The Following is from The Basket Of Tolerance, Booklet Series, number 8. Published by the Dawn Horse Press, from an Essay by Ruchira Avatar Adi Da Samraj, published in 2000. I Call you to Go Beyond the "Oedipal" Sufferings of Childhood Part One of an Essay from Ruchira Avatar Hridaya-Tantra Yoga By The Divine Worid-Teacher, RUCHIRA AVATAR ADI DA SAMRAJ The first noticings of emotional-sexual polarization and sexual suggestion are in relationship to one's parents. Children, however are naive. They have no discrimination, no present-lifetime learning about emotional-sexual matters, and, therefore, the judgments they make about these matters are almost invariably misjudgments, associated (generally) with incestuous ideas and complications. In most cases, parents do not make directly incestuous gestures toward their children, but (whether or not this is the case) children naively interpret their parents' response to them to be incestuous. Children presume a certain kind of relationship to the parent of the opposite sex and a different kind of relationship to the parent of the same sex. In addition, children feel betrayed by the love, and even the sexual sign, that they observe between their parents. When the individual becomes an adolescent, and (on that basis) comes to adult age, the naive observations and presumptions of childhood remain intact, in the form of (generally) unconscious and subconscious (or unobserved and non-responsible) patterns of body, emotion, and mind. And, until those patterns are transcended (or responsibly lived beyond), they always thereafter remain as the very basis of everything that the "adult" does in emotional-sexual terms (and even in all other terms). Thus, every individual coming to adolescence , and then to adult age, is (to one or another degree) complicated by what are, in fact, incestuous (or early-life-patterned) problems. Indeed, the entire pattern and force of every individual's emotional-sexual life is based on incestuous (or early-life-patterned) impulses and interpretations. Until one goes beyond the naive misinterpretations of emotional-sexual life that one has generated in relation to one's parents (and other early-life relations), one will not truly achieve adulthood. Rather, one will simply reenact the patterns based on the naive misjudgments of childhood. Therefore, the entire field of one's emotional-sexual relations as a presumed adult will, in fact, be incestuous "theatre" (or a kind of eternal childhood, otherwise interrupted only by the confused counter-childhood reactivity of the adolescent character). Everything that one learned from (or reacted to in) the parent of the opposite sex, one brings to one's adult relations with all individuals of the opposite sex. And, similarly, everything that one learned from (or reacted to in) the parent of the same sex , one brings to one's adult relations with all individuals of the same sex. Thus, in the typical case, one tends to relate to any individual of the opposite sex as one did to the parent of the opposite sex. Likewise, one tends to relate to any individual of the same sex as one did to the' parent of the same sex. Most people suffer these "Oedipal" (or incestuous) complications for their entire lives. No one can be free to live his or her emotional-sexual relationships fully, unless and until the childhood patterns in relationship to parents (or parent-figures) are transcended. Every female child tends to feel that she was rejected by her father, merely because he did not associate with her sexually. Likewise, every male child tends to feel that he was rejected by his mother, merely because she did not associate with him sexually. Therefore, every one's first awareness of sexuality is the feeling of being rejected! Thereafter, all one's emotional-sexual wanderings and trials and experiments and commitments are always complicated by this fundamental feeling of rejection that originates in early childhood. If you were fortunate enough to have parents who exhibited the basic signs of being in love and happy with one another, then part of the healing of your "Oedipal" problem is simply the acceptance of the fact that you were not betrayed by anyone! The fact that parents love each other does not mean that they reject their offspring. They also love their children, but differently, simply as their children. Thus, a girl is not rejected by her father because he loves her mother, and a boy is not rejected by his mother because she loves his father. The feeling of rejection is simply the child's naive misinterpretation of observed reality. Fundamentally, however, the life of the ego is based on this illusion that one has been betrayed, and, on the basis of this illusion, human beings presume "you do not love me", or "I am not loved". Such a presumption defines the individual as the ego-"I". To be a defined consciousness implies separation, and this separation is naturally projected into the scene of one's human experience. It may be that something in one's childhood experience did, in fact, communicate betrayal. However, even if no such event actually occurred in one's childhood, one (nevertheless) presumes such an event, in order to differentiate (or individuate) oneself. Children naively invent even monstrous interpretations of (otherwise) ordinary events, because they are at an age at which they do not have much insight into experience. Their awareness of things is inherently incomplete. Some of the conceived events of betrayal may be relatively true. Others