Love and Spirituality

The most radical U-turn in Love is from 'Wanting to Have' to 'Taking an Interest in'

Part 1
I am torn between
- sexual hunger and longing for love
- a wide political strength and the desire for a perceptible home
- the longing for intimacy and the will towards independence and my own strength

I am torn between Eros and religion,

between earthly and heavenly loves,
between wanting to have and giving,
between measuring and trust,
between sex and spirit,
between knowledge and the dark night of forgetting.

I am the longing for wholeness.

If I meet a man who reaches my heart AND who satisfies my desires, then he is my arouser, my Messiah.
My world collapses into a point.
The man doesn't know what he is doing any more.
The man is lonely, when the woman loses herself in him. He can't find her.
The woman is lonely, if the man loses himself in her. She can't find him.

I am the longing for wholeness.

Dieter Duhm
"There would be no longing, if there was also no fulfilment. Follow your longing in such a way that you connect with its fulfilment. What our subjective desire longs for always exists at the same time as an objective fulfilment. The world has a built-in polarity, and something new will arise from staying in this polarity. Here is the longing, and here is that which fulfils the longing:
Act within this potential, and you will be within the process of life itself."

"The tragedy of the love relationships in the last century lies in the fact that something was sought in a place where it cannot be found. They looked to an individual person for something which they lost in the universe.
The loss of the spiritual triggers a whirlpool of demands on the individual person. Love is confused with the personal fixation with each other, and this carries with it the fear of loss. Free love - love without fear - can only be found if we have re-discovered the anchor to the universe."

Part II
My vision is that as I am travelling along the path of Love, I am at the same time beginning a spiritual training. That means that I study the beings of Love - I take a spiritual standpoint hereafter as a necessity of my daily life.

Four 'Chapters' about the beings of Love:

1. Love is a cosmic energy -
Free love is a quality of creation - not a human invention. Not even a ZEGG invention.

Love is like a fireball.
The erotic is like the Paradise bird -
if you try to grab it, it slips out of your grasp.

"Eros is an expression of universal love.
Eros is not something that one can receive or own. But it is with you,
if you give space to the freedom in your soul." (Sabine Lichtenfels)

If we let go of the perspective of 'wanting to have', in order to study the power of love and Eros, then we can develop ourselves into a holder which attracts and charges itself with these powers.

Love loves casualness.
It likes to come in, where an opening is, where there is an aligned energy.

Don't search, just find:
I make sure that I am ready.
I invite: and the acceptance of an invitation is always voluntary!
That is the secret: love comes when it is allowed to, not when it has to.

How we would like to grab, own and plan Eros! "Now I'm ready. So it should come now."
From this perspective we get angry if it doesn't come.
From the cosmic view we know that "when we want to grab it, it slips out of our grasp" -
so we should not grab it, not really, perhaps only in play.

Through letting go and stepping out of the pattern of always making reference to something, there's a lightness in my body which is attractive. Eros doesn't happen 'in order to'. Eros is 'ease-iness'. And from this it is a spiritual teacher in the finest and most direct sense!

Our bodily suffering comes from trying to bring the cosmic power of love into an earthly container (and earthly claims and thoughts) which doesn't have the appropriate form for Love's flux.

What does the container look like, which can attract the cosmic power of Love and Eros?

I will try to answer this in the next chapter.

2. Every Being has its Place.

In an organism, in a biotope, in a planetary system
and in a relationship network, every being has its place.
Who are you? What is your way, which type of love is appropriate for you? What is your gift, your talent for the Whole? What is best for you in this phase of your life?
Who are you in connection with other men/women?

In a functioning Biotope there is no comparison and no competition!
If everything has found its place and taken it in, there is no competition.

Who is the other? What type of love is appropriate for him or her?
What is the relationship to him made up of? What is the right distance to keep between you? What place does he have in your heart? The more precisely that we know this, the more conflict free and clear our interactions can be.

Out of this comes a network of relationships, which embraces me.
Maybe one lies there where many of my sensory lines lead, with someone who is particularly close to me, particularly trusted. Perhaps this person is a live-in-boyfriend ... a partner ... perhaps.
Give yourself time with these definitions! We define so often only because we can be more secure with him that way ... We say "in love", "that is my partner" - and with this mean that we want him to stay. However we often don't even know him yet!

Every Being has its place. Give yourself time to find this place!

