever. A loving human being is not exclusive a loving human

We may not see it, we may not be conscious of it but a single

being is a loving human being, and they love everybody, so this

thought given the right conditions has the potential to build into a

attitude of appreciation crosses all the boundaries of life, even

huge tidal wave of opportunities. We have to monitor our

sitting alone you would be sitting there with a feeling of

thoughts, be mindful about the way we think of our partner. Any

appreciating of what is before you.

negative thought that we hang on to is going to sabotage our relationship.

Every word we speak is important it is not only our thoughts, but if we speak with negativity if we focus our language on negative

You can control your mind and therefore create a loving

things, if we talk about problems of friends and problems in the

relationship but if you can’t control your mind if you are

newspaper and talk about all the things like the woes of the

emotional, and your emotions control your life then you are going

world, we are eventually going to sabotage our health.

to have a seesaw “topsi turvi” relationship most of which will end up in emotional disaster. This is an important consideration because how you use your mind, (which controls your emotions 18

Staying in love is a matter of creating a loving attitude it is a way of being it is like the culture of your family. It is more than encouragement it is appreciation, it is more than gratitude for what is good, it is appreciation for both good and bad news. The four most important ingredients that bring romance and harmony into a relationship are kindness, care and compassion, contentment and of course gentleness.

Chapter 4

Dream Matching According to natureâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s law a couple needs to do a VisionQuest at least once a year.....

Section 1

Dream Matching MAIN POINTS

I think this is the most complex of the five chapters of this book primarily because

1. Why People Stay Together

we’re talking about the real ingredient of human nature - Why do people stay

2. Our souls bind with another 3. So it’s a never ending story 4. Seven Levels of Commitment

together? Now, if you really want to underpin this chapter and understand the core of it, just simply understand this: two people can fall in love at any time. It can be at the coﬀee shop and look across the table and Wow! There she is or there he is, and you fall in love. The question is, how long is that attraction going to last. Now, the love can last forever and we know how to separate love and relationship but the question is, how long, if you fall in love with someone, are you going to stay in a relationship with them? And the answer is this, you’re going to stay in a relationship with another person while they make you happy. The human constitution is based on seeking pleasure and avoiding pain. And although there are short term pleasures such as intimacy and sexuality and a lot of these things, the real bottom line for most people is - the definition of pleasure is the achievement of their dreams. Now those dreams can be a week from now, they can be today in fact or they can be in the next 20, 30 or 40 years. The idea that the other person in your life helps you live out your dreams

is fundamental to the desire to stay in relationship. Happiness

Our souls bind with another human being in a relationship

motivates us, the search for pleasure.

because our souls have a mission. Now, you can call it your life

The definition of that pleasure, as I’ve already said, changes from person to person. But underpinning all of these pleasures is the sense of the dream. There are seven realms of love and therefore there are seven realms of dreams, from the spontaneous dream

purpose but even that understates the real truth of the soul’s purpose. The soul’s purpose is to search for ever deeper and broader definitions of itself. In other words, to seek more things to love.

which is, I’ve got to have it right now, to the long term inspiration

So, in a relationship that’s growing and expanding, two people

of a dream which is, I’ll work for it for the rest of my life.

can sustain incredible levels of intimacy and relationship and very

A relationship that’s based on the lowest of the seven levels of love, or the seven realms of dreams is not going to last very long if it doesn’t evolve up through the other levels. In other words, if

strong commitments only if their soul’s real desire translated into the physical body means happiness is being fulfilled. Let’s look a little deeper.

people come together into a relationship motivated by the idea

The dream is called the physical realm. The dream that my body

that they’re going to fulfil their happiness, they’re going to fulfil

is gratified, satisfied. That means the sexual, the contactual, the

their pleasures and it’s all very short term, within a very short

physical levels of dream or ambition will cause us short term

period of time that person and that couple is going to struggle to

happiness but once fulfilled they just open a gateway to the next

find really good reasons to stick it out.

level, and we’ll call that the mental levels. And these mental

Stick it out means, to survive through the challenges. Every relationship has support and challenge, that was Chapter 3. Chapter 4 is saying that the reason we will work through the challenges is because there are pleasures, happiness, coming from this relationship. And those happinesses are based on, once again, the fulfilment of dreams.

levels are our ethics. Mental levels of dreams mean making life safe for us. It means that we can trust, release ourselves into vulnerability in an environment where our physical needs are being fulfilled and now, our mental, our ethics, our morals, our code of behaviour, our values are being met. Once those are being met it simply doesn’t stop there, it opens the gateway to the next realm. The next realm is our emotional levels. Now, there are many emotions that come into life and once our sense of safety is fulfilled, our sense of community 22

starts to arise. Our emotional needs, our needs for belonging, our

So, when we talk about self actualisation, self actualisation, the

needs for some sense of fulfilment on a broader scale outside our

maximum that people can comprehend in self actualisation, is a

body, outside our mind but association with a larger group of

wide open heart. And in a relationship with an open heart it

people and this is what we would call our emotional needs. And

means that the physical needs are being met, still, it means that

that gateway, if it’s fulfilled in a relationship and we get our

the mental needs are being met, there’s trust. It means that the

romantic needs met, we get our sense of being admired and

emotional needs are being met. That means there’s romance and

being respected met, then we just open the gateway to the next

respect. And now, the heart level, which means there’s a purpose

level.

to this relationship greater than ourselves. We have a sense of

So it’s a never ending story, isn’t it? You can see this, that people

communion.

think that if they get their physical needs met, it’s all going to be

We call it sometimes soul mates but there’s a friendship

fantastic but that’s not true. All that achieves is opening the

developing and that friendship causes the relationship to come

gateway to the mental needs, the needs for security and then that

out to the world and make a better world for others. And this is a

opens another gateway to the needs for belonging and emotional

very important step but it’s still about self.

needs, and that opens another gateway, which is the gateway of the heart.

