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Creating a Spiritual Marriage
Susan Kramer


Copyright
2000-2011 Susan Kramer

Santa Barbara, California USA
Amsterdam, The Netherlands
published by Creations in Consciousness
susan@susankramer.com

Wedded within our spiritual nature
to fully enjoy
the marriage adventure

These writings explore personal and relationship qualities useful in creating a fulfilling spiritual marriage ...

 
Contents
1. Deeply Interactive Love
2. Designing; Blueprinting a Relationship
3. Aliveness
4. Commitment
5. Meditation Practice
6. Considering Marriage
7. True Love
8. Spiritualizing Marriage
9. Full Humanness
10. Who Is our Spouse?
11. Conscious Spiritual Marriage
12. Comin' Together One on One


1. Deeply Interactive Love

Inspiring are the reflections
of intelligent harmony in nature
Panoramic sunrises and sunsets
Colorful scented blossoms
The overwhelming majesty of mountains
ascending through the clouds
The peaceful wash of sea
dissolving into the distant horizon
Our rhythmic and cyclical nature
But more than by observing and appreciating
the beauty and intelligence of nature
We can experience the innate vibrancy
through the inter-relatedness
of deep human love

As we gaze with love upon or think about our beloved, the natural beauty and harmony manifests as an energized vibrant spring in our body, coming from our core. A profuse lovingness warms our physical body, bringing to our mind a sense of wholeness, wellbeing, and awareness of our transcendental self.

In the depths of intimacy between loving souls we transcend our awareness of ourselves as just observers of nature's beauty, intelligence, and harmony.

In the depths of loving human intimacy
we come to experience
our unseen roots of consciousness
as stretching backward
therefore, ever forward in time

We come to realize that our consciousness of love and connection is alive in us, whether or not we are in the physical presence of our beloved, and beloved relatives and friends. And in this parallel we know that our source of life—Love—is ever alive as a flood of intelligent vibrant energy welling up from deep within.

Deeply interactive love
Direct experience of our immortal Source
Direct experience
of our immortal source of Love

2. Designing; Blueprinting a Relationship

The blueprint for building a relationship
comes from the co-designers
When a solid foundation of friendship is laid
the visible form of the relationship
will have many rooms
to serve the needs of each person
With common areas in time and place for sharing

The blueprint for a relationship can look perfect on paper, but the adjustments needed in daily living call for ongoing revisions.

Communicating our needs and expectations must basically be conveyed during the designing phase of the relationship, so that the first set of working drawings can be made.

Even though we are blueprinting a relationship, our highest personal goal of living the most conscious good we are aware of, moment to moment, must be maintained. All other projects and goals need to be supportive of our choice to live as our most conscious selves.

The blueprint for living
built upon by giving
The blueprint for a relationship
manifesting through lovingness
With space for alone time
alongside joint ventures
The rooms of our house
becoming the form called our home

3. Aliveness

The life of a relationship is like the life of a plant
Growing and flourishing when nurtured
Fading away when neglected

A relationship grows when fed with the flowing waters of sharing, and the essential nutrient of loving.

Indifference in a relationship
is like drought to a plant
Neither survive

Relationships are precious entities, sustained with mutual energy. Both need to share and be receptive to the other's loving actions—together forming a circle with permeable boundaries that can expand infinitely.

We grow in our ability to love the more we share lovingly, and relationships give us the opportunity to develop our capacity to love fully.

Two
Exchanging lovingly
Sharing with care
Expanding rapidly
Feeling whole, complete
Alive in relationship

4. Commitment

Centering energy upon a specific
then following through
Through commitment
we develop willpower
perseverance
courage
to face difficulties
Qualities developed in a commitment
carry into other aspects of living
The nature of the commitment
is not so important
What is beneficial
is the strength we develop
being true to something or someone

An example: While a student, we choose our career goal, then make the commitment to spend the time and energy needed to reach the goal. We use our mind to devise a plan, then systematically follow it to graduation. We decide to use a big allotment of energy to reach our goal, energy that could be used in more leisurely pursuits. We do this because we feel the goal is worthwhile for our future financial support and career satisfaction. We commit our energy till the goal is attained.

Relationships are similar. We water and fertilize the flower of our relationship every day to keep it growing and flourishing. As we feel the happiness we derive in the process of living, the commitment becomes 'full feeling.'

We each have a basic desire
to be happy
To feel a sense of harmony within ourselves
extending to others and nature

We make a big commitment just by living. We say that feeling peaceful and happy inside are worth any expenditure of energy. Sometimes we are not consciously aware that happiness is our underlying goal, but if we look back we see that everything we have done was done because we wanted to feel happy.

