All right, some of the ruckus has abated, so let’s continue our examination into the insanity of monogamy …
No, that is not too strong of a word. Insanity. That’s what monogamy is. Let’s look at just how hypnotized the ego has people when it comes to sex …
First of all, what happened when I began posting about the ridiculousness of monogamy on Facebook. I said that people were choosing monogamy out of fear, and only out of fear, which many people denied. Yet, when I asked them more questions about why they were choosing monogamy, the answers were pretty much all along these lines:
– I “choose” monogamy because I’m scared of diseases
– I “choose” monogamy because I’m scared of growing old alone
– I “choose” monogamy because I don’t see any other choices when it comes to raising children
– I “choose” monogamy because I’m scared I won’t have enough money to raise my children
Well, guess what, folks … THAT is exactly what I’ve been talking about in this series of articles (you can read Part 1 re Monogamy, part 2 re Monogamy and Death, and part 3 re Monogamy by clicking on these links). You are “choosing” monogamy out of fear, and a choice made out of fear is not really a choice at all. Choices can only be made out of freedom. And freedom means owning your full power and being fearless.
And then, of course, there are the people who are “choosing” monogamy because they are still under the delusion of “specialness,” which is ego and fear pure and simple no matter how it is dressed up. This is also fear of death, but it shows up like this:
– I “choose” monogamy because I’m not attracted to most people
– I “choose” monogamy because my partner is special, and I only want to have sex with him or her
– I “choose” monogamy because I believe I can only have this depth of connection with one person
Never mind that your relationship with any one person can only be as good as your relationship with EVERYONE. And that when you say you are not attracted to most people, and you find many people “unappealing” and better to avoid, all you are doing is judging YOURSELF, which means you hate yourself and have terrible self-esteem.
Just how hypnotized does the ego have us?
Let’s think about this in the clear light of day.
– Would you promise to eat at only one restaurant for the rest of your life, come what may?
– Would you promise to enter only one building, ever, for the rest of your life, come what may?
– Would you insist that you are only going to shake one person’s hand for the rest of your life, come what may?
No. You wouldn’t. These ideas are ridiculous. And yet every day all over the world people spend thousands of dollars hosting and attending weddings where “happy” couples promise to imprison themselves in special relationships for the rest of their lives, “forsaking all others” and only having sex with one person FOR THE REST OF THEIR LIFE.
This is INSANITY. Do you ever stop to question why the divorce rate and the cheating rate are SO high? And all the ridiculous misery that is created by the “broken” promises in marriage when one partner feels drawn to someone “outside” the marriage.
Have you noticed that the phrase “serial monogamy” already contains the problem with in, that you are ASSUMING the relationship will not last, and that once you have “used up” this partner, you will move on to the next, in a series of UNREAL relationships that end badly and bring no real satisfaction to anybody.
It is time to wake up. A holy relationship, as A Course in Miracles describes it, must be shared with the world to be sustainable. A holy relationship is permanent, and it will make you happy. The possibility of permanence comes from non-exclusivity. Because the relationship does not exclude the world, it can contain the world instead. And when the entire world is contained in the relationship, there is never any need to “move on” or “abandon” a partner.
As ACIM says, “Under the Holy Spirit’s teaching, all of your relationships are total commitments, and do not conflict with each other in any way.”
All over the world, day in and day out, people sacrifice freedom for “commitment” by entering into these unholy “unions.” And then they sacrifice commitment for “freedom” by breaking their “vows” and ending the relationships. In a never ending cycle of pain, misery, and limitation. And ALL OF IT, start to finish, is ego, pure and simple. You are marching to your own death by making these choices.
There is no need to “choose” between freedom and commitment. It is possible to have both. The relationship is not holy and not sustainable unless you have both.
