READINGS

From Harville Hendrix:

Take a moment and think about the personality traits of the people that you have seriously considered as mates. If you were to make a list of their predominant personality traits, you would discover a lot of similarities, including, surprisingly, their negative traits.

From my vantage point as a marriage therapist, I see the unmistakable pattern in my clients' choice of marriage partners. One night, in a group-therapy session, I was listening to a man who was three months into his second marriage. When his first marriage broke up, he had vowed to the group that he would never be involved with a woman like his first wife. He thought she was mean, grasping and selfish. Yet he confessed during the session that the day before he had "heard" the voice of his ex-wife coming from the lips of his new partner. With a sense of panic he realized that the two women had nearly identical personalities.

It appears that each one of us is compulsively searching for a mate with a very particular set of positive and negative personality traits.[1]

From the Words of Meher Baba

My lovers may be likened to one who is fond of lions and admires them so much that he keeps a lion in his own home. But being afraid of the lion he puts him in a cage. The lion is always encaged; even while he feeds the lion, he feeds the pet animal from a distance and from outside the cage. Baba is treated like the lion by the lovers. There is love; there is admiration; there is an intense desire to see Baba comfortable and happy; and Baba is also frequently fed by love of the lovers. But all this is done, keeping Baba segregated from one's own self. What is wanted of the lovers is that they should open the "cage" and, through intense love, throw themselves inside the cage to become food for the lion of love. The lover should permit himself to be totally consumed through his own love for the Beloved.[2]

RUMI POEM

love says, "I will deliver you this instant!"

I groped for excuses but love came excusing me

I don't feel strange anymore with my heart here and my soul there

I discovered He is heart and soul

It was He, not I, knocking at the door it was He within

I caress my own breast for there He is hidden

no one else knows you since you are I, I know you

forms become a trifle when feeling and intuition richly intensify

in the end a man tires of everything except heart's desiring
soul's journeying

sultan, saint, pickpocket;
love has everyone by the ear dragging us to God by secret ways

I never knew that God, too, desires us[3]

SERMON

Come come whoever you are
Wanderer, worshipper, lover of leaving,
Ours is no caravan of despair
Come yet again come. (Hymn #188)

The words to this enchanting melody by Rev. Lynn Ungar come from Jalaluddin Rumi, the love-intoxicated mystic of the 13^th Century describing the beckoning call of God to the devotee yearning for divine union. Rumi was a respectable professor who became smitten by an intense devotional love relationship with a Sufi saint named Shams-i Tabriz and transformed into a poet and whirling dervish, extolling the virtues of love of God, yearning for divine union.

Dr. Harville Hendrix, an educator and therapist, would understand this yearning for divine union as a desire to return to a moment in human life when we did experience perfect union. A period of time almost all of us experienced when we were one with the universe, all our needs were taken care of and we were completely safe and secure. You guessed it, the first nine months of our existence in the womb. The whole urge for union with God, Hendrix would say, is really a longing for the peace and tranquillity experienced in our mother's belly.

Whether beckoning to the call of God or longing for the womb, the desire to find something or someone to unite with outside ourselves is very strong and guides the urge for many of us to seek an intimate relationship. And not just anyone will do. In the search, we are deeply conditioned to seek out a particular type of person who will fit our imago.

Imago is a word coined by Hendrix in his book, Getting the Love You Want. This book on the psychology of love relationships is a guide for couples to help transform intimate relationships into a lasting source of love and companionship." Philomena and I attended one of Hendrix's weekend relationship seminars in 1990 and were very impressed. In the seminar, Hendrix described the origin of the word "imago" as coming from the Latin root for image, a representation of a person, a copy, likeness, a mental picture. He chose this word to describe the ideal image we carry in our heads of the perfect mate. He choose the Latin word imago to honor the many years he studied ancient languages for his doctoral degree, languages which were now almost useless to him.

Most people carry this imago in their minds, to which all comers are compared. Much as we might want to claim credit for rationally constructing this image from the qualities we have learned to appreciate in friends, role models and the media, the real source of imago of a perfect mate is our parents. And it is quite common that only after finishing the marriage vows, the scales fall from our eyes and we realize we have married our mother or our father.

The reason for this is because no matter how perfect our childhood was, certain needs and desires went unsatisfactorily met. No parent can possibly be perfect and even if it were possible to be a perfect parent, it probably wouldn't be healthy to completely satisfy every need of a child, as the child must make the transition to independence to learn to satisfy their own needs and wants.

It is the pattern of parental imperfection which creates in the children deep seated longings which shape the imago's face. For example, if my father was distant, it might set up a strong need to be very close or fused with my spouse. If my mother was overprotective and controlling, it might set up a desire for detachment and distance from my wife.

Here is where it gets interesting. Even though we want our partners to not have the same flaws as our parents, we tend to marry those who are very much like our parents, reproducing the exact problems and frustrations of our childhood. But when we meet that person, we are temporarily blinded to the similarities by romantic love.