do not have any of the significance the child presumes. Nevertheless, presumptions of betrayal are the inevitable basis of emotional-sexual learning, even from the earliest moments of life. The sense of betrayal, or "you do not love me , is the same as the sense of "me". The feeling of betrayal is the ego-"I"! The ego-" I" is not an entity, the ego-"I" is an activity. The ego-"I" is the avoidance of relationship (or the contraction of feeling-attention). The life of the ego-"I" is separation and separativeness, or the reactive pattern of "you do not love me". Nevertheless, it is possible to be converted, transformed, and rightly adapted, and, thus, to no longer live as the ego-"I" (or the separate and separative self-sense). Through devotionally Me-recognizing and devotionally to-Me-responsive heart-Communion with Me, the self-contraction is released (or felt beyond), and real love awakens (in ego-transcending Immersion in My Infinite Field of Love-Bliss). Thus, My devotee is relieved of the separate and separative self-sense through feeling-Contemplation of Me, and, by Means of devotional Communion with Me, My devotee is relieved of the emotional contraction in the midst of all relationships. One's parents may not have loved one another very well. Their relationship may have been full of difficulties and infidelities. In any case, in order to go beyond one's "Oedipal" limits, it is necessary to exercise compassion for one's parents (and for even all human beings), and to understand and accept their human ordinariness (and to understand and accept the ordinary, difficult, and conditional nature of even all beings, and of even all of life), and, in that manner (even if one was orphaned, or somehow, never knew one's parents, and, otherwise, no matter what they, or even any one, ever did or said), one must grow to actively not presume (or, in any manner reactively affirm) that one was betrayed or rejected by them (or by any one at all, or by life itself, or by Nature Itself, or by Reality, or Real God, Itself). Without this conversion from self-contraction to ego-transcending compassion and heart-radiant love, there can be no Divine Enlightenment. Unqualified Love-Bliss-Realization and Divine Enlightenment are the same. Divine Enlightenment is Most Perfect Relief from the contraction that is the ego-"I" (or the complex psycho-physical avoidance of relationship). Therefore, if one desires to Awaken Spiritually, the childish presumption of betrayal (or of being unloved) must be transcended. In the years beyond childhood, it is totally inappropriate to be obsessively watching to see whether or not one is loved! In order to be free to love and to be responsible in one~ s intimacies, one must be free of infantilism, free of childish and adolescent patterns of conflict (of dependence versus independence, and of constant looking for love, and despairing of love, and desperate coping, waiting for love to disappear). The point to be "considered" in any moment is not whether or not you are being loved. What must be observed (and felt beyond) is that you yourself are not loving. The feeling of betrayal, of not being loved, is a "cover" for one's own failure to love (and, thus, a "cover" for the contraction that is the ego-"I"). The chronic feeling that one has been betrayed in love is a chronic failure to realize and confess that you are "Narcissus",4 and that it was you who abandoned parents, friends, and lovers. It was not their abandonment of you that caused you to cease to love, and to become a betrayer of all love. The reaction of un-love is entirely the responsibility of each individual. Until this is most fundamentally understood, every emotional-sexual relationship carries with it (and repeatedly dramatizes) the feeling of being rejected. In that case, to be emotionally and sexually associated with another individual always means, immediately, and most deeply, that one feels personally rejected. Because of the "Oedipal" conflict, one's heart-feeling for any individual with whom one is intimate does not become full. Therefore, emotional-sexual relationships are never satisfactory, and cannot become satisfactory, except in individuals who persist in observing this "Oedipal" complication to the point of most fundamental self-understanding (and, thus, the moment to moment really exercised capability of transcending themselves). The "consideration" of sexuality in the only-by-Me Revealed and Given Way of Adidam (Which is the One and Only by-Me-Revealed and by-Me-Given Way of the Heart) is not about sexuality in and of itself. Fully right sexual practice cannot rightly and fully be "considered" until the entire history of one's emotional-sexual life is rightly and fully inspected (and become a matter of conscious responsibility). The key to the "consideration" of sexuality is emotional adaptation, because sex is not an isolated function. No one is controlled by the function of sex exclusive of emotion. Every individual's relationship to sex is determined, absolutely and entirely, by emotional adaptation. If one is emotionally responsible, and lives as love, no longer emotionally crippled (or constantly watching to see whether one is loved or not), then it follows quite naturally that one is also sexually responsible (or free to become fully sexually responsible, even in the fully regenerative Yogic sense). It is impossible to become responsible for sexuality exclusive of prior responsibility for emotions. Every individual must first confront the emotional adaptation