When a relationship goes to the next level, which is the fifth level, we start to talk about devotion. Now the devotional level of a

Now, the human heart wants to do good. That’s kind of like its

relationship is when we start to say that there is something

mission. And so when the human heart becomes a primary focus

metaphysical, something greater than ourselves that’s come

of need fulfilment, it wants to have a sense that things are, as you

together in this relationship to cause a creation. So we might

would call them, respected, sacred, owned, and that heart level is

create a business together, we might create children, we might

quite ambivalent to the future, it’s quite ambivalent to the past.

create a home, we might create an orphanage. When two people

And when you hear a lot of people talking about being in the

have a sense that their relationship has a purpose bigger than

moment, what they’re basically saying is, be in your heart. Your

pleasure, bigger than romance, bigger than trust, bigger than their

heart doesn’t care about how much money it’s got because in the

hearts, then they have a sense of purpose greater than those

moment that’s irrelevant. And it doesn’t care about what it’s done

things. And most of that cannot come true until we’ve fulfilled

in the past because in the moment that’s irrelevant.

those lower levels. 23

In other words, once our children have grown up or once we’ve

exploration that comes when we get to the level of inspired

released the need to have children, once we have transcended

relationship.

the needs for those lower levels then we can start to comprehend that our relationship might be about something more than just ourselves. It might be about a broader definition of family, a broader definition of community, a broader definition of the purpose of our relationship. It might be about global change, it might be about building orphanages in foreign countries.

We want to see the world, we want to participate in the world and we want to immerse ourselves in the diversity of cultures in the world. No longer are we stuck in the lower levels which is fighting for our relationship or religion as being right. Righteous religions, where, for example, people of the same religious basis want to collude with people of the same religion and exclude others is a

But satisfying that level of need in a relationship doesn’t stop and

very primal level of relationship. It’s when people start to see that

if a relationship stops there it will fall apart because eventually the

black or white, green or blue, Catholic or Muslim or Jewish or

things we are rising up to, if we achieve them, eventually we will,

Hindu or Buddhist, no matter what, that we are able to transcend

what they call, become green. In other words, it’s like a still pond.

those boundaries because the definition of the world gets bigger.

If the water doesn’t move in a pond it becomes rotten. And so in

This is the definition of inspired.

a relationship, if there’s not an evolution of the purpose for the relationship it eventually becomes rotten.

And finally, the highest level a relationship can achieve is unconditional love. Now, in unconditional love the necessity for

The next level is inspired. Now, this is not necessarily an action

physical presence in the relationship is irrelevant. In other words,

word. Inspired does not necessarily mean there is an outcome as

if a person passes away or if we split up from our partner or we’re

a result of it. Inspired means that there is a deeper sense of

not with them for extended periods of time, if we have

beauty, a deeper sense of the interconnectedness of all things.

unconditional love for that person it means that the lower six

So, people, when they’re in inspired relationships start to talk

levels are being gratified in other ways. We might be even having

about sacredness, about the beauty of the world and they start to

an aﬀair or we might be having a relationship on the side or we

want to travel and go places, not only for the purpose of serving

might be getting trust from our religion or getting a sense of

their devotion, which is a level they’ve already gratified, of

emotional gratification and romance from the sports we do or

keeping their heart open, of staying romantic, of keeping trust in

something like that.

their relationship and physical pleasure but there’s a sense of 24

The bottom line is that with unconditional love there is no need for

earth. Let’s say for example - even in the universe - let’s say

physical presence. And this is the highest level of love. This is

there’s two stars in the sky, how come those stars don’t draw

what they call Sacred Love. It’s absolutely beyond the physical

each other into each other’s gravitational field and explode, or

presence of another human being. We love our partner, we love

why don’t they “blow” apart and fly into the universe? They’re all

people, no matter whether they are with us or they are gone.

rotating. There’s centrifugal forces trying to fling them out into the

Whether they’re in the body or whether they’re out of the body. So there’s the seven levels of dreams, or seven levels of love. And what we’re going to say in this chapter is, the glue that binds two people together is the mutuality of dreams.

universe but they don’t. There’s some sort of a balance exists between the pull of gravitation and the push of centrifugal force. And if you were able to draw a circle around that star and show its magnetic field or its field of influence, you would see that that field overlaps the next star by exactly 33 and a third percent. In other words, the two circles of the two stars overlap by 33 and a third percent, and that’s sustainable. So, this is the model we use for relationships and we say two individuals, Ie. Two stars, two circles, will overlap in their commonality by 33 and a third percent, in other words they will become un-diﬀerentiable in 33% of their lives. This may change over age in what exists in that 33%. For example, two very young, newly married people, their 33% might be physical gratification with each other and as they get older it might be having a baby and their mutuality might be in that 33

Now, we drew, two circles. Those two circles overlapped by 33

and a third percent of their family values and their collusion in

and a third percent. It’s called the Vessica Pisces, and the

building a home.

