Yes, David - this sounds like a good general criteria or litmus test :'Love begins when a person feels another person's needs to be as important as his own'.

I suppose it could be distinguished from other confusions of feeling another person's needs as important as their own - like some co-dependent emeshments or excessive identification and projection, to use some jargony categories, and such.

I like the simplicity and ordinariness of that piece of a definition - we get something of what that means.
Thanks, Ambo

---

Ambo Suno

Hey Dimitri, welkome aboard-gab-scribble hey alls'KI

I will pick up , more or less where You left off, but first a note on my avatar-foto ,taken two days ago with L. camera,  during this  love- birds' stroll in the Botanical Gardens. My handsome son and his beautiful grrrl

They look , seem very 'chakra-compatible' - tho her parents were born raised in Italy , they "aren't into church".  "I want to have a normal life and she does too". "She's all about family values". They spend a lot of time bumming around the outdoors. And he opens the car door for her! I'm impressed And am glad he didn't die in that horrific car crash in July of 2025 , despite my earlier that year - "why do  I keep thinking M. is going to die in July!?"

"His strong body got  the brunt of it that's why it wasn't worse.  He may not need surgery on his liver........ " etc, said the doctor . His body language made/gave  me fear-shiver  (the wound - rip in his liver was 17 cm. long, as well as damaged spleen , among other body-traumas which kept him in the ICU for 4 I think days and then some). Joy riding! "youthful exuberance" , the news-person said. The doc. indicated he probably saved some lives . 5 in all , my kid a back-seat passanger........  And his life hasn't been the same. Ma and pa  divorce that year ,  loosing house, relocation. Glad his radiant sweetie  is waaaay in love with him, and he mad about her 

It's a given, no? when our  hearts are clear and open , the lower  chakras 'urges' are 'smoothed out' , they become illuminated with soul qualities. When the higher chakra centers are clear and open the couple's urge becomes rooted in a different dimension which supports the energies to  co-create along side in harmony with one another.......

*Committed Dancers* is   written all over  their auras ...Commited to supporting  one another  in all aspects of their lives.  To make real their Soul-bond...to make real    their visions and dreems. To nurture ... to laugh and cry ... trusting all the while, even when the going gets rocky , each will have a strong shoulder to lean on.

 

 

   

Ages ago a forum poster whose name I don't recall, said somt. like - 'the best thing a father can do is to love their children's  mother' . Makes a whole lotta of role-modelling sense to me no?

Personally speaking, despite the oft. turbulent ma-pa occasions, (frikin' kundalini energy-thing din't help) the kids felt secure , because those far outweight the sane-happy times..and there are plenty of family pictures to show that.... which they love sharing with their partners. 

 

Pattye

pattye:

That is my ending. No more thoughts. That is unless you want to pursue this.   

Sorry if I offended you, Pattye!  That wasn't my intention. As the originator of the thread, I wanted to keep it on track - as a thread about integral relationships.  The thread has lasted so long partly because it has kept its focus.   Otherwise we're back with the spamming problem which has been discussed so much on this forum, and which seems to have led some people to leave. I agree with you in not wanting to pursue questions of what were and were not written in Grace and Grit, which would be getting us off topic!   That's why I may have seemed terse. I wanted to draw a line under that issue and move us back on topic.  On this forum, its down to the members themselves to do this, as you know.

Good wishes to you Pattye

~ D

---

'This is all the time you'll ever have'.
~ Dr Hannibal Lecter

DmitriWolf:

            Autonomy. The attainment of autonomy is manifested by the release or recovery of three capacities: awareness, spontaneity, and intimacy.
            Awareness. Awareness means the capacity to see a coffeepot and hear the birds sing in one’s own way, and not the way one was taught… Awareness requires living in the here and now, and not in the elsewhere, the past or the future.
            Spontaneity. Spontaneity means option, the freedom to choose and express one’s feelings from the assortment available. It means liberation… from the compulsion to play games…
            Intimacy. Intimacy means the spontaneous, game free candidness of an aware person, the liberation of the eidetically perceptive, uncorrupted Child in all its naivete living in the here and now.

           

Hi Dmitri, and welcome!