Hendrix distills the passion of romantic love into four sentences which lovers around the world endlessly repeat:

1. I know we've just met, but somehow I feel as though I already know you.
2. This is peculiar, but even though we've only been seeing each other for a short time, I can't remember when I didn't know you.
3. When I'm with you, I no longer feel alone; I feel whole, complete.
4. I love you so much, I can't live without you.

Recognize these words? Have you heard them before? Hendrix calls these respectively the phenomenon of recognition, timelessness, reunification and necessity or "the universal language of love"[4]. The reason lovers use this language is not because of the perfection of their partner but rather the familiarity of the other, the feeling of safety, trust and security that comes with recreating the best of our infantile home. Unfortunately, the difficulties and problems are also familiar and comfortable, that is until the relationship moves out of courtship and into reality. This is why the son or daughter of an alcoholic has a great likelihood of marrying an alcoholic. Children of abusers end up with abusers for husbands and wives. Children who were smothered and over-protected end up with spouses who are intrusive. The very thing we so desire ends up being denied us.

Many people spend many years of their married life trying to a greater or lesser degree to change, reform, mold or fix their partner, usually with little or no success. As you may have already experienced in your own life, this is incredibly frustrating for both partners. One can't get their partner to shape up, and the other actively or passively resists. It is tragic how much energy is expended without any useful result, only frayed nerves and tempers.

Thankfully, many people have thought about this problem and a few have found some useful answers. Dr. Larry Bugen, in his book Love & Renewal: A Couples Guide to Commitment, outlines what he calls a covenant of mature love which has eight characteristics[5] which I will describe for you now:

1. A mutual balance of met needs. Both partners have needs of equal importance, both understand and accept those needs, and both are willing to meet those needs as often as possible.

2. Other-directedness. Each partner experiences meaning or pleasure from the other partner fulfilling his or her own needs - and actively seeking to fulfill those needs.

3. Realistic values and expectations. Both partners jettison stereotypes about men and women, husbands and wives, love and marriage. They make their assumptions explicit to each other and avoid extreme points of view.

4. Tolerance. Mature loving partners do not expect to find perfection in each other. Instead, they accept each other's attitudes, beliefs, and actions. They discuss problems on a situational level, rather than on the level of personal indictment.

5. Yearning to be known. Both partners value the safe harbor of their relationship, the place where they can put aside their societal masks and truly be themselves.

6. Freedom to express all emotions. Both partners encourage each other to express all of their feelings, including sadness, remorse, anger, and embarrassment.

7. Separate identities. Mature loving partners recognize that each has a unique set of personality traits, skills and aspirations. They give each other freedom to explore their separate interests and friends without judgment.

8. Transcendence of two separate selves into one identity. Both partners in healthy relationships enjoy celebrating "we-ness" through time spent together in shared activities, creating a shared identity. And with this shared identity comes a joint sense of worth, and shared feeling of esteem as a couple which goes beyond individual self-esteem.

I expect many of you have discovered some of these steps as you have grown into the marriage relationship. What is interesting about this list is, the key to a happy marriage is not changing the other person into our imago. Rather, words like tolerance, freedom, acceptance and independence alongside mutuality and "we-ness" are recommended by Bugen. Marriages that work let the other person be fully who they are.

This may be all well and good for building happy fulfilling relationships, but it doesn't address the longing that got us into the relationship in the first place, that desire for wholeness, timelessness or eternity, and union with the beloved.

My assertion today is that this longing may be misplaced. No human relationship can ever give us this kind of satisfaction, since by definition the union of two people is incomplete. Even if we could maintain that courtship union experience for a day, a week, a month or even a year, sooner or later the experience of wholeness, timelessness, or union with another person will eventually end. No relationship lasts forever. No one relationship can return us to the experience of being in the womb or, alternatively viewed, unite us directly with God.

My assertion today is that the longing for the beloved in human form is but an alias for a longing for union with the source of creation, which we inherited in an act of sexual intercourse, an intense longing of a sperm and an egg for each other. It is a longing that cannot find earthly satisfaction in the world of cause and effect, the world of impermanence, in the world where all that arises, passes away. It is a longing for that which is beyond time and space, it is a longing for that which is eternal.

The search for the eternal often takes the seeker into the world of religious mysticism. The spiritual tradition that, for me, most embodies this search for the beloved is Sufism.