Vessica Pisces is a universal symbol, and what the Vessica Pisces represents is the sustainable proximity of any two bodies on 25

But time goes on and they rise in their levels of consciousness

growing their dreams, then I think it’s possible for them to stay

and they rise in their levels of realms of dream fulfilment and they

together forever.

may start to have to re-evaluate, what are the things that cause that relationship to overlap. What’s causing those two people to stay together? And as you go up the levels of the hierarchy of dreams you might find that when you get to the heart level, that 33 and a third percent is a sense of global responsibility or a

The honeymoon that lasts forever is a relationship that grows their dreams, both independently but works out how and why those two people are still together based on how they help each other fulfil their futures. This is the glue that binds lovers together.

sense of communal support that you both come together on to

I’ve written a very important section on Vision Quests for Lovers.

agree on, in a sense, or work together on, in helping change. And

And this is not about some Native American tradition. They

it can rise and fall but that 33 and a third percent is really what

worked perfectly but they’re a little bit hard for people sitting in

keeps two people together.

places that don’t have access to a traditional environment like

If we love somebody but we can’t work out how that person will help us fulfil our mission or our vision or our dream of the future, the relationship will gravitate back down to the physical and if the

that. What you can do is do your own vision quest at home. And a vision quest doesn’t just mean sitting on a rock somewhere envisioning the future.

physical needs are being met or they’re not so important any

It’s a four week process that takes about 15 minutes a day but by

more, then that relationship will have no reason, no universal

the end of that four weeks, if you do that once a year you will

reason to stay in place.

guarantee, absolutely gold plated guarantee, that the glue that

There’s a lot of morality and there’s a lot of ideologies that keep relationships glued. In fact, Einstein believes that relationships

will bind your relationship into the future is re-concreted, recemented.

that last a long time are false. He believes that the evolution of

The magnetism that holds two people in a sacred loving

consciousness, one person and another person, makes almost

relationship is the dreams they have of the future. And that four

the idea of people staying together long term impossible. I

week process will re-guarantee, re-guarantee the vows you made

disagree with him in the principle that if two people are evolving in

at your commitment time when you came together.

their consciousness and revealing their dreams, continually

Chapter 5

Love is a Lifestyle We canâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t love one person and hate another. Itâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s impossible. Neither is it possible to love someone and hate our work. These borders are fictitious and cause huge damage in families, careers and leadership. Lets not corrupt ourselves..

Section 1

Love is a Lifestyle MAIN POINTS

I think this is the most important chapter in the book because if you want a really

1. Make love a priority

sacred loving, beautiful, sustainable relationship you’d better make that a priority

2. Emotional honesty

in your life. I think of all the things I’ve done in my life in the many relationships and circumstances I’ve had, the biggest failing, the biggest cause of trouble has

3. Authenticity

been my belief that I can prioritise other things such as my work or my sport or my

4. The design of our space

health or whatever, and sustain a beautiful, sacred, loving romantic relationship

5. Lazy creates Hazy

with a partner. It’s just not the case.

6. We should not expect another human being on this planet to accept our apologies for stupidity.

So, the first thing, the first step in Love is a Lifestyle, is making love a priority in

7. Being grateful for the journeys of our ancestors

stretch for a lot of new age people but the reason a lot of relationships fail is

8. Our expectations kill love

people become obsessed with the other person.

your life, it’s the number one priority. Your lover has to be the most important person in your life. Even more important than yourself. Now I know that’s a people become self obsessed and the reason really great relationships succeed is

Which leads me to the second point - emotional honesty. Emotional honesty in a relationship doesn’t necessarily come from being a complete emotional basket case or a fruitcake, it comes from being really aware of how you feel and admitting it to yourself. Instead of blaming others and saying, you made me feel this and you made me feel that, we have to accept that our partner actually triggers emotions that are already inside of us.

And being honest about those emotions is really important. It’s

event and then I watched people around me grieving and

more diﬃcult, in my experience, for men than women, to own

suﬀering and screaming and emotionalising and I thought, you

these emotions. I think there’s a vast diﬀerence between bravery,

know what, somehow this spirituality that I’ve adopted, which is

which is the willingness to experience an emotion to its greatest

very courageous and takes me through drama very quickly, lacks

depth and wallow in it for a certain period of time, and courage,

integrity.

which is the determination to jump up and run into the face of the enemy regardless of the consequences. I think in a relationship we have to be brave. We have to be prepared to experience things that we may not like or may not want to experience. We may have to face things that we would otherwise choose to avoid, the darker side of things or the more vulnerable side of things. But this is ultimately the essence of a great relationship. Once I remember, in New York I was sitting in my oﬃce looking out the window, talking on the telephone. It was a beautiful day, the sun was shining, it was 8.30, I was waiting for a limousine to pick me up to take me to La Guardia Airport and in turn the journey would take me to Nepal. I was waiting for the car when an airplane flew overhead quite close to the top of my building, three seconds later it drove straight into the side of the World Trade Centre. The shock was just horrendous and people fainted all around me in the oﬃce. I stood there with the skills that I’d been taught through workshops and the collapse process and I came to a sort of a peace with the event very quickly. I saw the dark and I saw the light, I balanced it all and I came to unconditional love for this

And I went back from that day and started to re-immerse myself in the awareness of what do I really feel? What do I really experience? Where is my humanity in an event before I go into a process of healing? Sometimes I think when we get hurt we look for processes that help us avoid the experience of hurt and that blocks our love. That blocks our real feelings. Now, I know there’s the other side to this coin. You’ll meet people who have so much emotional baggage and so much emotional vulnerability that they can’t step out into life without being aggressive and violent. I’m not talking about that extreme, what I’m talking about is the willingness to take time out and dig deep into emotional truth. I think a couple in a relationship need to celebrate the fact that they’ll be angry, they’ll be disappointed, they’ll be hurt, they’ll be happy, they’ll be vulnerable, they’ll be scared, they’ll be all emotions, at any time and they need to take time out and actually witness that with each other. Such an emotional awareness comes with time. A relationship that’s in its early days may not be willing to go to those depths but it’s a target, it’s an objective one should have in entering a new relationship, that eventually you’ll know each other well 29

enough to be really truly honest, emotionally honest with each

exclusive to one person in a relationship. I hear many people

other. I think this is a very important ingredient of a sacred

getting jealous that their lover has loved people in their past or

relationship.

has had relationships in the past or that their lover loves their

Authenticity is a topic that people under the age of 20 don’t need to read about, they do it automatically. But as time goes on and our ambitions and our careers and our lives and we read more

parent or their friends but a loving person is a loving person no matter who they’re with. It’s just they choose a relationship with one person for intimacy.

