Seeker: Do you think it is possible to be free within a romantic relationship?
■ Andrew Cohen: Almost impossible! The sexual/romantic experience is one of the most confusing areas of human life and seems to be the hardest to get clear about. You see, the sexual/romantic experience almost always creates profound attachment — deep emotional and psychological attachment. And the problem is that, if we want to be free, that is the very thing we want to liberate ourselves from.
But you’re married, aren’t you?
■ Yes, I have been for many years.
So isn’t it possible to pursue freedom together? Can’t we walk the path to enlightenment in the context of a sexual/romantic relationship?
■ One would hope so, but the way you’re asking the question, because it implies a fear of losing something, points to exactly what the problem is. Once again, the thing about sex and romance is that it creates powerful attachment. That is its nature. It is not a free ride, unfortunately. And, therefore, unless we get our priorities clear, it’s almost inevitable that attachment will quickly become more important to us than our own potential liberation in this life. I hear so many people say, ‘We want to pursue freedom together’, but what that almost always means is that holding on to the intensely personal experience of sentimental attachment is their first priority, not the experience of profound inner freedom.
But I don’t understand why there has to be a conflict between freedom and being together.
■ Well, it depends what you mean by freedom. From the perspective of enlightenment, to be free means to be free from attachment. Attachment means, ‘I have something’. But to be free means, ‘I have nothing’. You see, when you hold on to absolutely nothing, you are free — automatically. And the truth that liberates is the profound recognition of just that fact — that your own natural state is already free. The only thing that keeps us in bondage is the unquestioned belief that there is something fundamental that is missing from our own self. So, out of ignorance of our own natural state, we bind ourselves to people and things, convinced that through creating attachment, we will find happiness and contentment. But it never works that way. Because where there is attachment, there is always fear of loss. And where there is fear, there can never be real happiness or deep contentment.
It is the revelation of enlightenment itself that shows all of this directly to us — the perennial truth that real happiness and the only lasting contentment lie within us as our own true Self; our own natural state already full and complete as it is. But, in this unenlightened world, we are all deeply conditioned to believe that happiness and contentment lie somewhere outside our own Self.
If we truly want to be free, we renounce that way of thinking. We give it up because we have had intimations of a profound happiness that is already present deep within our own Self, a lasting contentment that will be ours only when we finally stop looking for it anywhere else.
I do feel strongly drawn towards the profound freedom you’re describing, but I also feel like it’s a natural thing to want to be in a relationship. From the way you’re speaking, it almost sounds like you’re advocating celibacy....
■ All I am trying to do is to present the facts. You asked about sex, romance, and enlightenment, and all I’m saying is that the definition of spiritual freedom is freedom from attachment. Sex creates attachment — that’s all there is to it. And that is why, there is almost always, an inherent conflict between the longing for inner freedom and the karmic consequences of the sexual/romantic experience.
■ Follow Andrew Cohen at speakingtree.in