that underlies his or her sexual pattern. Human beings live as if betrayed, in order to justify the egoic gesture of the avoidance of relationship. Having inspected the history of his or her life, My devotee must confess that he or she is "Narcissus", and has (chronically) failed (or, truly, refused) to love. The gesture of un-love is unnecessary, even in childhood. Human beings can always actively love, even in the face of apparent betrayal, but, instead, they tend to choose the act of separation, and all the acts of separativeness. Certainly, every individual needs to differentiate himself or herself functionally from his or her parents (and from even every one, and all), but it is not necessary that functional differentiation be associated with a bizarre emotional episode that can go on for many years, or even for the entire lifetime (and, thus, potentially, even for many lifetimes). I (Myself) find that My devotees tend to dramatize an "Oedipal" relationship even to Me. Individuals tend to fall into a disposition toward Me in which they regard Me, psychologically, to be their father. Male devotees, therefore, tend to be in fearful (and rejection-sensitive) competition with Me, and female devotees tend to try to develop some kind of a (rather incestuous, but also fearful, and rejection-sensitive) "girlfriend" relationship with Me. But I am neither the father (or any kind of parent) nor the "boyfriend" of My devotees. Therefore, even in order to rightly and truly practice as My devotee, and, as My devotee, to establish right and true emotional-sexual relatedness with any one at all, one must come to a point of real clarity about this "Oedipal" matter. Acquired emotional patterns tend to remain in place, instigating the repetition of old patterns, because the force of reactively self-patterned tendency (or karma) is tremendous, and (potentially) goes beyond the present lifetime. The force of reactively self-patterned tendency is nothing less than the force of the movement toward incarnation itself. No human being is new. All human beings are patterns of mostly unconscious memory (or pattern itself). The body itself is memory, for memory is not merely in the mind. All the forms that exist are conditioned by previous influences. It is a law of natural physics that what is set in motion continues in motion, until it is deflected or replaced by another motion. Therefore, I Call all My fully (and, necessarily, formally) practicing devotees to change their action on the basis of their devotional recognition-response to Me and their self-understanding (and even "radical understanding, or most fundamental root-understanding, and always active transcending, of the "remembered" self, or the observed pattern that is the evident ego-"I"). The subjective signs of old adaptations will (until they are utterly dissolved in heart-Communion with Me) continue to arise, in the form of casual moments of desiring, and in the form of reactions in the midst of the always changing circumstances of life. Nevertheless, My devotees need not be concerned about these old patterns, nor dramatize them in any form, whether emotional, or mental, or physical. These tendencies are mechanical (or patterned into the psycho-physical apparatus of the body-mind) , and, thus, they will inevitably continue to appear, until they become obsolete through non-use, or the responsible practice of always present-time non-reaction. Whatever is not used becomes obsolete. Thus, through My devotees' devotional relationship to Me... all their patterns of emotional-sexual reactivity eventually pass (or, altogether, lose their negative force, by becoming subsumed in a greater pattern, and, Most Ultimately, into the Great Reality). My true devotees become both sensitive and adapted to the Principle of unqualified relationship, rather than to the principle of the ego-"I" (or the avoidance of relationship), and, thus, both the subjective and the outwardly active signs of loveless adaptation are progressively weakened in them. Eventually, their subjective urges to loveless action disappear, and the motion they demonstrate in life becomes only love and devotional Communion with Me. Therefore, My devotees must be committed to the moment to moment devotionally Me-recognizing and devotionally to-Me-responding practice of ego-surrendering, ego-forgetting, and (more and more) ego-transcending feeling-Contemplation of Me. This is the counter-egoic Principle that relieves My devotees of the struggle with "Narcissus ". Love of Me is truly "in-Love", expressed as Ruchira Avatar Bhakti Yoga,6 or true devotion to Me through surrender of all of the faculties of the body-mind to Me, moment by moment. In this manner the "Oedipal" response to Me and the "Oedipal" response to all others is made obsolete. I Call all My formally acknowledged devotees to this converted life of devotional Communion with Me. I Call them all to go beyond the "Oedipal" sufferings of childhood, including all of childhood's even "adult" (or always present-time) signs, in the form of sexual obsessions and the inability to love. I Call them all to become responsible as love in all relationships, under all conditions, and (thus) to transcend the repetitive and loveless destiny of the ego-"I". And I Call them all to do this by Means of the formal and self-responsible and ego-surrendering embrace of the right, true, full, and fully devotional practice of the only-by-Me Revealed and Given Way of Adidam

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