books about how we should or shouldn’t behave, we become

Be aware, authenticity means not following somebody else’s

less authentic and we start to develop characters that play out

rules. That’s the lack of authenticity. Authenticity means thinking

roles in our lives. For example, we might start becoming the

for yourself. Many people think that they think. They get the

entrepreneurial clever person, the party, happy person, the

newspaper and they get hyper vigilant about certain moral issues

relationship loving sweet person, the parent, the sports hero - we

when really the newspaper has reported what has really been

develop characters and we can develop negative ones as well.

transpiring for a long period of time and makes it quite an issue of

Characters that play out sickness in order to get attention.

the day. We need to be conscious and aware of what disturbs us,

Authenticity really means that you can’t be an arse at work and a loving individual at home. Love becomes a part of your life and you treat everybody you meet with the same sense of loving aﬀection as you treat your partner. That doesn’t mean we hug

what we start riding on in terms of hero worship, we need to be careful of fads and fancies. Authenticity means that we hold sacred certain moral principles and those moral principles are unbendable.

and cuddle everybody but what it does mean is we respect and

Sacred love requires that we hold love, which means in some

honour them.

senses, appreciation for people and their beauty, as a priority in

A loving individual is authentic even when they’re alone. That means that when they’re sitting in the forest or in the train or in the aeroplane going somewhere or sitting at home watching television, they hold their heart strongly as a priority, they hold it wide open. They hold their love for life and a flower and a tree.

our morning, noon and night. Space to breathe in a relationship is so important, and in that breathing space one has to learn to recuperate and regain their inner strength so that they can come back into the relationship with completeness. Space to breath means spending time with friends outside the relationship,

This authenticity pervades every area of life. It can’t be held 30

exercise and sport, creativity, hobbies of passion, work that you

change them. I am who I am and I’m worthy of love for that. And

love.

the only person on earth who really needs to know that I’m

In truth, 66% of your life will be alone. Only 33 and a third of your

worthy of love for who I am, as I am, is me.

life can be sustained in a loving relationship. So, 66% of all you do, you’ll be doing as an individual. Therefore we must learn to be alone with ourselves. And this is a great key because when we break our own moral code, when we act out of integrity to ourselves, when we breach our own sense of decency and moral behaviour, it’s not other people that get so much aﬀected, it’s ourselves. And I think this is what’s defined as karma, that if we do things to other people that cause us to feel a sense of responsibility or a sense of guilt or a sense of distrust for our own capacity, to hold our morals and our values sacred, then I think we cause ourselves in our moments alone, great disturbance. And those disturbances sabotage our lives. They sabotage our work, they sabotage our health.

I’ve spent a lot of time in my own life trying to change myself and now I realise, as the time has past that I’m really still the same person I always was, that any attempt to add a façade or to follow a philosophy was just a mask that I was putting on to try and create a better me. But really, the moment I stopped the disciplines and practices around those particular activities I was still the same Chris. I learnt that my circumstances aﬀect my behaviour more than my moral code. That if I put myself in a very diﬃcult circumstance I would behave badly and I would break my own moral codes. If I put myself in a relationship that was unhealthy or that in which my heart wasn’t open, then my moral code would start to wilt. I think this is a priority. We have to realise that if love is important to us

So, to sustain a sacred and loving relationship we must learn to

and we are in a place that love doesn’t exist, then we’ve

be alone with ourselves and like what we see. This does not

automatically begun the process of self sabotage.

come from isolation, it doesn’t come from sitting in a cave or crossing your legs in meditation or achieving great heights in sport or business, it doesn’t come from wealth.

The key to loving others is to love self. And to love self we have to come to a place where we don’t want to change it. Where we are completely content with our own being. We recognise the

Learning to be alone with yourself is called contentment. The

divinity of being ourselves. We recognise that there is a dark side

ability to say, I like this person. I can’t change them, I can’t

and a light side to everything including ourselves. 31

That alone, that single awareness can transform a life and prepare

In some homes I even see antiques bought from places whose

us to live in a great and sacred relationship with another person.

origins were not sure. Were those goods stolen? Did the families

I remember visiting the home of a couple who were looking for counselling. They had become friends and they were having struggles in their relationship. They asked me to come to their house to do a consultation. I walked in the front door and there

who owned them have a beautiful life or was there suﬀering and torture? Tibetan furniture quite often has its roots in the theft of a culture and we bring this into our home and wonder why things aren’t as harmonious as they could be.

on the wall was a picture, a photograph in fact from Apocalypse

Everything speaks. You must remember this very clearly. Every

Now with some poor soldier struggling to take a breath in a

flower, every tree, ever piece of wood, has a story to tell. The

bamboo cage while he was immersed in water. This dark and

walls of your home, if they are old walls, have been home to

dismal picture graced the front door of his home. I could write

people long before you arrived. If you want to witness this first

another five books on the topic of environment because I believe

hand go to Norfolk Island in Australia where the old prison exists.

truly that environment aﬀects a relationship more than any other thing. It doesn’t have to be wealth, it doesn’t have to be fancy. What it has to be is loving.

The walls are now crumbled but this was one of the most mean and vicious prisons on earth. Norfolk Island is filled with the spirits of those dead people who were tortured, starved and

In India, in the times that I’ve visited there, some of the homes

beaten to death. If you walk around that old prison you’ll feel it.

that I’ve visited have been extremely humble yet they were filled

Even the most skeptical person feels their hair stand on edge as

with love.

they walk around those prison remains.

Candles were burning, incense filled the air and statues reminded

Your house, your car, your clothing, your food, all has with it a

the people who lived there of the Gods who really dictated the

voice. A sacred loving relationship has to be conscious of the

fortunes of their future. And yet, in the Western home I see

voices that surround them. The old jewellery from an ex partner,

photographs of the dead. I see reminders of the past that are not

a gift from a person who is no longer wishing you well, things that

complete. I see bookshelves full of books that talk about pain

don’t have authenticity, money that was taken and wasn’t earned.

and suﬀering and here we have a couple trying to live out the beauty of a sacred relationship.