“How can you grant unlimited power to what you think you have attacked? So fearful has the truth become to you that unless it is weak and little, you would not dare to look upon it. You think it safer to endow the little self you made with power you wrested from truth, triumphing over it and leaving it helpless. See how exactly is this ritual enacted in the special relationship. An altar is erected in between two separate people, on which each seeks to kill his self, and on his body raise another self to take its power from his death. Over and over and over this ritual is enacted. And it is never completed, nor ever will be completed. The ritual of completion cannot complete, for life arises not from death, nor Heaven from hell.
“Whenever any form of special relationship tempts you to seek for love in ritual, remember love is content, and not form of any kind. The special relationship is a ritual of form, aimed at raising the form to take the place of God at the expense of content. There is no meaning in the form, and there will never be. The special relationship must be recognized for what it is; a senseless ritual in which strength is extracted from the death of God, and invested in His killer as the sign that form has triumphed over content, and love has lost its meaning. Would you want this to be possible, even apart from its evident impossibility? If it were possible, you would have made yourself helpless. God is not angry. He merely could not let this happen. You cannot change His Mind. No rituals that you have set up in which the dance of death delights you can bring death to the eternal. Nor can your chosen substitute for the Wholeness of God have any influence at all upon it.
“See in the special relationship nothing more than a meaningless attempt to raise other gods before Him, and by worshipping them to obscure their tininess and His greatness. In the name of your completion YOU DO NOT WANT THIS. For every idol that you raise to place before Him stands before you, in place of what you are.”
– A Course in Miracles
A holy relationship, which is the only kind of relationship you really want, excludes NO ONE. This is what makes it holy. And sex, if it is to continue as a practice, must be shared to be holy. It must not be separated off and carried with guilt to your separate bedroom, where you hide it from the world in shame. By living in shame, you are choosing death. For the love of God, stop choosing death. Open your relationship to the world.
How wonderful it feels to be on Facebook and see “in an open relationship.” What a breath of fresh air that feels like. Ah, these people would include me and the world in their partnership.
How sickening it feels to be around “special” relationships. The air is thick with guilt and shame and judgment.
“It is impossible to let the past go without relinquishing the special relationship. For the special relationship is an attempt to re-enact the past and change it. Imagined slights, remembered pain, past disappointments, perceived injustices and deprivations all enter into the special relationship, which becomes a way in which you seek to restore your wounded self-esteem. What basis would you have for choosing a special partner without the past? Every such choice is made because of something ‘evil’ in the past to which you cling, and for which must someone else atone.”
– A Course in Miracles
Tune into the feelings. You may have buried the fear and guilt of the special relationship deeply in your unconscious mind, but if you tune into the feelings, you will no longer be able to deceive yourself. Do not allow the ego to hypnotize you any longer.
The holy relationship looks entirely different, and you must learn to recognize it if you want your true power to be returned to you:
“The Holy Spirit, ever practical in His wisdom, accepts your dreams and uses them as means for waking. You would have used them to remain asleep. I said before that the first change, before dreams disappear, is that your dreams of fear are changed to happy dreams. That is what the Holy Spirit does in the special relationship. He does not destroy it, nor snatch it away from you. The special relationship will remain, not as a source of pain and guilt, but as a source of joy and freedom. It WILL NOT BE FOR YOU ALONE, for therein lay its misery. As its unholiness kept it a thing apart, its holiness will become AN OFFERING FOR EVERYONE.”