That's a great first post.   I've been a fan of TA since the 70's, and I think that the implications you point out for the integral approach to relationships provide true insights.

A few posts back, I shared a recent experience of awareness-spontaneity-intimacy, when I was walking in the woods.  It had an almost shocking pleasure, like diving into cold water on a hot day.  And this showed how my life, like most others, is often so enmeshed in pastimes, games and rituals, so that a moment of 'liberation' feels wildly contrasting....  Possibly as Ambo felt in the desert not long ago? 

Yes, you are exactly right:  no intimacy until we drop the games.

Your mention of the 'uncorrupted Child' would make Wilber look stern!   He often denounces the idea of childhood innocence, and his model depends on the notion of a gradual ascension towards liberation rather than a loss of original liberation - he denies what he calls the 'pre/trans fallacy', as you probably know, the confusion of the pre-rational with the trans-rational.

However, there's something in Berne's reference to the innocence of kids when it comes to relationships, isn't there?   Most of us will have sat in a waiting room or a bus with a kid staring at us, totally unself-conscious and unguarded.   No games there.  On the other hand, a relationship between an adult and a child has limitations, doesn't it?   The adult's greater experience and knowledge places them at a power advantage - there can be intimacy but not equality....

Berne sees everyone as parent, adult and child in themselves, with a balance between these aspects making for health.  For example, although adult provides maturity and rationality, without a free child element we tend to be dry and dull, and without a nurturing parent side we can lack compassion for others.  Game playing often results from an imbalance in these aspects:  a dominant child can become manipulative and attention-seeking, a dominant parent can become judgemental and tyrannical....

Lots of relevance to this topic, Dmitri - many thanks!

~ David 

 

---

'This is all the time you'll ever have'.
~ Dr Hannibal Lecter

ambosuno:

Yes, David - this sounds like a good general criteria or litmus test :'Love begins when a person feels another person's needs to be as important as his own'.

I suppose it could be distinguished from other confusions of feeling another person's needs as important as their own - like some co-dependent emeshments or excessive identification and projection, to use some jargony categories, and such.

I like the simplicity and ordinariness of that piece of a definition - we get something of what that means.

Yes, 'keep it simple' - good motto, isn't it, Ambo?

I take your point about co-dependency etc.  Would co-dependency be about feeling that the other's needs are more important than one's own?    So that we identify with them and lose the sense of our own inherent value?

To love someone in a healthy way would be to retain awareness of oneself in relation to the other, in balance, both orbiting each other rather one subservient to the other....

~ D

---

'This is all the time you'll ever have'.
~ Dr Hannibal Lecter

"Love begins when a person feels another person's needs to  be as important as his own" -

 Don't know if it's a twin-thing, or not, but last winter (95/6)  I witnessed a love-in-action moment . My 'avatar' kidson was out of job, out of shoes ,  his bro handed him a pair with  - "here, you can have these , it's real leather , you can wash that scuff mark  with Comet and brush ...here I'll show you...mom where is that small brush!??" - minutes later he hands bro the shoes - "as good as new".

OK, this is weird but this 'am-moment' (CU) ,  I heard a man weep ... I knelt to embrace him , that is why I decided to post in the relationship's topic . ("knelt"? we were face to face at the 'kneeling ' hight)  

And speaking of contempt for those who are 'weaker', Alice Miller in her The Drama of the Gifted Child - The search for the True Self in chapter three The Vicious Circle of Contempt , describes a poignant  - 'parents were happy listening to their two year old cry with anguish......." - moment , which she personally witnessed and it will sound better if I note-quote her:

The two had just bought themselves ice-creame bars on sticks from the kiosk and were licking with enjoyment. The little boy wanted one, too. His mother said affectinately, "Look, you can have a bite of mine,,a whole one is too cold for you." The child did not want just one bite but held out his hand for the whole ice, which his mother took out of his reach again. He cried in despair, and soon exactly the same thing was repeated with his father: "There you are, my pet," said his father affectinately, "you can have a bite of mine." "No, no," cried the child and ran ahead again, trying to distract himself. Soon he came back again and gazed enviously and sadly up at the two grown-ups, who were enjoying their ice creames contentedly and at one. Time and again he held out his little hand for the whole ice-creame bar, but the adult hand with its treasure was withdrawn again.