We have to think very carefully about the design of our space,

We don’t know the subtleties, we don’t really see this second

about the things that we bring into a loving relationship. This

voice, we don’t understand the eﬀect of the other energies of this

includes people because there are some people in our lives who

earth but we do know they aﬀect us.

do not wish our relationship well. Those people, even parents from time to time, may wish us well. They may wish that our relationship didn’t exist because they have aspirations for something diﬀerent. This is the necessity of protection. We need to protect our relationship. We need to protect it from the environments that are not healthy. We need to fill our relationship with environments that are healthy.

We do know that people who are put into negative environments become negative. We do know that people become as we treat them and so, if we treat our environment and we therefore honour the sacredness of our relationship through that environment, we will create the best place for love to thrive. My first marriage failed because I became lazy. My wife loved me deeply, she gave me all the love a man could ask for but I

Taking our relationship into places where people are ill - maybe

became lazy. I didn’t give what I was getting. Love and the

it’s necessary sometimes to visit people in hospital or to go into

greatest love of all comes from us. It’s so easy to become lazy

the spaces of those who are not in good fortune but we need to

and complacent in a relationship.

balance this and recuperate and heal our relationship if it’s been into such a place. If we’ve argued we need to clear the space of the argument. If we’ve had breakdowns and hurts we need to clear the space of those hurts. We need to bring love into our environment, we need to look at what’s on the walls, what’s on the floor, how our furniture is decorated, what’s in the kitchen, how our food was bought, how it was prepared, how it was made and where it came from. All

To be given love by somebody is a great gift but to give love is an even greater one. And to keep giving love in spite of everything takes a lot of courage, a lot of commitment. I think this is the conviction that we’re all looking for in a relationship. We seek love, we want love but we forget that the greatest love we ever celebrate, the best we’ve ever felt is when we’ve given love to people.

these things are vital in preparing an environment in which love can thrive. 33

What blocks our love is our emotion, our ego. We get blocked

I’m not suggesting for one minute that we should stay in

because our lover might remind us of something that we don’t

environments that are toxic, where our partner breaks the agreed

like in ourselves. Our lover might do something that we didn’t

boundaries of the relationship. Under those circumstances, such

expect. Our lover might start to do or behave in ways that we

as domestic violence we must leave but this is no reason to block

don’t want them to be. But this is no excuse, this is the metal,

our love. We can actually say, I love you but I can’t entertain a

this is where we need to stand tall and say, I’m able to love this

relationship with you.

person no matter what they do.

That aside, I’m not talking about the extremes, I’m talking about

When we start holding back our love and expecting to receive it

the average, everyday experience of being in a relationship, of

more than we give it, then we start to diminish ourselves. We

broken expectations, of our projections onto our partner, saying

become mechanical, we become materialistic, we love the

this is the sort of person I want you to be versus this is who you

passion, the inspiration, the things that make life worth living and

are and therefore, I’m going to withdraw love from you. This is no

we start to dwindle into disease, our body decays. We start to

way to have a relationship.

lose our wealth, we start to lose our sense of passion for life. We must remind ourselves every day that the greatest happiness a human being can experience is the love that they give. We need to work through the rubbish that we put between us and our love. We need to work through the emotional blockages, the egotistical expectations that we put in the way of loving somebody.

A relationship is built on the love we give. We must learn, we must learn the skills of giving love, under all circumstances. We have children in later life and they will break our expectations continually but still deep down inside we love them. No matter how bad they become we say, I love this person. I can’t control them, I can’t demand of them things that they do not wish to do for themselves, I have to just simply love them. And that love

No matter what another person does they’re worthy of love, no

exists in us, in our relationship as well. It’s the core, the

matter how bad they are, no matter how bad their behaviour, we

sacredness of a relationship.

can love them.

We must remember, continually remind ourselves that the happiest we will ever be in our lives is when we give the greatest amount of love to our beloved. 34

There are many people who say that if they had to live their live

I wouldn’t have this problem. But this is lying, this is cheating,

over again they wouldn’t change a thing and I think they’re liars.

this is deception of the greatest kind. There is no excuse, none at

Truly, if we had to live our lives over again we’d hurt people less

all for not turning up in love.

and we’d change the mistakes we made that caused other people harm. I think the greatest harm we can do any other human being on earth is not turning up.

We should not expect another human being on this planet to accept our apologies for stupidity. We should not expect another person on this planet to accept us half. We should not expect a

And we don’t turn up because we make excuses. We make

person to listen to our excuses and listen to us saying, oh I’m so

excuses like, I’m really busy at work, I’m stressed at the moment,

busy at work or Oh, I’ve got so many problems that I can’t turn up

my ex partner is still calling me, my children are demanding things

for love. This is rubbish.

from me, I’m tired, I’m confused. We make excuses and those excuses become the death knell for our relationships. Make no excuses, we need to turn up. Turning up means we’ve done our laundry, we’ve washed our clothes, we’ve cleaned our mind. We’re able to turn up fresh, the past is the past, it’s no longer aﬀecting us. We’re able to forget yesterday, to learn from it, to grow from it, to take responsibility for causing it and turn up today brave, emotionally prepared, spiritually awakened, ready for a great relationship. When I talk to people who are going through challenge, people who are experiencing domestic confrontations, emotional violence, it’s always coming from the past, from the inability of one of the two people in that relationship to actually turn up.

Life is too short, we’re here for such a short period of time and love and our relationships are so precious. How could we let anything get in the way? This is why personal mastery is so important. Personal mastery teaches us to experience our emotions, to witness our emotions but not act on our emotions. It teaches us to be honest about how we feel, to witness and feel the grief or the suﬀering or the happiness and the joy but never act out of those experiences. This inner relationship means that we can, at the same token as being honest with ourselves and having personal integrity, we can turn up for love every day, fresh as if we were young again like a child falling in love for the first time.