How often, after an exciting night, have I thought "He's the one ..."
With the thought "He's the one" the peak is already gone.
Fear shoots in. The question, whether he also wants me. - Couldn't we wait ...?
Imagine, there used to be rituals where the joy from these type of nights was given out into the world by means of a song or another talent. With these rituals you didn't need to bind it to the person with whom you were able to experience it. This person helped to release this joy. Yes. I want to meet them again. Yes.
Let us see what happens, if we meet again.

Love needs time. So let us find ways of loving with which we can, without hurrying, discover without defining. In the act of defining we call up years' worth of collected hope and disappointment, and these will remain with us in our interactions.
The view of the other is thus blocked with old pictures and wishes!
Keep your view clear, looking at the other with a cosmic view: at his being, his working, his becoming.
Direct your interest at the idea, at his and your potential.
From this a faithfulness arises by itself, in which you can believe.

A question which belongs to this study of love is, how can we enable a maximum of communication, and this, when possible, in a complete love-network/biotope. By this I mean a way of communicating which is not focussed on me, since then I wouldn't be able to recognise others.
For example, I can't recognise the being of a loved one if my view is clouded by the question, whether he really loves me. However, if I can see from a spiritual viewpoint, for example how and where he loves other women, where his heart beats faster, where he doesn't trust himself, but really wants to ...
... then I can support his growth, perhaps even if it isn't appropriate to my needs of the moment. Because I have understood it.
This type of communication needs a large social framework.

In the relationship between man and woman there are so many factors at play - our culture, the history, upbringing, the biographical experiences ...
The healing work that is waiting to be done between man and woman can not happen between only two people. This is cultural work.
It takes a whole tribe to nourish a love relationship.
Hence it is our task to build up again conscious biotopes (communities), in which lovers can find an organic human environment, which makes available many very different healing factors, on a level above that of the individual. Free love only makes sense, in fact it can only exist, if it comes as a bundle together with trust and honesty between people.

3. In Creation there is no such thing as a Closed System

And likewise in Love. No relationship can truly cut itself off from outside attractions. And from a cosmic viewpoint it is incomprehensible why one should do this.
A person who loves is beautiful, and will thus naturally be loved by other people.
An everywhere where Love is happening serves as an enrichment for the whole.
Attractions outside the relationship are nourishing.
When you are busy getting to know each other then for a while you will not be looking at the outside attractions. But you should know that they will come into view - and prepare yourself to make them welcome, when it reaches that stage.
That also applies to earlier lovers. I cannot wish that my lover should abandon his earlier lovers - since my soul knows that I am one of them.
Instead we find a spiritual strength in Love which includes the earlier lovers (if there really was love). Then my soul knows that it can always remain a part of his heart.
I no longer abandon anyone.
The more I end relationships and leave people, the more my own fear grows, that I will be abandoned. Free love does not mean changing from one to the next. You will never find what you are looking for if you always quit at the same point.

"There are no closed systems".
Now, many will agree with this. "Hurrah, away with the fences, away with the contracts, Love is free" ...
It is like that for many who return home after being at ZEGG and with full enthusiasm throw all their old ways overboard.
These are understandable reactions, and perhaps for one or two people it really is the right time to do that. However, for many it is far too early and far too unaware - a reaction that doesn't come from their own knowledge. They are not launching themselves into free love, but instead into a chaotic mess of complicated multiple relationships, or a spree of non-committal sexual consumption....
"Until they regret it and turn back to their good old ways, which ZEGG thinks are stupid, and don't come here again for a couple of years. ...". - we think that is a pity.
We need a spiritual understanding of Love - this is a lot more than a quick reaction.

Freedom does not mean: as much and as often as possible!
Freedom means: being in a position to make a conscious decision:
to know, who I am; to know, who the other is; to know or to find out, which form of contact suits us; when does the full 'Yes' come; when can I go into this contact with an aware and open heart.

Check whether your heart is open when you approach a partner sexually.
Approach them only if you feel a clear feeling of love and joy in yourself.
A connection with the heart shows itself, amongst other ways, in that you are sure of this wish.

I am speaking in favour of a deceleration - above all during the conferences here at ZEGG.

Sensual contact wants to be a service to God - a celebration of the meeting - or it wants to serve recognition: sexuality means to recognise yourself.
Both happen easier if we slow down and are more aware of ourselves.

