The following article was compiled from two questions asked of Samuel on January 26, 1987, at Phoenix Institute’s Sunday-night meeting.
QUESTION: Samuel, you recently spoke about a different form of love and sharing that didn’t fall within the traditional bounds our society has. I’d like to ask you to expand on that in the sense that the divorce rate is at the highest level it’s been—it seems to be going higher—to say whether this is a breakdown in the moral fabric of our society or if this is a change in the times from the Piscean to the Aquarian age.
SAMUEL: All of the above. To speak about relationships very often requires a certain presumption that is not necessarily so. There are certain thoughts out about what a relationship is, what loving is, what commitment is, and so forth, that often have very little to do with the actual need to come together. It is very important for a group energy, and for an individual’s growth, to be able to have within its experience those beings who are like yourself, that is, who are complementary—who help growth come about, who meet needs, who challenge, who teach, who are apt students, who satisfy the physical (and that need not be . . . for there are many more things than that). How often have you just wished for somebody to curl up next to, to cry with, to laugh with, to satisfy the physical, the mental and the spiritual? But your being is so very complex that it often is not possible to find one other person to meet all of those needs and, if you do, to actually continue to grow at the same rate; so you are constantly meeting each other’s needs through the changes that you’re naturally going to grow through. So what society has done (and particularly this society, for it is not so around the earth, even at this time) is to put in certain conceptions, so to speak: “everybody has one person that can meet all needs, and when you grow and mature sufficiently, you will find this one, and you will be able to commit for the rest of your life.” Very good, that’s fine. You have chosen to be a part of this society for a reason, my dear, and generally it is because your being has difficulty with commitment, has a certain idea that ownership rights come with loving. If you love a creature, you own it, eh? If you love your house, you own it. If you love your clothing. . . . Ownership comes with privileges of loving. Or this society often infers. Alright on around, on around. The truth of it is, as your being grows spiritually, you start bypassing certain stages. The first is the physical levels. Think about your own growth once again. When you are young, what is the first thing you become aware of when you were thinking of relationships? It is often a hormonal response. You are attracted to others because your hormones are doing the attracting! It is a very physical level response. Even for the highest beings that is often the case. You then work on the mental levels, and finally the spiritual levels. This encompasses many things. The mental body encompasses the emotional body, and emotions are also a part of this. You might have somebody that meets your physical needs, but not your emotional ones, your mental ones, nor your spiritual ones. You experience a desire to be with someone who can help and teach and grow, but it is not only the physical levels that are satisfying to you. And the more you grow you will find yourself attracted to the mental and finally you have that need for the spiritual as the basis for attraction. Those often, on this earth, who have chosen to go more slowly generally consider only the physical, and you know these beings. In fact, you may have been closely attached to one at some time! As you have grown, you found that physical attraction is not enough. And as you grow further still, you find mental attraction is yet not enough. You have surely noticed this society is not filled with only those who are of the highest and finest and quickest of spiritual growth levels; as a result there are many of those who, for one reason or another, are attached or attracted to, due to hormones or plateau times in life, those who are not their spiritual complement, and when they become awakened find it is not satisfactory to remain within the relationship. As the time of awakening grows more quickly forward here, there are more relationships changing greatly. It is not necessary to change the relationship, yet to some it is imperative. You know your own levels of what you can and cannot take anymore, and it’s up to you to determine what the answer is from there. And if you are working in your highest levels, then you are constantly working with love for a situation, and we need not go into this.
Relationships at this time are greatly changing, and the most important thing to end it up with is to recognize that, as change is a part of being, and as you grow and understand love more fully, differently, know that is not necessary to leave all that has been comforting and good. Patience must play a part. Know, also, however, as you grow you come to know and understand yourself more, and that loving yourself is what creates a relationship that works—that is so true—and if the time comes within a relationship in which you are no longer able to be the college student in with the second grader, then not only is it best, but is, my darlings, most likely what the original compact called for. Everybody that is of import in your life is there to help growth come about.
QUESTION: How does one have the mental and spiritual union?
SAMUEL: May I ask how does one not? I will say this: Your being is often run by your physical self. Do you recognize this? Your physical needs of hunger, for instance, determine how your day works. When you are not eating properly, your chemistry goes awry, and you tend to get headaches. You find yourself susceptible, sometimes, to illness of one sort or another. That is often because you are once again prey to the physical element. You also have certain hormonal responses that bring about the desire for sexual union. Often you have known that to be very powerful an experience! Very easy to say that the purpose of sexuality, sexual meeting, is simply to increase population. That is not so. The purpose of sex, of physical union, is to increase the whole being. Everything has a double side. Lessons in physicality, on its lower levels, often show up when not taking care of the body—illness, being the slave to appetite of whatever variety. But on a spiritual level—spiritualized, working in your highest way possible to bring forth that which is good, your highest levels—your physical level is a doorway to greater, stronger spiritual union. Unfortunately for many, this doorway is totally misunderstood and misused. Instead of it becoming an offshoot of spiritual growth, spiritual growth never comes about, because the lower physical self takes over. And the being never gets beyond physical growth and initiation into the mental and the spiritual because they become so enamored with what the physical is able to offer. What a tease the physical be, eh? As you grow, physical appetites start showing themselves, and to concentrate on them becomes a detour. Granted, my darlings, it’s not to say that you’re not going to reach the end of your path. Simply that in detouring, you’ve chosen a slower route. I do not say that it is not correct to have physical desire, but that the desire does not control you, but you control it.
There is an actual chemical change that happens within the chemical body, your etheric self, upon the act of sexual union. This connection brings about a stronger being. It is addictive. And as the runner chooses to go for the “runner’s high”, even to the detriment and breakdown of the body, so it is that that beautifully wrought spiritual union through sexual intercourse becomes addictive, and it is desired to have “that thing” instead of the whole picture, and therefore sight is lost.
How to overcome? You overcome. There is reason that many great teachings seem to be oriented around celibacy. When you purposefully turn your mind away from a thing, that new awareness brings about a change. The energy that is brought up by your hormones can be redirected, and I encourage you to do it, and usually the awareness of the purposefully redirected thought processes, the awareness alone will affect your mental level, and the results of that effect work in your spiritual. To immediately go beyond the physical, without the experience of conflict, does not bring great growth. Harmony through conflict, my dears. Your experience on this earth is meant to be a constant balancing and learning to control, to act and react. So do not fret that you have this beautiful sexual nature, but wait to use it until you have a stronger understanding of what your total being is about. How much there is to learn. Do you know everything there is to know? Are you satisfied with how much you’ve grown in your mental states? Are you controlled emotionally? Well, if not, perhaps you need to work on these things, on harmonizing these things, rather than the physical levels. Start at the top instead of at the bottom; start with the spiritual inclinations instead of the physical ones. Oh, but doesn’t that make for many a lonely winter?
What is it that you said at the meeting last night, Stuart dear? For the Board you said, “You know, there comes a time that it’s not quantity, it’s quality.” And that be true in all things. If you allow yourself to wait, my dears, to come to a place where you love and understand yourself, that love will naturally spread out to others, and relationships grow naturally on its own from there—without manipulation, fretting and thinking of self, but a positive outgrowth. Then you will have that quality, and you will likely be with one who works very well with you, and with whom you can spend many years of growth, and therefore not have problems with the breakdown in the moral fiber of these states. Start from the spiritual aspect. Your power is in your spirit. Your conflict is in your mind. And more often than not your downfall is in your body. So start from the top.
Did that sufficiently answer your question, and still get in what I’ve been just delighted to talk about?!