People excuse themselves and say, I’ll never do that, or my ex partner caused me to be like this, or if it wasn’t for my family then 35

For many years I worked with indigenous cultures in Canada.

To remain constantly thankful for the past is a simple task. It

They taught me many, many things including a deep respect for

means that we can lose our thankfulness for the day, we can go

nature and the world around us. But one of the great things that I

through our emotional dramas as we need to go through them

took from their teachings was an understanding of the

but if we hold a respect and a deep love for where we’ve come

importance of our ancestors.

from, we hold something entirely precious and this, I think

We haven’t just arrived here, fresh dropped from the sky like a raindrop that never came to earth before. We are the product of our past, we are the culmination of thousands of years of evolution and that evolution is built into our DNA. Being grateful for the journeys of our ancestors and having respect for the paths that they’ve trodden to get us to where we are places a huge importance on how we behave in this next moment. We are not separate from anything, least of all our ancestors from the past. They trod the ground that we now stand on. They evolved our DNA to where we have it right now, and we will in turn pass it on to our children and they will look back on us and the people before us with some sense of gratitude, thankful for where they are, thankful for the history that brought them to their current place.

diﬀerentiates those who are trying to run from the past and create new lives and therefore overly enthusiastic about breaking away from the history that causes them to be who they are, and those who have a deep reverence for the past and are building on it. In my own life I was born in the very humble origins of Tasmania in Australia. A place not necessarily known for its great intellect and wisdom and I was shy about this fact for many years. From Tasmania we moved to Mildura. Mildura, at the time was a little country town nobody had heard of. It was famous for growing oranges and later, for marijuana. And I hid these facts from the world, even when I worked in America, I hid my Australian origins and created an American accent because I thought that my roots were not important. I had no gratitude for my past and therefore was obsessed with only having thankfulness for what I’d achieved in the short period I called my life. I was even intent on separating myself from my

Thankfulness is a key to the immune system and it is a great key

own parents. This existence is shallow, this existence has no

to happiness.

core. Now I really appreciate the fact that I come from the very humble and very beautiful origins of Tasmania, people connected to the 36

earth, people very grounded in the love and the spirit of nature.

who I would be - I.e Superman - and who my wife would be - a la

And I have a great deal of respect for Mildura, a place where

- the Queen.

hardworking people, many of them immigrants, came to Australia and merged their lives with the indigenous cultures of Australia to grow oranges out of dust. I see the story diﬀerently now and I see in my past how much could have been aﬀected by having a deep and respectful reverence for where I’ve come from. I meet people in Australia who have come from other countries, who are trying to recreate their lives but I encourage them to sustain a respect and love for their origins, to bring that culture to Australia, to bring their uniqueness, their accents, their cultural uniqueness into Australia and not lose it. It doesn’t mean isolation from the Australian culture, it means a natural evolution, an organic growth where the two foreign cultures merge to create a new one, a third culture. Appreciate your history, appreciate your roots, appreciate your parents most of all. These people, although they may be flawed, are at the least the greatest gateway to consciousness and love you’ll ever know. My mother died in a car accident when I was three. My stepmother was an alcoholic and violent woman. Naturally I developed an expectation of the relationship that I would have when I grew up. By the time I was five I’d developed a fantasy of

I really thought that the experience that I was having was a fiction, that I’d somehow been given a bundle of bad luck and that with good behaviour and a good search I would find the ideal partner. I did but I didn’t recognize her. My head was so filled with my expectations, my fantasies of what a relationship could look like. But nothing on earth, nothing humanly possible could be sustained and live up to that expectation. Our expectations kill love. Those expectations come from all manner of things. Some from what we reject in our parents’ relationship, some from what we accept in our parents’ relationship. Some of our expectations come from books we read, movies we see and novels. We want the romance, we don’t want the chaos. We want the happiness, we don’t want the trauma. We want the love, we don’t want the rejection. And so we build up a false, or a fictitious definition of what is a good relationship and what is a bad one. In doing this we make it nearly impossible to be happy in love. We don’t show up because we’re afraid to cause the drama which will contradict our model of a good relationship. We fail to argue with our partner and stand up for our rights because we’re 37

trying to achieve a fiction, trying to achieve a passive, non violent,

balance. Sacred love means that you will welcome both the good

peaceful, loving space with a person.

and the bad, the support and the challenge, the growth and the

But this is not love. This is escapism, this is delusion. A great

decay, the birth and the death, with the same enthusiasm.

relationship grows at the border of chaos and order, support and

Those people who are running from the past will excess challenge

challenge. And it’s the ability to embrace both sides of this and

their partner. Those people who are stuck in the past will excess

love a person through it that gives us the sacred love we’re all

order their partners. Too much support. One causes burn out,

looking for.

too much challenge causes burnout. And the other causes

Our souls want love. They are not looking for peace. That’s us,

boredom.

that’s our ego, looking for gratification, looking to be reinforced or

To really turn up in a relationship, to really have sacred love,

accepted. Our souls are looking for challenge and support.

you’re going to have to embrace both sides of support and

They’re looking for growth, they’re looking for depth.

challenge. Be prepared to draw boundaries, be prepared to

If you are truly in search of a soul mate or if you truly believe that you are living with your soul mate, you will welcome the chaos and the order of that relationship in equal lumps. You will welcome both the challenge and support with the same

confront your partner’s ideas about who you should be and shouldn’t be, be prepared to be a unique individual. And at the same token be prepared to soften and surrender when it’s necessary, be prepared to be wrong.

enthusiasm, with the same smile, knowing that love is not

There are many people who complain, oh I have a relationship

measured by either of these things.