– A Course in Miracles
Hi erika! 1st of all i wd lile to appreciate ur independnt thinking(applause)
but v must remember that our human species holds a wide range of spectrum : from demonic darkworkers to angelic lightworkers! I truly agree wid d fct dat monogamy limits our loving bandwidth but i fear der r sum who dont luk wid d lens of luv at all! All dey would see in a woman would be a machine which givs dem pleasure. So it seems dat society has developed a workable mechanism to avoid chaos!! Whereas personally i’m not inclined to monogamy at all :-)
Hi Harshit, welcome to the blog. Not to worry. At the unconscious level, there is a consensus and the consensus is non-monogamy. So I’m engaged in a process that will ultimately make that consensus conscious … cheers :)
Erika,
Congrats on your ability to be provocative. Indeed it works for you and has drawn me into discussion with you :-) I have a personal interest in knowing how choosing a “third path” is working for you in application? What does your day to day look like. With whom and how are you practicing the principals you speak of (ie setting down “limitation”, denying “specialness” and not “idolizing something”)? What does it mean for you to share without limit? Why have you decided to accept monogamy as a limitation? Why is monogamy a symbol of hate for you? Why do you see all the beliefs you wish to be free of (jealousy, lack, fear, possessiveness, hate) projected onto the current relationship styles in general? Why are you seemingly fixated on addressing the form, formations and configurations humans pursue and create within the illusion? Why do these areas of the experience matter to you?
My inquiries are born of sincere intent to understand how you have used your ACIM foundation and personal life events to mold your current beliefs. I am a student of the Course myself, one who has attempted real life application of many styles of “formation of relationship” in hopes at exemplifying spiritual love. Thank you for helping me get better acquainted with you and your mission.
Fervently,
Celeste
Hi Celeste,
Welcome to the blog and thanks for commenting.
I will keep my response very simple: Everyone knows that monogamy is wrong.
Generalizations are always refreshing. What a wonderful way to avoid a straight reply. Let me elaborate Erika, to view monogamy as a limitation, one in which two souls are not able to expand their and be true to their expression of spirit is simply a quick ditch attempt to shirk applying oneself in that format. Again back to the word form…forum, format, formation–where in the world do you get off thinking that by reinventing the forms, formation and forum in which people can relate that you are helping the cause of expansion? Expansion and applying ACIM principles have very little to do with form. As I see it, what you are selling is a lazy way to avoid transcendence through what is. Monogamy is what is currently the status quo. Granted evidence supports that many people fail to find happiness within that structure, but that doesn’t make the structure wrong. It means we should go deeper within what is a current societal framework and elevate that. You won’t get anywhere by “judging” something as prevalent as monogamy as wrong my dear. You may however discover some freedom in your acceptance of being hurt deeply by what is. By admitting failures and personal shortcomings within the context of what is…by asking yourself to rise to a maximal expression of Self in form, in harmony with what is. I still really encourage you to try and illustrate to me how this anti monogamy thing is working for you in your life. What relationship style are you currently in? And how is that setup, the vague “third path” you reference, leading you beyond the body? I beg to know.
everyone knows monogamy is wrong the same way everyone knew racial segregation was wrong. they needed lots of words to justify segregation also because it’s hard work justifying hate and fear :)
“everyone knows monogamy is wrong the same way everyone knew racial segregation was wrong”
If I am to literally accept this quote, it would seem that when racial segregation was happening everyone knew it was wrong? Allot of people “knew” it was correct, allot of people “knew” it was the right thing to do. People “knew” that white people were superior. I disagree with all of those things. Allot of people knew what was right based on what they were told. It was a long long time before people realized that segregation is in fact ridiculous. I think making a comment – everyone just knows it’s wrong is kind of a sell out, and not really an answer to a quesiton someone clearly wants real information on. I mean thats like having a gay forum blog, and someone saying, everyone just knows being gay is wrong, and thats the end of it! you can’t learn anything that way…. at least not in my experience.
Hi Lisa, welcome to the blog, I appreciate your comment. Actually, I found it very effective to say that everyone knows monogamy is wrong. Because everyone knows monogamy is wrong.
Look, there are multiple layers of consciousness. There is the level where we are all tapped in to truth and justice, and at that level everyone knows monogamy is wrong, the same way they know that eating meat and fish is wrong, and the same way everyone knew that racial segregation was wrong.
And then there is the superficial ego consciousness where everyone wants to pretend they don’t know what they know. I don’t care how big a stink the segregationists made, they knew it was wrong. They just wanted to play the pretend game a little longer because it felt uncomfortable to face their own fear and hatred.