The more the child cried, the more it amused his parents. It made them laugh a lot and they hoped to humor him along with their laughter, too:  "Look, it isn't important, what a fuss you are making." Once the child sat down on the ground and began to throw little stones over his shoulders in his mother's direction, but suddenly got up again and looked around anxciously, making sure that his parents were still there. When his father had completely finished his ice cream, he gave the stick to the child and walked on. The little boy licked the bit of wood expectantly, looked at it, trew it away, wanted to pick it up again but did not do so, and a deep sob od loneliness and disappointment shook his small body. Then he trotted obediently after his parents.

Does this kind of contempt - raised boy will ever have a chance at experiencing - having  'integral relationship?'

Hi David - I think I see what you are getting at with the question, "Would co-dependency be about feeling that the other's needs are more important than one's own?" It does seem a little hard to imagine, to feel into this question, to know how one would be feeling another's needs in that situation. I think that it is possible that in co-dependency there could be enough significant boundary merger or confusion that would feel as if it is the other person's needs that are as or more important. I say this partly from personal experience in the past. I think that sometimes in that state a person might actucally feel and know an aspect of the other's needs and feel it as or more important than  one's own. "So that we identify with them and lose the sense of our own inherent value?" Yes, I do think/feel this is possible - like the occasional moment in a young child's life when he/she displays such pain, in facial expression and gesture, at the distress of another child, mom, or someone. Mirror neurons again?

Of course looking at it from the outside, another stranger to the situation might doubt that such a person was really tuned into the other's needs. It might seem clear to the stranger that that person's own dependency needs are on a blind roll. Or some such.

I still do get the jist of this 'Love begins when a person feels another person's needs to be as important as his own.' and can nod my head to it. It touches me as a beautiful thought.

Later, Ambo

---

Ambo Suno

And on that note, I will describe one 4 year old's "is the fish happy?"  moment, since no one else is story-telling

End of summer fishing day day was a fine day ... kiddies cought several small fish , brought them home in a water-filled bucket. When they were ready for the  promissed before dinner snack-taste  frying , I did so. Table setting for four ... one littleone (last days' avatar-son) didn't want to sit down....he kept circling the table, peering into our plates forlornly  .. after sev. minutes of this he asked , "is the fish happy?"

I had to give him a dance and a song about the fish not minding being eaten , because they know they will live in us .

So last summer he went fishing with a buddy  and showed me how big the fish was...hand-gesturing...."so where is it?".....he: smirk-smiling... *is it still in the pond?* ... "yeh I put him back" 

Dear David:  Good Wishes to you also, David.  I would not want to be one who would cause people to leave, even tho I really do not feel I have that power but that it lies in what "those people want to do".   And I felt strongly that we were still doing some really sincere writing about relationships or one we had been touched by. I caught whhat  Helene had remembered about the book.  I also understand as a person who leads the thread, that you felt responsibility to keep it neat and tidy.  That is one of the reasons I do not personally want to start a thread.  I was not offended at all.  I do not think I can be offended again.  Too much has come my way

and it is not nearly as painful (I felt the Pain) as your growing years.  Still it is my pain

and it would take a lot to offend me.  I felt that you were  "Blowing me off" and yet I was not offened.   Still I am empowered by responding to you in the most truthful way possible.  And the best way I thought would "reach" you.   I must do that so that I stay "empowered"  in the best way I know and at the same time, I take a risk to try

and connect with you, because you are important to me.   And we are both right in

that Divine Mystery  calling calling  calling  -sort of like the "Hound of Heaven"  Peace   Pattye

Dear Dmitri:  It was so refreshing for me to read your Post.  It also helps us see how much we can still use the tools that are lying out there from past years.  Very siimple and upfront and understandable for most.  I am printing your Post for the future.