The state of feeling content or happy
is really the goal
of any outward commitment
It's not a specific activity, job, relationship
that satisfies us
What we really want is to feel happy
Therefore we commit ourselves to those activities
we feel will make us happy

The way to reach this goal is to use our energy in activities and pursuits that do not disturb our personal place of ease, that ease we naturally feel when free of stress from trying to get what we don't have and still want.

Experiment: Happiness can be ours at this very moment. Right while reading this, sink into yourself. Feel your body relax and tension drain away. Take a few moments to stop reading and close your eyes—feel how relaxed you become by sinking into your inner state of ease. As you begin reading again continue to enjoy this state of happiness.

Let's remember that the underlying goal in any commitment is to feel harmony and happiness in our lives. Let's make the commitment to feel this natural state of harmony that is already living within us, and from this place of happiness, interact with care and love in the world.

Relaxed in body and mind
At ease
Happiness can be with us right now
It is our natural state of being

5. Meditation Practice

Sit with the spine as perpendicular to the floor as possible. With eyes closed, and breathing evenly in and out, follow the movement of the breath, or mentally repeat an uplifting word or short phrase—all the while feeling love for at least one other person—in order to grow into a more conscious communion with the humanity.

In this stillness of 5 minutes to 15 minutes, or even 60 minutes later on, the body stills, and as a result our mind stills, allowing peace and contentment to arise in our consciousness, and loving energy to flow through us, refreshing us for our work in the world.

And even when we are not sitting in the formal posture of meditation sublime feelings of love can exist. Feeling love's existence in our mind relaxes our mind-body into fullness, ease, wholeness.

Feelings of lovingness
penetrating, permeating
cells of our soul
Our Self in the soul of all
And when we start experiencing ourselves
in the cells of all
we develop clear thinking
useful for everyday living

With clarity in thinking we are able to assess and make decisions for the higher good of each situation. By acting out the best solution consistently, we grow in consciousness, soon thinking and acting for the greater good spontaneously.

We develop clear thinking by:
1. Practicing the esoteric qualities, such as kindness, charity, love;
2. Holding positive attitudes;
3. Spending time in meditation and reflection;
4. Doing useful work or community service;
5. Taking in a clean, drug-free diet;
6. Exercising and getting proper rest;
7. Thinking over all the options, then taking an overview and choosing to act on that which benefits without harming anyone.

Clarity in thinking and living
Choices made for the highest good
of each situation consistently
Meditation
Our most reliable medication
From the peacefulness
the stillness of our body-mind
the clearest and best answers
arise quite naturally
for our use
Quite naturally energized
for use in daily living

6. Considering Marriage

Relationship communion is union
From an ongoing relationship
a point in time comes
where another level must be entered
for the relationship
to grow into permanence
Unconditional acceptance
Unconditional love
The binding ingredient
allowing us to successfully cross
into the permanence of marriage

The partners must feel that they will bear with each other in future situations—no matter what the other is going through. The decision to commit comes at the point in time when we become detached enough to observe how the other is on a regular basis.

From this observation point, we need to ask ourselves if we could maintain our own peacefulness and caring under these circumstances in a daily living situation. It is important to face this analysis, so that the relationship can, if seen to be unconditionally acceptable, be allowed to expand to the level of life mates.

If both partners can not fully accept each other unconditionally, it is time to back off into a less involved relationship. This is not the time to plunge ahead into a live-in situation in hopes of working through obstacles. Pain and discomfort result when obstacles are compounded by living together. The relationship becomes a head-to-head situation, because the two minds are trying to work out issues that are inherently part of each person's point of view. Whereas, unconditional acceptance from both, for each other, is the harmony of hearts cooperating for the highest common good.

Relationship communion is union
The marriage union
being sustained
by unconditional acceptance
Unconditional Love

7. True Love

True Love
Love that reflects the Truth
Experiencing another as an aspect
of our eternal Self
which they truly are
In a love relationship
recognizing, respecting
feeling inspired by our
beloved's True Self
The combined energy rebounding
between the beloveds
Creating the presence
of a greater vibrant energy

It is no wonder that we all seek True Love. A more permanent way to experience the 10,000-times magnification of true love is by personally experiencing deep blissful loving communion in meditation. The bliss of loving communion in meditation is always available to us, whereas a human love may not always be present in the flesh.

Deep regular loving communion in meditation expands our consciousness till we feel our own presence in everyone and all creation. Our life becomes 10,000 times more vibrant when we are in love with all creation.