So from my perspective there is a lot of value in appealing to the level of consciousness where we all agree, and we all know it’s wrong. It’s like the boy in the story who said “the Emperor has no clothes.” Everyone knew the Emperor was naked but nobody would admit it. Except a small child who hadn’t been conditioned with enough social baloney yet to deceive himself.
Thanks for participating in the conversation :)
This is a bunch of misleading wishy washy bologna. I suppose to each his own but I’m a one woman kind of guy, I don’t need multiple partners to be happy. I need one wife, and maybe a couple of kids. Choosing “one” is not choosing “death” as you have indicated above. This entire post is incredibly misleading, and the person who shared it with me is all about having
multiple partners – I am not open to that, and it is not due to fear, it is due to preference.
It is absolutely due to fear, but as they said in the Matrix, you’re free to wake up in your bed and believe whatever you want to believe.
I guess I’m trapped inside the “matrix” smh
We all are, it’s just a question of how quickly we are going to wake up and get out of it … :) The special relationship is the ego’s most effective secret weapon for keeping people asleep
If the ego, and i assume you mean the ‘self’ are illusions, and thus we should not make decisions based on a world view that takes the ego or the ‘self’ for granted, then how do make decisions? i mean to say, that at some point we are separate from others, we are individuals. Individuality is not entirely an illusion. We are not just tabs (males) and slots (females) to be interchanged arbitrarily. I feel that Erika believes that romantic love doesn’t exist. There is more than lust and friendship, and the mixing of the two. Monogamy is not a sham. Ideas that people associate with it and use to justify their participation in it might be flawed, but it is not a dead-end. My monogamy says to my love; “Sex produces children, and that is why we feel a bond to our lover, the bond creates strength which the child will need to receive the benefits of, for the child is born weak. The quality of the bond is most important, not the quantity. Is the quality reduced by the increase in quantity? Yes, it is. When a child does not depend on the quality of the bond, for it is not yet conceived, then quantity does not have this affect. But how do you know there is no child being conceived? Aaaaah, you do not (my guess is that there are few instances where conception is impossible). I want quality, not quantity. And i reject the idea that quantity helps quality. I believe we are linked to our evolutionary past, even as we evolve into something new. As long as children are made via sex, and as long as we are children until we die, it will be statistically more problematic to engage in even the best open relationships than it will be to engage in monogamy that is based on responsibility – not restriction (fear).
I like your thoughts. I have found that children REALLY DO need quality love from their parent or parents. I wholeheartedly agree that everyone in the world should be free to be parents – regardless of race, gender or relationship – but the best chidren are products of stable, loving parent(s).
When I was younger I used to say that I didn’t need a man to have kids. I’d do it all on my own if I wanted. Now that I have children I realise there is no way that I would want to raise children on my own. Too hard. Too painful. Too draining. Hats off to anyone who does!!
Hi Bella donna,
Welcome to the blog. If you ask me, children need far more than two parents. As they used to say, “it takes a village.” And that is where I believe this is headed, to poly communities and the complete dismantling of the (extremely toxic) nuclear family.
Thanks for your contribution.
I don’t see how so many of you think being with more than one person at a time is a happy end all to a dull marriage. My husband tricked me into agreeing to an open marriage six years ago it’s been very painful for me. I have had to deal with him showing others more cherishing care, more excitement, more laughter, but with me he suffers me to be.In the last six years he had a four year relationship with a women he claims he shared his soul with; now for the past year he has been with a woman 18 years younger than him. It’s all been a one sided affair where he reaps and I haven’t. Now don’t believe within yourselves this is because I’m an ugly person I’m not nor am I a ugly spirit. What I have found is that when a woman “steps out of her marriage” the men of this society feels she is open game for a booty call and thats it. I don’t know about other people but as for me I am worth better treatment than a booty call. So for this reason I don’t believe open marriage works for everyone.
