The test of life

I heard a message stating that if you want to find your perfect match, you have to pass the test of life, the same way as Tamino needs to pass several tests until he wins Pamina in the Magic flute.

Then a series of questions raised in my head: Is it really true? Is there any perfect match? Do you need to pass any test to meet your special someone? I am not sure. For me the concept seems absurd. That you can only be complete with another person. It’s evil.  

I see that many people expect a perfect match to save their lives. People expect to find the way back to Paradise by finding that special someone who perfectly matches them. Little girls look for a father who protects them, and men search for women whom they can save – as they had to (or wanted to) save their mothers.

It feels like there are little children playing that matching game. There are small semicircles all around the globe, all in different sizes and colours, and they are looking for their other halves, the one that would match perfectly, both in size and color. People try on the first semicircle and after a while they realize that they do not match at all, so they set off and look for another one who might match better. A new try, and a new disappointment. And after a while they accept what comes into life, they need to satisfy with a compromise, as they didn’t encounter that truly perfect match.

The myth of the androgüns tells the same, although I never felt any truth in it. People were originally created by the gods with two heads, four hands and four legs, they had both male and female sexual organs. These people had extraordinary power and lived a happy life. That’s why the gods started to envy them, and they decided to cut people’s power. So the gods cut the androgüns in half, and since then there are men and women on the face of Earth. Ever since then people are depressed as they feel that something is missing. They search for their other halves, hoping that they will find the lost Paradise.

But this is simply nonsense. You cannot expect someone to bring you back to Paradise. Sorry to break the news: there is no single person who could save you. After the floods we are all floating on the sea of life, everyone tries to survive. Everyone has a single lifebelt, each of us has only one. In such circumstances how could one expect that another shipwrecked person would save him?

The Savior is not to be found without, it can only be found within. You need to realize that no one can ever save you, except for yourself. It is only yourself who can save you.

Paradise cannot be found without, it can only be found within. We can find the way back to Paradise, to ourselves, via accepting the shadow and the complexes and taking the responsibility for ourselves and our actions, and also our non-actions. If we do that, then we are capable of real love (not depending on the other, which is rather need than love, still universally called as love). And if we are capable of love, we are capable of a real connection, an intimate relation with another human being.

If we know ourselves we can get connected with similar souls. But when we play roles and only follow the rules, then we don't even know ourselves either, how could we recognize if someone is similar to us?

In the Jungian approach, first you need to start to walk the path of individuation and then you may feel real love. You may find someone to love earlier, but then it is not love, that sensation is only an illusion. It is only your inner projection. Later you realize that you don’t even know the person you’re with, and then it ends up being a power game. After a while you feel that you were cheated. You were expecting for the special someone to carry your weight, to take responsibility for you and your actions, to make you happy, to bring you back to Paradise... all of which is a hidden objective of the little child inside, who lost the unison with universe and the mother, was lost and alone, and now seeks the same kind of Paradise as he lived in the womb of the mother.

But if you start the individuation process, you start to accept yourself in your uniqueness, you may experience real encounters, and your life will be open for real love. If it is a test of life, fine. In my understanding, this is life. What others do, who don't start this road, remain children and will never grow up...

We form our relationships based on the first relationship we had with human beings, i.e. the relationship towards our mother and father. The patterns of this original relationship are so much imprinted in our minds, that we repeat the same rules and those decide on our choice of relationships and their nature. Without us being aware of them. As a matter of fact, we tend to live our past over and over again. The same patterns appear, one relationship after the other, the same actions and reactions as we did with our mothers and fathers.

If you want to live in a healthy relationship, you need to grow up and accept that there are such irrational motives in all your relationships. You cannot really change on that. But it’s your choice whether you are aware of these hidden objectives, and whether you let them lead your life, or you decide to lead your own life, in your own way, instead of repeating the same patterns you always did, repeating the relationship that you had with your mother or your father.

It is your life and it is your decision whether you want to be an adult or a child.

It is very much necessary to have an honest look into the mirror before we could start to prepare for a relationship. Without understanding ourselves, there is no possibilty of a real commitment based on real intimacy.

The quality of our relationships depends on the way we feel in our own skin. The best and most we can do for all our acquaintance, is to acknowledge the relationship we have towards ourselves, and then we can give our best self in our relationships.

When the relationship is not stimulated by ever renewing needs, but there is a true care for the other person, then we are truly free to experience the other’s unique self. Then we take on the journey to experience the centre of that person. By digging towards the centre to truly experience the other’s true self, we open up and we truly encounter. In such a relationship one can experience real love.

When only surfaces scratch each other, it is only acquaintance, there is no connection, even if decades were lived together. There will be no love between two periferies. Love can be experienced only in the depth of the soul, when two souls encounter in the silence, where no words are needed to understand each other.

When we walk our own lives, and we allow our spouse to follow his own mission, and support him doing that, when you accept whatever his decision is, then we truly care about him and respect him. 

This can be called love – in its truest sense.