True Love
In love with all creation
An experience glorious
in its 10,000-fold magnification

True Love
human to human
optimized by
daily deep spiritual communion

8. Spiritualizing Marital Love

Marital love a union, a co-mingling
a transformation, reformation, expansion
of individual energies
Marital love, by its very nature of commitment
plunges us below surface living
revealing a fuller, richer experience of love
Its depths unknown, unobtainable, beforehand
Marital love gives us the element of time
Much time together for sharing and caring
The more time we spend
being loving with our mate
the more we experience the energy of love
Unlimited Love
that energizes our own body
as we think, act with kindness, care

Marital love, union, communion
In the household community of our marriage
In the transformation of our individual energies
by our union of ventures
in care and kindness
we individually become fuller than we were
before our marriage
Deep experiences in living
born of our joint commitment
to experience life fully, lovingly
while interacting with each other
pierce our physical-mental-emotional shell
While retaining all of our individual consciousness
we then enjoy communion
fully energized lovingness
in the depths of the refreshing pool
of unlimited spiritualized marital love

9. Full Humanness

Humanity in marriage
Communion
of body, mind, heart, soul
Nothing less

The long-term purpose of marriage is to transcend the depths of our partner's body, mind, heart, soul—in doing so, reach beyond the limitations of our own barriers and self-centered bondage, beyond self-preoccupation.

Full humanness in marriage, communion of body, mind, heart, soul, is perfectly suited for opening us to our own full nature of unconditional love. In unconditional love we accept that what another is going through is what they need to go through at the moment, and we support their choices for self-growth.

Every act in marriage impacts the partner. If acts are done with kindness and caring then each partner is nurtured. Holding each other close is of utmost importance, because while we are humans and in these physical bodies, acts of intimacy bond and re-bond; catapulting our self-centeredness into self-expansiveness.

The self-exposure
of tender physical intimacy
opens us to our loving emotions

Is there any state of being more precious or fulfilling than a human marriage enjoying full communion of body, mind, heart and soul—searing through the core of one another into universal love and care for everyone and all creation?

10. Who is our Spouse?

Physically, our spouse is the one we married. Like the two poles of a magnet, we attract and cling to each other.

The personality of each person has both male and female qualities in varying degrees, both the heart and head qualities.

The ultimate aim of each individual is to seek an equilibrium in these opposite tendencies in order to lead a balanced, happy life. Going either way too much causes stress. Again, within each mate opposites are present, and the chord of harmony is struck when careful thoughtful loving actions predominate in each of us.

Behind the personality of each
lies a constant
ever-balanced state

This state becomes more evident over a period of time with others and nature. Then, we are feeling and experiencing the reflection of our permanent spirit. Balanced actions reflect the spirit clearly.

Though we complete an outward union in physical mating, we have not achieved the ultimate union possible for each of us. We feel fulfillment in mating for those few moments because we have a communion of our physical body, our emotional and caring thoughts.

We have this fulfillment, also
when in a spiritually balanced state

Our spirit, our soul is always perfectly balanced, and the more we align our actions, our thoughts and feelings with the highest good of the prevailing situation, the more balance and fulfillment we feel pervading our body, thoughts, emotions—our lives.

11. Conscious Spiritual Marriage

Marriage is a carriage
that can take us to the realization of our permanent home
In conscious marriage the couple is aware of this
as the ultimate goal of their life together
The conscious marriage is lived
each serving the other's best interests
above their own desires
in the highest form
When we serve another
out of care for their highest good
we are aligning with our soul
The greatest love is the purest love
free from desires for exclusive personal gain
Meditation each day
gives control
over the ramblings of mind
The mind becomes our servant
not us the mind's toy
As we practice meditation regularly
we begin to feel the inner peace
the lasting calmness
that allows us to think clearly
and analyze to act with right judgement
After meditating for some time
the calmness extends
throughout more and more of the regular day
till we can always turn
to that inward, calm, balanced state
at a moment's notice and need
Past the calmness
comes joy and bliss and full peace
We experience these transcendent feelings
more deeply
the more we practice meditation and right living
by listening to our conscience
When each mate spends time in meditation
and in acting rightly
in accordance with their developing conscience
their union parallels that of the Divine
Fully married
Inseparable
Living a spiritual marriage most fully

12. Comin' Together One on One

Comin' together one on one
Carin' 'n sharin'
enjoyin' the fun
Two lives aligning
settin' forth goals
Two hearts in harmony
no matter what goes
or comes a knockin'
shakin' their ways
Together by choice
the rest of their days
And with the spirit of love
in practice
the marriage of souls
beautif'ly cherished



Susan Kramer is an international author of more than 50 collections and 150 articles on rhythmic dance, ballet, music, philosophy, yoga, social issues and practical spirituality for children, teens, adults and those challenged, with some translations in Dutch, French, German, Greek and Spanish, and with her husband Stan Schaap- http://www.powertoshare.com resides in Amsterdam, The Netherlands.

email susan@susankramer.com
web site  http://www.susankramer.com
site map
Meditation Site at BellaOnline.com, Susan Kramer, Editor

Books for teaching toddlers to teens by Susan Kramer

created December 11, 2000  webmaster