projecting yourself into other peoples as the mirror to discover your self;
< freedom 10 >
Perhaps the biggest barrier to your enlightenment
is other people. And more specifically, it is the people that are the closest to
you – your partners and spouses, your children, your sleeping mates, your
bedmates. But start realizing that these people who are the closest to you are
the ones who you cast your imbalances, fears, emptinesses, you cast your buttons
onto them. You project your self, your imbalances straight into them, and
because they love you, they accept them. And, by the way, you do it for them
also. It's like they are your mirror, you are theirs.
They have allowed you to throw your stuff onto them and have them play it back
to you. They are some of your greatest teachers of all, but there comes a point
where you should not cast yourself on others. So when I say it's other people
– the loved ones, the ones closest to you – it's actually you doing it to
them, you putting your stuff onto them so they can play it back.
They push your buttons, because you gave them your buttons to push. They cause
you the most heartache, because you gave them your heart to play back to you.
It's not that they're bad people. Actually, they're wonderful people and they
love you, and they have put up with a lot, just as you put up with a lot from
them. But this whole practice of using other people to discover
self needs to come to an end.
Everybody does it to everyone else. And, by the way, that's the reason so many relationships
don't work or don't last for a long time, because at a certain point you can't
stand seeing yourself through that other person anymore. You blame them, of
course, but you just can't stand seeing yourself through them. Or at a certain
point you realize that you don't need to do that with each other anymore.
So the question comes up, is there hope for true, genuine and pure
relationships? It's up to you. It's up to you. But most relationships with any
humans are this game of projection – casting yourself into them; not like
a fisherman, but casting yourself into them.
< freedom 10 > So as we are in this discussion of expectations, I'm going to call this castpectations. Because they are also your cast, like a cast of characters in a play or a television show. They're your cast. They're your characters. But there comes a time when it becomes a one-woman or a one-man show. You're on your own. It's your stage. No longer using others. It's you standing on your own, in the I Am Presence of yourself. When you get to that point, when it's just the I Am on the stage, not this cast of other humans, then you'll realize something beautiful: That there is the cast of yourself and all the magnificent aspects that you've ever had, all the very integrated aspects and that you actually don't need the others. You don't need them in the way you've been using them in the past.
< freedom 10 > So here's the dilemma: You're with somebody, you have children, you have a mate, even parents, and there's this whole game that's been being played – you discovering yourself through them – and it has to come to an end, at a certain level of enlightenment or awareness. I'm saying end the game. End how you use others to see yourself. From this point on, it's you discovering you. When you make that choice within you that you're going to release that type of relationship, you don't have to do anything. Just it's about you making the choice to change the dynamics, the castpectations of enlightenment. That in itself will change the dynamics of the other relationships. It could be the most beautiful gift that you've given this other person or yourself. It's a release. It's a release from some very old energy bondages.