Free love is the beginning of a path.
It is a study of life and lasts the whole life.
And at the beginning of the path it makes sense to only take those steps which I understand with my current knowledge and which I find correct. To only take those steps which I can take in trust and with my complete heart.
Those which I can take without fear.
And there I don't just mean my fear, but my friend's fear as well! Since when I set loose fear in others through my spontaneous, un-thought-out action, it will come back on me. Suddenly I feel fear. That does not mean that I make other people's fear my own. But I would like to begin a spiritual communication through which others can understand my behaviour.

4. Love loves beauty.
Beauty is the brilliance of the truth.

Each being is beautiful, if it has found its own place.
Each person is beautiful, if they are connected with their true being.
Look at yourself in the mirror; if you don't find yourself beautiful then you didn't look correctly.
Perhaps you see something that makes you ugly. It is pretence. Behind the pretence is beauty.

Love assumes self-love. It is difficult to love someone who doesn't love themselves.
In order to love yourself ... you need someone face-to-face with you.
There is no self-consciousness without being perceived.
Make sure that you are perceived. Show your being.
Self-love means: to know your own design ... this is often experienced through the eyes of others.
If I know my own outline then I can also have the courage to change. It is not suction that attracts me. It is our spiritual duty, to develop the best possible.

Each being is beautiful, if it has found its own place.
Find your place: and if you still don't know it, ask "Where are my talents needed?"

People who circle around themselves or around the question of how they are loved ... offer the angel of love no landing place whatsoever. They are fully occupied by themselves. The telephone to the Universe is engaged.
People who have intentions are beautiful.
Since they are connected with a bigger power.

The task of a love relationship should be to emphasise the beauty and light of each other - a community of growth in service to the world.

Part III.
Sabine Lichtenfels
The divine consciousness does not create needs for you to renounce them. However, it doesn't create needs for you to succumb to them. Each need, wish, desire is your teaher and serves a higher insight. Every inner wish is your signpost to God.

I put myself in service of science.
I am a student of the power of Love. I want to know, what the being of Love is, when it flows by itself, what it needs in order to grow. Through what is it attracted? How can I use my spiritual knowledge in the field of genital love?

That means: I study. I would like to find something out about Love.
My desire for knowledge comes to the foreground the moment that I step back with my needs.
It is not me that is the centre of the world, but the aim to understand love, how it becomes free of fear.

That is the main change of direction.
The centre of the world is not 'I'.
Who is the other? TO SEE, who the man is - without turning back towards myself and my needs.
Lovers so often know so little about themselves; this has to do with the way they relate everything to themselves. That makes perception/truth hardly possible.

The centre of the world is not 'I'.
From 'wanting to have' to 'taking an interest', not only in others but also in the fate of Love.
It is not about 'cashing in' here and now, but about understanding.
I want to acquire more substance - that has more weight than the previous night.

I am the centre of the world - when I am connected with the centre of the world:
Not out of my own strength. Not from my own account. Not the straight line of an arrow which having been shot then sticks itself somewhere and bores itself a hole - instead the circle of a larger strength related to eternity.

First of all, sex needs the religious connection, because otherwise it is always a replacement.
You must go first to God, and then to the man.
I have to put in place the spiritual connection before I go to a man.
That means that I make contact with my larger form - otherwise he has to be the replacement for my connectedness. I look to see: am I present. am I in trust. Do I believe in success.
Of course I can also sometimes go there when things aren't going so well for me. But it comes from the inner attitude: do I know, that I should not confuse this man with my own source.
He cannot replace my personal work.
That is to do with respect: we have to respect the holy zones of the other.

Go first to God, and then to the man.
Because when God is there, then you are at home with yourself, and then the man can also meet someone that he would not otherwise meet.

The spiritual experience is that Love is always there.
You can at any time lock into it, when you let go of the stresses of the ego-centred world.
You are - when you lock on - loved just how you are, without conditions.

Since I have been a mother I know these qualities of Love: I have the full responsibility for the contact to the child. I have to take everything to me that doesn't please me. Either I correct him or I change my behaviour.
The secret of unconditional love is: I have the full responsibility for the contact.

In Love, it hangs on the moment when you no longer measure.
When you love, because you love.

That is what peace between man and woman feels like.
When each person is at home with themselves and at home with God and then they meet.

Love is communication from centre to centre.

The most radical U-turn in Love is that from 'Wanting to Have' to 'Taking an Interest In'.

ZEGG