I am happy that I found this series of articles. I have been exploring an open relationship for some years now. However that being said, I still lean more towards monogamy within my relationship, not because I believe in monogamy, but because I am scared of diseases. Specifically HIV/AIDS.
Diseases terrify me. I consider myself an incredibly spiritual person, and I feel that catching a life altering disease would destroy that beautiful spirit that I have. I have seen people become incredibly bitter and angry because of getting HIV. I don’t know how I would handle that.
I BELIEVE in, and want to live a life of polygamy, but I feel scared INTO monogamy for the reasons stated above.
Thank you for posting this article and making people think.
Welcome, Antonio, and thank you for commenting. It’s interesting you note the connection between disease and anger. A Course in Miracles teaches that “Sickness is anger taken out upon the body.” My personal experience has been that as I released anger from my body, previously chronic conditions that did not respond to conventional medical treatment began to disappear and are now nearly gone.
Absolutely! Monogamy is COMPLETELY based in fear. Meeting and experiencing new people is not only fun, but the learning that comes from it is great. Expectation is the killer and trapping yourself with monogamy keeps you stuck in complacency.
Thanks for chiming in, Evan :)
While I absolutely accept that some people really do “choose” monogamy without some form of indoctrination, coercion or fear involved…I’d say those who do probably belong to one of the smallest minorities among humans. Additionally, I would point out that those who release the indoctrination, coercion and fear around sex generally seem to choose a more open sexual lifestyle.
Like you said, Erika…releasing limiting beliefs.
The Sociosexual Scripts:
Winner: “Love, and do what thou wilt.” (Anon. of Ibid)
Loser: “Everything I like is illegal, immoral, or fattening.”
When you are on your DEATHbed, which belief do you think it will have been more enjoyable to have LIVED with?
Erika, I’m just realizing you’re a woman, and not a guy with a very strange name. That’s… pretty cool.
Erika, all of your arguments make perfect, rational sense. I agree with you 100%.
The problem is that the male brain isn’t rational. He finds a girl that validates his ego, and it’s comfortable just having the girl there to give him sex and companionship.
Because of (1) ego validation and (2) comfort, most guys will end up in the arms of a woman, and she will browbeat him and intimidate him into not straying.
So your advice, while perfectly reasonable and rational like a Vulcan, will fall on deaf ears I’m afraid!
Jesse,
While I understand that the dozen or so beliefs that you just expressed about men and women probably feel true to you, they are not true. And I’m in the business of changing beliefs. Changing them so thoroughly that not only will your beliefs change, the entire world you see and experience will change with them.
My advice doesn’t fall on deaf ears. My clients come to me with seemingly unsolvable problems, and they leave my coaching seeing a brand new world. If you haven’t experienced this kind of magic yet for yourself, I invite you to check it out:
http://SpiritualSeduction.com/coaching
True actually… very true. I even heard the theory about the whole hologram thing, I wish I had studied it a little more now but there is actually a theory that the universe is a hologram but I don’t remember the details. I think its interesting you brought that up.
Yeah but I suppose your right. I just wish others shared the same view.
Yes this is pretty controversial, but whether or not people want to be with only one person is their business not anybody else’s, or if you want to be in open relationships that is also their business. We all have different reasons for different things, some people only want to go into one relationship because of their lack of trusting people even though its not their partner’s fault but sometimes people can’t help where they come from but sometimes society in general doesn’t really care one way or the other they can only go off of what they’ve experienced and if people haven’t cared about you its so hard to care about yourself I mean you really want to but on the other hand if life has mistreated you, you don’t know any different unless by chance you have a person that is willing to try and not give up on you but that doesn’t happen very often and unfortunantly this may be a one-sided view.
There are not too many people which agree to open relationships because even if you do agree who says the man or woman you love or would grow to love doesn’t and you don’t want to give up on them? Its hard to find people who share the same view and if you do find people who share the same view
then that’s a whole thing by itself but at the same time there are other issues as well. All drama all ego all well everything. Human nature really is human nature.
