Part 14 (1/2)
We were interrupted then by the sounds of more movement in the other room. Through the door I could see Love of Mountain and several others rolling back one of the Persian rugs and opening a huge trapdoor in the floor. She looked at Tommy, motioning for him to come help her.
Coleman and I both stood up.
”You know what they're doing, don't you?” Coleman said. ”They're getting ready to go to the mountain.”
”Why?” I asked.
”I don't know, and they don't seem to, either. But they're sure they have to go.”
We were walking back toward them when Rachel abruptly appeared and grabbed my arm.
”I have to talk to you,” she said forcefully, leading me into the sunroom and out a back door into a garden courtyard. The area was paved with flagstone and surrounded by thick hedges and flowering plants. The aroma of water lilies came from a small pond in the corner.
”Everyone's packing,” I said. ”What are they planning to do?”
”They're going to Sister Mountain,” she replied. ”Something's about to happen up there.”
”How do you know?”
She looked at me seriously.
”I know quite a lot,” she said. ”If you weren't avoiding me, you might realize that!”
I just looked at her.
”Why are you avoiding me?” she pressed.
”Because I'm trying to stay in Alignment,” I snapped, wanting to run back in the house.
She smiled and looked at me as if I was a child. ”If you had just connected enough to really talk to me, you wouldn't be confused about this. Do you know why I'm here, why I'm trying to reach the real you? This isn't about anything romantic. It's about the Integrations.
”The Template of Agreement is not just for resolving the extreme polarization that's occurring in politics and religious ideology. It's also about bridging the myth and polarization that keep men and women apart.”
She shook her head. ”You know what I was taught as a child by my mother? That men and women are completely different animals, with a different outlook and language, and doomed forever to misunderstand and manipulate each other. She taught me to lie and control to get what I wanted from men, and as I tried to manipulate my way through one failed relations.h.i.+p after another, I grew to hate men for making me do that.
”And I hated my mother for not preventing the world from being that way. I quit speaking to her for years ... and then she died before I could get back home to talk to her.”
She looked over at me and I tried to stay with her gaze.
”I know now,” she said, ”that it wasn't her fault. I wasn't the only one with this misunderstanding. We all play the game of s.e.x and security. You think you have to be in control so you limit your connection with me, or manipulate it in some way. But the fact is, this habit of closing off to some women is something you've probably always done.
”I bet you've never really opened up to any woman. You were busy manipulating, hoping to entice them into a relations.h.i.+p with you, or, on the other hand, dismissing them altogether if they didn't seem like a s.e.xual possibility. We're all stuck in not fully connecting with those of the opposite s.e.x-women using their s.e.xuality to manipulate men, men manipulating women to get s.e.x. But now, as we figure out how to really tune in to each other, we're on the verge of being able to blow past s.e.xual manipulation altogether.”
I was watching her speak, struck by her open, authentic expression of all this. It was done with a deep soul Connection to me-yet it was a Connection that meant nothing more than that: deep Connection.
”How did you get so clear about this?” I asked spontaneously.
”My mother told me.”
”I thought you said she died before you could speak to her.”
”She did.”
I just looked at her, thinking of the implications of her remark. And in that moment, I realized that my fear of connecting with her seemed to be fading.
”I'll tell you soon about my communication with my mother,” Rachel went on. ”But that's not what we need to be doing now. This distance between men and women has to be healed. For most of us, it's been romance or nothing when it comes to the opposite s.e.x. And we can't go forward into another elevation of consciousness until this changes.
”If a template group works at all, it's because it sets a new pattern by agreement and sends that energy out into the world, to help set a new cultural standard in the collective mind. So what you and I heal here and now influences the world in that way. We have to get back to where we were on Secret Mountain. We have to be souls to each other!”
She reached into a large satchel that she carried and pulled out about a dozen crumpled pages. ”I don't know how much of the Eighth Integration you've read. But here it is.”
I found a bench near the fountain and began to read where I had left off. It immediately held me spellbound.
To completely join minds, it said, we must intend Oneness, but we must also come back to a love state that totally transcends s.e.xual complexity. It named this emotion Agape.
I looked away for a moment and thought about the word. Agape was Greek, and it meant a particular kind of love: one of the soul for all of creation, but most particularly, a love for other people that is platonic in nature. Centering in this kind of love, the Doc.u.ment went on, even more than intending Oneness or Conscious Conversation, lifted those in interaction into their highest soul wisdom. Moreover, this elevation was multiplied many times when practiced by a group.
I put down the pages then and walked into the other room, finding Rachel standing in the doorway waiting for me. Our eyes met, and this time I just let myself go fully into her eyes, setting the intention for Oneness and opening to love.
Suddenly, I felt a perceptible movement in my heart, a surge of emotion that created an even greater centeredness and freedom from apprehension that I hadn't experienced since Secret Mountain. It was right, and totally in Alignment in every way, and never had to be defended. It was Agape.
In my peripheral vision, I noticed a few people in the other room looking at us, but I remained focused on Rachel. She rushed up to me and turned me in the other direction to face the windows that overlooked the courtyard.
”Look how beautiful it is outside,” she said. ”Remember how the world looked on Secret Mountain? We're truly working our way back there with each Integration. The next step is opening our senses fully to the way the world really looks when we're all connected together in a state of love.”
For a moment I took in the beauty. But part of me didn't want to go there yet. All I wanted was to experience this level of Agape again.
I turned around to face Rachel.
I wanted to ask her another question, but the power of the eyes staring at us from the other room was drawing me to them. Everyone was crowded into the doorway looking at the two of us, including Coleman, who was jumping up and down near the back, waving the pages of the Doc.u.ment he held in one hand.
I returned their gazes with the same deep Agape I had projected toward Rachel, and without paying the slightest attention to who was male or female. The energy level and Agape with the group exploded within me even more. They all seemed delighted.
”Wow,” I said out loud.
Rachel came around, stood beside me, and looked at the others.
”Every time,” she said, ”that someone integrates Agape for the first time, it creates a ripple of heightened love in everyone around them, like heat in a greenhouse-or a conversion experience in a crowded country church.”
OPENING TO PERCEPTION.
For twenty minutes, I walked around and talked with everyone I had met in the group. All of them took time for me, even as they hurried to pack. Most spoke English, but they also easily and spontaneously interpreted for each other as a matter of course.
Together, they reflected a rich cross section of life in the region, from bakers to teachers to engineers, and represented most of the known traditions and sects. To a person, they had experienced a Breakthrough Connection in their own way and were proceeding through the Integrations one by one. As we talked, I realized we were becoming a larger template group.
In fact, many voiced that Agape between people was primarily a concept that had grown out of Western, Judeo-Christian thought. But those in other traditions pointed out that their histories were also full of icons that emphasized the importance of soul love. I myself was aware of a concept in Eastern thought, from Jainism, called Ahimsa, which, if not considered academically identical, was the same in practice. We finally agreed that while most traditions pointed to this level of Connection in some way, the Christian and Eastern religions seem to give it the most emphasis.