My Soul Mate Is My Soul

  

There is a Light in the mind that the mind cannot know, shining before knowledge. Can I taste this Light, which satisfies every kind of thirst - for wine, for caresses, for God?

Have I met this Light, who is the one Companion in all relationships? Have I wedded this Light, who awaits me in my heart, more intimate than me to myself? 

Have I gazed into the countenance of Christ, Krishna, Mother Divine, and seen that these are the rays of my innermost face?

I spent lifetimes searching for a soul mate, moving from lover to lover, guru to guru - which is the same quest - looking for the right person. Yet the right person dwelled in the core of my own chest, patiently abiding until the homecoming, longing for my longing to remember its source. In a thousand hints a day I denied my Beloved's whisper. Yet every leaf and raindrop spoke to me, "Dissolve your search in bewilderment! Embrace Me through whatever you perceive this moment, an apple bud whose seams are bursting, an earthworm turning through mud toward the galaxy of a dahlia bulb."

This is the secret: my soul mate is my soul. By being two, I awaken the one. By being one, I radiate the other.

Most of our relationships are just needs. One may feel, I need you. Or even, I need to be needed. But needing is not love. Love happens when the stream of need subsides in its spring. When one witnesses the motionless explosion of one's own heart, there is contentment. And the overflowing of that contentment is love. Until then, love cannot reveal itself unless love hides in its own shadow. That is the game love plays.

"For the God who said, Let light shine out of darkness, has shined in our hearts with the light of the knowledge of divine glory, shining in the face of Christ" (2 Corinthians 4:6). This Christ face shines from my heart as my own Self.