And that human nature above all things is to love, to destroy, to create, to build all at once.
and yet some people want to have open relationships because they love the idea that they can love other people as well. Like me! I agree about open relationships because it gives me the chance to love other people not just one person but because I am very naturally curious about everyone and chances are there are too many sides of me to count so I don’t really know how to balance it, and I also love the challenge. But I’ve been in open relationships and it almost always ended badly. But do I agree? Yes sure I agree everyone has their own personal thing.
Anyways nice article no matter how controversial keep it going! People tend to ignore things they don’t want to face really.
Hi Curious,
Thanks for chiming in and sharing about your open relationships.
One important point though. No, it is not just “their business.” Not even close. Every decision on this planet is made within a hologram that affects every other living creature. Choices made from ego, which monogamy is, have devastating effects on humanity. Sure, it is all ultimately an illusion, but why experience even the illusion of suffering any longer than is necessary?
As for the “problems” with open relationships, those come from belief misalignment, mostly guilt carried over from the ego’s system of “special” relationships, and those problems can be corrected with belief realignment. Monogamy cannot be corrected. Because it is not shared, it is an impossible goal.
The belief in “What God wants” is only that… a belief. It is seen as such when the reality strikes.
If I examine my life now versus what it was ten years ago, there is no real connection between the two. Having had the willingness only to have another way shown to me, I found that everything I believed was “true” was not. My belief did not change the reality of the thing.
This is hard, very hard, to understand when the filters of desires, wants, and beliefs are thrown in the way. Unconditional Love loves unconditionally, period. There is no guilt. There is no recrimination. There are no special demands. There are no behavioral rules because all of it stems from love. We have been taught conditional love on so many levels that we cannot really see the truth anymore.
Conditional love is ALWAYS sacrificial. There is never an option for it to be anything but sacrificial. “I cannot because… ” should be the phrase of all conditionally hating/loving relationships. It feels so noble… doesn’t it? Sacrificing myself for another? Putting on the chains of “special love”?
Let me tell you this, when you really see the cost of those chains, you will be appalled. If I hold someone, they also hold me. Neither of us is free. Neither of us will ever be content. Neither of us will ever experience the joys of freedom, because we cannot drop our hold on the other person.
I haven’t found anyone yet who could really practice this, because our thoughts of sacrifice go so deep. Yet, I see totally the benefits, the real healing that can come of this. It takes a total commitment to joining… and that is very hard. It ends up being a lopsided type of relationship with one person open and the other person only taking what they can allow to happen at a certain point. Those are the practical problems.
For anyone who wants a good description of what this could look like, I love the book Stranger in a Strange Land by Robert Heinlein.
Frankly, I don’t believe that God wants me to share my partner, or to have my partner share me. But I went into that already, on another post.
“Never mind that your relationship with any one person can only be as good as your relationship with EVERYONE. And that when you say you are not attracted to most people, and you find many people “unappealing” and better to avoid, all you are doing is judging YOURSELF, which means you hate yourself and have terrible self-esteem. ”
My relationship with most people is just fine; I have no desire to have sex with them. Why on earth is that so difficult to understand? I’m not telling you to live my way, am I?
Thank you so very much for this series of articles! I’m in “an open relationship” with a wonderful “whole” person, after years of trying to make “special” relationships work, this experience and awakening to “all inclusive relationship with the whole world” is indeed a breath of fresh air! You have articulated what I have felt for so very many years, I know that once people begin to let go of limitation, guilt and self demeaning belief sets they too will see who they are and how “illusory” monogamy is. Again, thank you so much…and yes, you and everyone else are included in my “special” relationship!
I think a lot of people are monogamous partly because they haven’t actually sat down and analyzed the whole idea to begin with. The whole monogamous/polyamorous is pretty controversial and most won’t even entertain the idea of debating it.
#####
Thanks for the article, it really gave me new perspective on the topic.