How to deal with friends, family and loved ones during awakening

 

Q; I have several lifelong friends who are like sisters to me. We talk by phone once or twice a month. I love and appreciate their friendship and they are kind to me, but I find it difficult to witness them so deep into depression, poverty, physical and mental illness, family estrangement, addiction and abusive relationships. I too have been in dark negative situations in relationships and I feel their pain, “But for the grace of God go I.” I see how hard they work, how much they want to be happy, how much they try to grow and change. On the one hand, I feel that I cannot turn away from them — they are my sisters and they are suffering — and yet sometimes when I listen to their stories, I feel sick to my stomach, disturbed, and conscious of the fact that their stories are food. Sometimes I feel the need to digest and I feel that it is unhealthy food for me to take in. I feel repulsed and I don't want to hear anymore, but then I feel again that I cannot turn my eyes and ears away from their pain — which is my pain too, which is the pain of all the world. Please help me see this clearly.

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This is a very important question because it comes up all the time. How do we deal with family members, with our immediate environment, with our childhood friend — best friends? Awakening takes place, we all are in different places and in different phases in this life, and that's the way Consciousness will have it. Sometimes we are brought together because there's this phase, whatever that phase is, a relationship had its purpose, it was fulfilling certain evolutionary impulses that were important for each and every one who is involved. But then there comes a moment when there is a breakthrough, and let's say in this case the breakthrough is for you, and you feel that your friends are being left behind, and you don't know what to do, because you feel that they are being left behind and it affects you not in a nice way.

 

So, this is what you need to understand very clearly, that up until you become that beacon of light, and a beam of light which is strong enough to transcend, illumine, and transform and change the environment, situations, people — and we say people, with their loved ones with their samskaras, with their psychological impositions — you would essentially deal with their problems as your own. Unless you understand, that up until you become that light — which then happens automatically, then it becomes spontaneous and nothing is taken out of you — something is taken out of you up until there is a call in you, you are not ready to do this work; you are not ready, you are not in a position to qualitatively affect that which otherwise is experiencing very different frequencies, which otherwise is under the influence of very different vibrations.

 

I'm not saying to cut them off… but I am also saying that to cut them off, you have to be very clear about — that unless you dedicate yourself to this process of self-transformation, and at some point, become even selfish to a total degree, you will not be able to truly help your friends, your sisters, because your own process of expansion is delayed and constantly being slowed down by what is there as an outlived psychological imposition.

 

And you are not alone in that. We are all leave people behind and it's painful, very painful when our dear friends are suddenly no longer willing or capable of following us into the way of life that we are willingly going or sometimes being taken to. And there's nothing we can do but to go with that process. What do we do? You are invited to fly, you have the wings, the wings are grown or growing, you’re making your first leaps of flight, but your friends don’t have a pair of wings which they have grown. You have a choice — you stay there and try to uplift them or carry them under your armpits… I'm not sure if that is possible. So, you see, this is where you must have a deeper, healthier understanding. This is why spiritual communities are created, so that people at least live in the vicinity and in the community of where this alignment and that work is being done. Unless we are prepared to sacrifice certain attachments to these relationships, we are not going to be able to help those who need to be helped.

 

You finish this very beautifully — I love the way you put it, you're coming out of compassion that, “…you're feeling their pain which is my own pain too, which is the pain of all of the world.” How can we elevate the pain of the whole world, the pain of your sisters until your own pain is completely transcended? And not only that, but until nothing “out there” which you encounter can eclipse your own light?

 

In other words, I've already answered your question. I've already at least hinted enough — the obviousness of this is quite clear.  Sometimes we have to leave — leave our immediate family where we grew up, if they are refusing to go there, or our sisters, our brothers, our cousins — if they're refusing to go there. Sometimes we can't even take our children, who are supposed to be more evolved. We can’t even take our children, because they have to work through what they have to go through.

 

You have to be discriminate in your relationships and your associations, because like increases like, and the phase is still vulnerable, the phase is still tender and everything colors your progress. It either gives energy to that process or only consumes your energy for dealing with what is being thrown at you. Believe me, that is the way Consciousness will have it, that when the being of more positivity, more upbeat, of more higher frequencies goes and associates herself with company where the vibrations are very different, where they are much more subjected to these downward bringing tendencies — downward here in terms of negative thinking, that habitual way of living and so forth — then that higher vibrating consciousness will immediately begin picking up all this stuff.

 

There are thresholds, when you reach a point when this no longer affects you, because you go into a subtler domain. It no longer affects you — you may not like it, but you will laugh at it. But there is great power in it as well, and that power comes out of you, you are oozing with that power you are oozing with that force. You may not even say much, but it is very attractive, and people are drawn towards it, I speak about that very often — allow that.

 

I'm not saying completely detach yourself from relationships you have, or cut yourself off, but at least recognize when it is no longer conducive; recognize when it's taxing you, when it's becoming taxing. And trust me, sometimes some relationships simply outlive what they were there for in the first place, and we have to recognize that for what it is. Unless we do that, new relationships will not come into our lives. New friends will not enter our lives, because there is only so much time and attention that we can share — I want you to consider this.

 

Remember that this is a spontaneous process, and when there is enough light, it illumines and illumines quite spontaneously without trying. So, contemplate that. You can always send love, you can always send best intentions to those you love. What is it worth? Are you missing their company? Are you still missing part of yourself that you recognize in them, that you have outgrown and are wishing them to outgrow? Also, recognize this, also recognize what holds you in these situations, where you know that you are being loaded and you are being taxed. You see? No one forces you to have relationships that do not serve evolution. Nature, Consciousness doesn't like what no longer serves evolution. It doesn't. One way or the other, sooner or later, you will recognize that, and it will become all too apparent.

 

                                                                                                                  ~ Igor Kufayev, Online Darshan transcribed Q&A Mallorca, July 11, 2015

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