and I’m married to this person but our romance is dead, we’ve

If you take your time to go in nature you will find chaos and order in perfect balance. If you step oﬀ the world and sit on the moon and look back at this planet you will see chaos and order in perfect balance. You won’t become hyper vigilant and therefore paranoid about global warming and problems that you see as being life threatening. You will see those as one half of an equation of

lost the enthusiasm to make love, to be passionate with each other. And I would spend some time with that person and find them to be always wanting to be right. And a right person is the most unattractive, most unromantic individual you can ever find. We’re never right. We’re right and wrong. There’s always two sides to the coin. And the person who can embrace those two sides can choose to focus on the negative or choose to focus on 38

the positive. This is romance. This is the ability to say, love

infatuation that I have with them. And if the answer is yes, then

grows at the border of support and challenge. I’m going to

we may even consider moving this dynamic with another human

challenge my partner, I’m going to support my partner and love

being to the next level, the emotional level. Am I willing to trust

will be there right throughout the whole journey.

this person? Do I feel comfortable around this person? Do they

If I just be myself, if I just turn up today, if I just be myself, I will support and challenge my partner. I will focus on the positive, I will focus on the support but I will acknowledge the challenge will not go away. I’m going to share a beautiful story. A story of how nature planned relationships between human beings. It’s a story that happens naturally for those who are below 18, around 20 years old, who are just ready and waiting to fall in love. We infatuate the appearance of another human being. That infatuation triggers hormones and those hormones trigger pheromones. And the pheromones cause us to be physically attracted to somebody. That results in a sexual and very physical

make me feel good? Would I like to see them again? Is it more than physical? Do I trust them? Is there an emotional experience that’s taking place here, a chemistry that feels like it could last more than just a day or two? More than just a month? If they pass this test the chemicals in our body move us to the next level and our heart starts to open and we say, I have just fallen in love. I feel love for this person, I feel a bond, I feel a synergy between us. That chemistry in our body, electrical impulses and chemical reactions, causes us to want to start causing a permanence between us and this other individual. If these energy levels are open a next level rises, this level of what can we build together?

attraction. It’s a natural way to be. Sometimes we follow that

What can we create together? What can we, as a couple, cause

physical attraction and end up in a sexual embrace with another

on this planet? And that might be children, or a business or

person.

friendships, or whatever it may be. We will look to manifest

With a sexual embrace (or the desire for it) we may then open up

something as a result of our love.

another level of energy, which is the moral one. Do I like this

If we pass this test and we see opportunity here we will move to a

person? Does this person have a code that I can understand?

more divine level of love. We will move to a level where the

Do I relate to their value set? Am I interested in them more as a

physical is not the only basis. The mental, the emotional, the

whole human being than just the physical experience and the

heart, the conceptual are not the only basis. 39

It moves to a sense of inevitability that this person is my soul

For example for a more wise or older person the willingness to be

mate but this is still not the peak of relationship or love. It’s still in

infatuated is replaced with wisdom. They might even know there’s

logic and rationality and under your control. There’s a bigger,

two sides to everybody and therefore that infatuation can’t

much bigger space to occupy.

happen. it’s sad on one side because that infatuation is

If we can transcend that level of love we can move to a level of unconditional love which means I love this person no matter

absolutely everyone’s dream and that real love, that balanced perception is as boring as watching paint dry.

whether I’m with them or whether they’re here or whether they’re

Without that infatuation we become emotionally closed and

gone, whether they’re happy or they’re sad.

finally, our heart can shut, our heart can say, I’m not willing to do

We can move to a non physical level of love. The non physical level of love is an interesting one because it’s the safest. This non

that any more because I’m older, wiser and I don’t want to be hurt again.

physical, unconditional love means that we can love everybody

And so, the chemistry of love either gets lost in amongst the

on earth safely because we don’t have to get our heart messed

wisdom of age, or in the hormonal changes that come with life

up with them, our emotions messed up with them. We don’t have

and the real spontaneous joy of romance and falling in love turns

to get our values confused with them and we certainly don’t have

to pure friendship.

to expose ourselves physically. In a sense it’s a very high and sacred love but in another sense it disengages us because when we’re afraid, we’re afraid to be immersed, afraid to confuse ourselves, afraid to get mixed up. So, we get all “unconditional” and escape from the hard core.

But this is not just an ageing that aﬀects relationships. iI’s an unwillingness to experience life threatening and distracting emotions. And instead we start searching for escape routes like food, work, sport, booze and spiritual answers. These help us transcend all the physical, mental, emotional, heart driven,

For young people these phases of love happen chemically,

creative experiences that are necessary to create a good

they’re automatic. And as we get older and we start looking at re-

relationship and we start talking about the kids, holidays and

entering relationships when we’re in our 40’s some of these

renovations. We end up killing the wonder and disappointment of

phases are broken.

love before any experience has taken place.

It’s like going to the beach but never going for a swim. It’s like

the wheel and run into a tree in a car but if you fall asleep at the

cooking a meal but not eating it. It’s like working but not enjoying

wheel of your heart and love you automatically die by

it. It’s like playing sport but not having fun. It’s like having an

overcompensating in your work, eating, drinking, sport or

orgasm before sex. Simply, it’s a kill-joy process because we age

whatever and that spells trouble.

and we don’t want to be emotionally engaged, disturbed, disappointed, and like an anti depressant drug, that decision not only kills the bad feelings, it kills the good ones as well. One can understand the passion for unconditional love. It’s the sort of thing we imagine a high saint having. I love you irrespective of what you do or where you go or who you’re with.