Thanks, Pattye

Ambo:  Yes.   I put your quote in my "Book of Quotes" to save for my family.  I wrote this somewhere else and will repeat.  I read that along with a will that is left for family and/or  friends, we should leave a will of our values that we chose for ourselves during our lives.    My father had a box of little red balls with a golden circle around them.  On the circle it said, "Do unto others as you would have them do unto you." He handed them out to people who came into his office.  The children loved to get one along with a lolipop. And when he took me to school in the morning, he would sing, "Oh what a beautiful morning".   And I grew up on a college campus and everyday, I saw

a beautiful sign that said   "The Spirit makes the Master".   All pointing out instructions.   POI's  that any religion could take and not have a meltdown over.  And he never said that some one was wrong or evil or awful.  He just said they had used poor judgement.   Right now, I am horrified with the language that is being used about this student who killed all those people.  Don't they knowhe had a family?  And that he was very very sick.    I am called a flaming liberal for statements like that.  Even some of the students get that though.  Thanks for your Posts here. Later Pattye

That's a nice heart-share Pattye

Can't say my father left anything for me, 'cept  the twinkle of his blue eyes which I  saw (even) in-the-astral

And, speaking of eyes, I soo was disappointed my second son and sweetie avatar foto-shot didn't do her justice. She has the most gorgeous Sophia Loren look-alike  eyes! and a radiant smile face to boot Why? because this is the  only picture his bro has in his comp. file of them....And the song and dance I had to do to get him to install them in my avatar-window!  "Everybody does that!" and speaking of one more kid-foto! soo sad, too bad! I did do the pic-print thing and it looked too blurry...guess everyone just have to take my word for it...fact she's a Boderek look-alike

OK be off with you helen! ok, seeya on a diff relationship-note scribble

Astral soul-vibrating in concert with anothers' soul-resonance at a hightened sense of love and groovinesss,  is what I would term -  *The High-Gliding  Relationship of the Dedicated Dancers* -  or something...

Elizabeth Barret Browning writes beautifully about her love for her husband, her Soul-Mate, and will quote-note one of her stanzas from Sonnets From Portuguese ... But first, I shall channel Gibran's thoughts on 'Spirits' Children' from The Prophet :

"Your children are not your your children. They are the sons and daughters of Life's longing for itself. They come through you but not from you, And tho they are with you yet they belong not to you."

Makes perfect sense, no? and it only follows , that 'love' in its truest sense  is the most natural thing in the world! because we are of IT.

I think of thee! - my thoughts do twine and bud

About thee, as wild vines about a tree,

Put out broad leaves, and soon ther's nought to see

Except the straggling green which hides the wood.

Yet, O my palm-tree, be it understood

I will not have my thoughts instead of thee

Who art dearer, better! Rather instantly

Renew thy presence! As strong tree should,

Rustle thy boughs and set thy trunk all bare,

And let these bands of greenery which insphere thee

Drop heavily down, . .  burst, shattered, everywhere!

Because, in this deep joy to see and hear thee

And breathe within thy shadow a new air,

I do not think of thee - I am too near thee. 

 

I've been musing about Transactional Analysis ever since Dmitri posted and I do think that its so relevant to this thread....

Take the theme of 'being OK'.  TA theory says that we can adopt several positions in our relationships with others:

I'm OK, you're not OK

You're OK, I'm not OK

You're not OK, I'm not OK

All of these three common positions are dysfunctional, and this picks up on the theme which Ambo and I were discussing re co-dependency etc.   I'm superior to you, you're superior to me, both of us are worthless.  They don't work, they undermine intersubjectivity, yet they can be lifelong. 

The only healthy position is:

I'm OK, you're OK.

Even if you're different to me, you're OK.  Even if your tastes are different, and your personality is different, and you like the things I hate and hate the things I like, you're OK.

See, that's the whole basis of AQAL.  The Spiral is not about looking down understandingly on people who we think are less evolved than we are, being tolerant because we think that, underneath it all, we're better.  That's not being Second Tier.  That's feeling superior:  I'm OK, you're not OK. 

In contrast, how liberating and energising it is to look at people who we have been judging because they are different, and feeling what its like to see them as OK...   This isn't being Green (that term of abuse on IN!! )  Its seeing the value in what is other than ourselves.  Its transcending ego.  Its beginning to truly evolve spiritually.....

---

'This is all the time you'll ever have'.
~ Dr Hannibal Lecter