Sufism is known as the Way of the Heart, the Way of the Pure, the Mystical Path of Islam. By whatever name it is called, it is the path which takes the seeker to the Divine Presence. In essence, Sufism is a means and a way by which the seeker will move from the gravity of his or her lower self, to ascend, with the assistance of a mystical guide, and through the methods and practices defined by the Way he or she has chosen, to the state wherein the Vision of God is presented to her or him. The ways to God are as numerous as the breaths of mankind. Each individual person has his or her own, personal and private way to the Divine Presence.[6]

Each person is a unique representative of the Divine. The Sufis say, "If human beings knew their own inner secrets, never would they look elsewhere for seeking happiness, peace and inner light." Therefore the essence of the Path is to find oneself. "Know thyself, know thy Lord!" is an imperative of the Sufi Way.[7]

To me this stress in Sufism on the unique individual path to the divine has much in common with Unitarian Universalism. Islam, like Unitarian Universalism, does not deify human beings as saviors or incarnate Gods. Sufism is inherently tolerant of differences. And its authority is inward and individualistic - know thyself rather than conform to revelation! Finally, Sufism like UUism by virtue of its individualistic basis, is experientially based.

I bring Sufism forward this morning because I believe those of us who feel moved to seek the Beloved can learn something from Sufism. And in particular, I'd like to focus briefly on the writings of Meher Baba which I find inspirational and instructive, as love was his favorite topic of discourse.

Merwan Sheriar Irani was born February 25, 1894, in Poona, India, into a Zoroastrian family. Early on his talent in the spiritual realm was recognized, and through connection with a wise woman who kissed his forehead in January of 1914, he received a profound God realization which shaped the rest of his life. After studying with different spritual masters, he began to teach in 1922. In 1931 he came to the West for the first time, traveling on the same ship that took Mahatma Gandhi to the Round Table Conference in London. During that voyage, he became Gandhi's spiritual adviser.

During the 1940's he traveled all over India in his work with the poor, with lepers, with the insane and with masts, a category of mentally disturbed people seldom found in the West whose afflictions come from unwise use of powerful spiritual practices, overwhelming and unbalanced love for God, or enthrallment by a sudden vision of Divinity. He set up temporary mad and mast ashrams in every part of the country where he contacted and served them.

Meher Baba taught in the Bhakti Yoga or devotional school. Many Westerners don't appreciate the value of this kind of religious tradition because of the charlatans we hear of who abuse this form. But the love of a Guru can be of great assistance to the one who seeks the Beloved. Meher Baba didn't sit on a throne and waft a feather over his disciple's heads as a charlatan might, he washed their feet and blessed them. He was the image of humility. Love was both his end and his means. He was a universal prophet of love.

Some of his words I think we can appreciate as UUs:

The modern era is steeped in restlessness as man is tossed between conflicting ideals. Like mounds in a sandy desert, intellectual knowledge is mounting up without provision for the expression of the heart, which is so vitally necessary to quench the need of the spirit. It is lack of this, that has checkmated man's achievements, in spite of himself and his enormous advancements in the fields of science. Unhappiness and insecurity, emotional or otherwise, are the dominant notes of the age, and mankind is engulfed in the darkness of wars, hate and fear.

Yet I say, "Have Hope".

Selfishness and lust for power tend to drag man towards brutality, which he has inherited from his evolutionary ancestry or acquired during erroneous searching through his incarnations. But there is within us the inextinguishable light of Truth, because we are essentially divine in origin and being.

Those who cleanse their hearts of the embittering poison of selfishness, hate and greed shall find God as their own true Self. When you find and realize God, the problem of selfishness and its numerous expressions melts away like mist before the sun. In God and as God, all life reveals itself as being really one and indivisible, and all separateness created by identification with human or sub-human forms is seen to be illusory.

The Truth of divine life is not a hope but a reality. It is the only reality, and all else is illusion. Have faith and you will be redeemed. Have love and you will conquer the lower and limited self of cravings that veil your own true being as God. Not through desperate self-seeking, but through constant self-giving is it possible to find the Self of all selves.[8]

Meher Baba says the path of love itself opens the door to our nature as already one with the Beloved. Love is the beginning, middle and end of the way sought. It reminds me of the Zen saying that we are already enlightened Buddhas of compassion without knowing it. We just need to stop participating in our illusions and see what is real.

A key for me in the above passage is desperate self-seeking vs. constant self-giving. What makes relationships work isn't seeking from the other but giving to the other. It is literally true that the more one gives the more one receives. This is as true in my relationship to this congregation as it is in my relationship to my wife Philomena and my son Andy. And let me assure you I'm not a master of this by any means. But neither you nor I have to be avatars of love to realize that what we give builds relationships and what we take diminishes them.

And here lies the paradox and mystery of finding the Beloved. It is not by desire one finds the Beloved but by giving the desire away, a process of self- relinquishment. For the Beloved is as close as the hair on our heads and fills us with each breath. Love is the way to the Beloved.

Love will guide us, peace has tried us
hope inside us will lead the way
on the road from greed to giving
Love will guide us through the hard night. (Hymn 131)

CLOSING WORDS

May the light of love be kindled in our hearts
as we walk out from these doors.

May the quiet inner voice of the beloved
rise to consciousness and show us the way

May we all find our Beloved,
each in our own way
and according to our own understanding.

Go in peace, make peace, be at peace.

Copyright (c) 1995 by Rev. Samuel A. Trumbore. All rights reserved.