Beloved Students:

I greet you in the spirit of divine joy and full abundance as we focus together on the lesson for another month. May you glean something from it that you may carry into all areas of your life, affording you more wisdom, more joy, more peace and a full appreciation of the abundance that envelops you.

I would like you to focus this month on the relationships in which you participate. I would like for you to explore them fully, investigating the areas that are fully functional, as well as those areas where perhaps the functional capacity could be elevated. I would like for you to look at all your relationships, not just those you hold with persons for whom you have special love or goodwill. I would like for you to commit to delving into the nature of relationship for this month, knowing that what you learn will serve you (perhaps others, too) for the rest of this life and, hopefully, your succeeding lives, as well.

For those of you who keep regular journals of your spiritual progress, this would be an excellent assignment to work through your writing. Those of you who do not journal, please consider at least taking some notes about what you are discovering, preferably on a daily basis. If you keep track of the things you discover in your relationships, you will likely have most of what you are working on in this life set down in your own hand. You will come to understand at a deeper level, just how cleaning up the dusty corners of your relationships will bring you into a realized state of wholeness and unity with all that is.

A good way to think about your relationships, (yes, all your relationships) is to see them as a type of mirror. You use them in much the same way you use a mirror when getting ready to face your day each morning. You look into the relational mirror to see what you can learn about yourself - not the other person. Believe me, your learning of the other person will arise with greater clarity when you are looking into the mirror to see yourself. Just be careful of the egoic diversion of letting your mind go to focusing on what the other person needs to bring forth to enhance the relationship. Try to keep your investigation all in “first person” format.

You look specifically for those areas in which you actually enhanced the relationship by bringing, or adding, more kindness, more clarity, more honesty, more enthusiasm, more wisdom, more harmony and/or more peace. Of course the list could indeed be longer, but this will surely give you a place to start. Next, you pay attention to which of your relationships bring up defensiveness. As it arises, you simply notice it, then let it go. Now I am speaking here both of situations where your defensiveness is delivered to protect you, and those situations where it arises letting you feel as if you are defending someone else. What is common to both those experiences? Then, be sure to also look at the situations in which you hold back defending either yourself or someone else. What can you learn about these interactions? How are they like the first category? Ask yourself what has turned “inside out” when you compare the two situations? Compare, then let go of both; analyze, then let go of both; try on different options in each situation, then let it all go. By doing this kind of work, you can clearly see what is you and what is only something you are experiencing.

Look also at the relationships to which you give the most time. Ask yourself why you give more of your time to one person than to others. (Note: there is nothing implied here that says you should not give one person more time than others. The idea is for you to notice how you interact with others in your regular life.) You may notice some relationships stay quite healthy with really very little work or energy, while others seem to take a great deal of work/energy to maintain. Why? Take note of what the difference seems to be. Again, not what the difference is in the other person, but what the difference is for you. Notice if there may be situations where the perceived need to work so hard, or put out so much for the relationship is coming from your mind, or if it actually needs to be that way. In fact, how will you tell the difference? Where does the energy that goes between you and this other begin and where does it end? What part of the energy do you think is yours, and what part theirs?

Give particular attention to the relationships you experience in your work, or perhaps at school. When you look into the mirror of these relationships, what do you see about yourself? As you become proficient with these ancillary relationships, move closer to home, and explore your relationships with those sharing your household. As you do these investigations, pay particular attention to how your mind holds both the relationship and the notion of the mirror. Watch out for the ego mind wanting to see your relational reflection as either all good or all bad. Usually, there is more to it than that. You might even be surprised at how much information is yours for the harvesting, and who knows, you might even see yourself quite differently than your habituated way of seeing (or not seeing) yourself.

Another good thing to do is to try to see what your expectations are of these various others in your life. When you can grasp your expectations, then ask yourself, “Where do these expectations come from? Why have they arisen in my mind, and how do they control the way I see this relationship?” Now this is not to say that there should never be any expectations in a relationship. However, it is always good to try to discover from whence they came and how you can be manipulated by your own expectations. After all, who might guess one's own mind is doing the manipulating? Hopefully, you will awaken to other ways your mind can manipulate both your relationships and how you hold those relationships.

As you do the meditation we have been working with, when you come to the point in the meditation where you give the Teacher cloud formations that represent your attachments to the physical realm, give away all the images or repeating thoughts that your mind generates about your relationships. After you give these away, what remains? Then, Who or What sees what is left when all disturbances are given away. (Note: a “disturbance” in this context can be either something to which you cling or something to which you feel aversion. Both are disturbances to calm mind.)

You might also consider what part of mind has designated the relationship in the terms it has thus far been designated. Then inquire within more deeply to discover if this part is real, or only is really experienced. How is it that you have become so dependent upon the repeating habits of mind? How is it that this mind has been allowed for so long to go unchecked, unchallenged, and unquestioned? Who has decided that such is an appropriate way to participate, relationally? You may even come to discover you have questions regarding just who/what is steering that thing you call your mind anyway. Let the questions arise; you will notice they will do that quite naturally.

As much as is possible, try not to react emotionally to whatever may arise. Just try to see how it is that your mind determines how you think about and how you respond within each specific relationship you hold. To a greater or lesser degree, how you hold your relationships determines how you feel about yourself. That, of course, is another lesson. For this month, let's just see how much you can learn about your mind and your relationships.

Please join me this month in listening to a recent teaching I created for you specifically for this Teaching of the Month. I have entitled it Karma Meeting Karma. I am specifically hopeful that it will address some of the elements so many of you have been putting to Me on the inner planes. In the recorded teaching, I refer to it as “Practical Spirituality 101.” I hope you enjoy this teaching, and that it contributes to your ever-growing acumen with skillful means.

Continue with the meditation practices I have offered to you. Try to be grateful for all the things you are learning from this practice, whether or not you have completely harvested all that is there for you. Have the faith that you are becoming a Buddha, or a Christ, and work tirelessly toward that goal, knowing it is your gift to all sentient beings. Be particularly grateful for your precious life, and cherish the goodness that flows before you, behind you, above you, beneath you and all around you. I thank you.

Djwhal Khul