Unconditional love is a skill, it’s the reboot, the dumping of the trash. You take the trash out at home right? You wouldn’t leave trash in the waste bin in the kitchen or oﬃce, but we all leave trash in our relationship bin and it festers. Stagnant water was once perfect and pure. If you put it through a water filter or a few drops of purification it’ll be drinkable. So, if

That, I think, in the real world of relationships is a very healthy

your relationship has become a perpetual arm wrestle, a place

place, but we only go there to reboot the hard drive, to refresh the

where you don’t feel authentic, it’s time for unconditional love to

page, to trash the trash and get back to the youthful romance of

wipe the hard drive, clean the water, dump the trash.

infatuation.

Unconditional love is also the key to healing separations and

Unconditional love is not a place to live in, it’s a home to go to

grief. When we’re talking about the loss of a partner through

when the going get’s bumpy. Or when judgement and

death or relationship breakdown then it’s necessary, in order for

expectations start to diminish your libido. If you are dropping

us to move to our next experience of love, to love our past

below five sexual experiences with your partner each week, you

unconditionally so it becomes ineﬀective, so it becomes non

definitely need a roboot. (or a size 11 work-boot in the butt). If

influential, so it becomes inert in terms of our ability to turn up for

you are compromising your love at home and turning it into a

our next love. It takes 30 minutes but people will suicide before

boring place of compromise and capitulation of everything we

they do it. My father died at 90+ and was still grieving his first

work and live for, don’t run, blame yourself.

wife on his death bed - 60 years resisting unconditional love. How

Rebooting your relationship hard-drive is about healing a relationship and we need to do it daily. You might fall asleep at

quickly can you heal a hurt inside your relationship? That’s the model that’ll change your children’s perception of healthy healing and relationship process. 41

Chapter 6

About Chris

Chris Walker is also a prolific writer which, for a “dyslexic moron,” as his high school teacher referred to him, is quite some surprise. He’s written over 20 books yet Chris acknowledges, he still hasn’t read his first one.

The Power of Love in every soul! In the area of love, relationship and human spirituality, no one is better known and more respected than Christopher Walker. For

to life long regret” Chris published Innerwealth, putting the heart and soul back into business as a part of his mission of bringing deeper and more holistic human awareness to the workplace.

more than 30 years, Christopher Walker has focused solely on

But Chris’s background is not limited to the business world, his

helping people, families, communities and organisations reshape

attraction as a change agent and keynote speaker comes from

their personal lifestyle to embrace a more loving, peaceful and

the diversity and seeing contradictions of his life. His credentials

happy lifestyle. His powerful messages of authenticity,

include a lifetime of turning challenges to success. Starting from

appreciation, and love have helped transform and create startling

an alcoholic and violent home he went on to self fund his own

change in thousands of organisations, and millions of individuals

university education and start a successful entrepreneurial career.

worldwide.

From the disaster of a marriage breakdown and disastrous

With his natural Aussie style and tough love approach to real life spirituality, Chris challenges people’s perception and captures his audience's attention as well as their hearts. With his love and connection to all that is natural, his provocative technique and masterful authority of his work, time and again he compels his

journey through a divorce his ex wife and three children to a magnificent loving relationship with his soul mate. From street thug and car thief to a long time friend of spiritual monasteries high in the Nepal Himalayas. From bruised and broken football player to adept yogi.

audiences, to think different, act different and be different.

Chris Walker is also a prolific writer which, for a “dyslexic moron,”

Nothing changes until something changes. He breaks the spiritual

as his high school teacher referred to him, is quite some surprise.

mould, steps out as a real person and is often referred to as one

He’s written over 20 books yet Chris acknowledges, he still hasn’t

of the most dynamic and controversial speakers of our time.

read his first one. Chris has also made a profound influence

You may know Chris better from his corporate work. Challenging corporations and business people throughout the world to reconsider the human equation in business, to look more authentically at the whole individual, and for individuals to look more authentically at their work – life balance. “Love is

through his extensive work with indigenous people in Canada, during which time he had a gun pointed to his head, had his life threatened and was run out of town by some radical activists. He also credits this experience working with indigenous people in Canada, to one of the greatest transformations in his own life.

cumulative” says Christopher Walker, “daily forgetfulness adds up 43

His recent book, “Sacred Love, The honeymoon that lasts

Chris Walker’s global work is, as he is, understated yet

forever” will inspire those who are ready to change the way they

committed. His contributions to Nepal in support of monasteries

perceive relationships. For those wanting the honeymoon to last,

and under privileged children goes on, as it has, for over 20 years.

for those wanting to enjoy the fruits of their work rather than pay the price of their personal life. Chris says he’s fighting an epidemic, “busy-ness” that is sweeping the world and killing relationships everywhere. Chris Walker’s energy and love for his mission travels still further through mediums such as television, print, radio and newspaper interviews. His internet site offers help to those who are struggling to keep up in their relationships. DR Love, Chris’s online alias, offers advice to those who are looking for something different. “The honey-mood” says Chris Walker, “can last forever, you just have to know how” Chris is the founder of Innerwealth Consulting. A leadership coaching program aimed to impart the principles of good, heart driven, balanced and conscious leadership to people throughout the world.

Chris coaches sports stars, athletes, CEO’s, Mothers with new babies, youth at risk, entrepreneurs, couples looking to repair a broken home. His compassion is not in making his achievements public, but in the individual happiness of his clients. Changing the world. One heart at a time. When Chris is not speaking, coaching or writing, you’ll find him paddling his sea kayak around Sydney harbor, taking photographs out in nature or taking a few clients on a journey up into the high Himalayas. Christopher John Walker believes in the power of love, he’s on a mission of reality, to share natures law, to teach the world that, love, contentment and happiness come, when we stop, which, according to Walker, is the only antidote to that global epidemic of Busy-Ness. Christopher John Walker is an inspired man, driven to create a global change, and for Chris, this begins at home.

Chris is also known as a passionate environmentalist and humanitarian, working to help the people and children of Nepal live the life they deserve while preserving the sanctuary of this great Himalayan paradise.