Yoga and Relationship: More Than Just Chemistry, It is Spitirual

Chemistry attracts bodies. Secretly by smell, explicitly by the delicacy of the touch or by the fitting in and notching of the shape. It is a magic that begins in the approach and consolidates in the encasing, in a process that goes beyond our reason.

This chemistry is exactly the forces of nature acting in us, independently of our consciousness will. Chemistry is important, but a relationship does not rely on chemistry alone. It is not sustained only by this unconscious attraction. Every relationship is a construction, a daily art, a constant alchemy of discovery. And all Alchemy consists of two fundamental processes. One is to unravel the forces of nature, while recognizing that no matter how much knowledge we have of it, the world will always be a mystery to us. The other is, from the understanding and the magic of the forces of Nature, reach the elixir of Life.

Applying these two paths in the art of relationship, we need to know that we are an enigma for ourselves and that the other, therefore, will always be a riddle for us as well. And there's an incredible beauty in that recognition. The beauty of seduction and discovery as a daily possibility. Each day is a mystery to us, however much of our habits try to fix us in time and show that there is no news. There are always births, transformations, dazzling revelations in one day. The contact with nature shows us all this beauty in the blossoming of a flower, at a sunset, at a moonrise, in the movements of the sea, which are never equal and never repeat themselves.

Life will be a great mystery always partially revealed to us and it will surprise us if our gaze does not stagnate. The other will always be a mystery partially revealed to us if our heart and mind do not surrender to our habits. Thinking that one understood everything that should be understood and that has lived all that could have lived in Life is a common mistake that many commit and that takes away the charm that it constantly offers to us. The same way as thinking one understands the other and that there is nothing else in him to be revealed makes us lose the view that a relationship is an art of seduction, openness, construction and daily deconstruction. The other will always be an unfolding of life in our lives if we allow it and if we have the spirit and the mutual presence to cultivate a relationship.

But the art of Alchemy spoke not only of mysteries and their revelations. The art of Alchemy consists of discovering, among the transformations of Life, the elixir of immortality, the soma. This nectar is the subtlest and most sublime substance of Creation. It is the source of youth, for it is in itself the origin of all that is born and that which permeates everything that exists. This process is symbolically associated with the transformation of lead into gold. For the Alchemists, gold is already in the lead. By alchemical processes, the excesses are withdrawn and the other is revealed. This gold is love, the essence of each one of us. What we all seek in any relationship is the love encounter.

When there is love, the gold (the other) is revealed in us. What we seek through the other is Love, which is the Oneness of Life, the sense of non-separation. Love is what holds us together and is the union itself, it is when we enchant each other, when even the other's gaze calms us down, and through it we recognize ourselves. In a relationship, it is by the unconditional acceptance of the other that we loosen our defenses and accept ourselves completely. In this acceptance, love reveals itself as the source of what we sought. That is why it is enough, we have the feeling that we find the treasure of Life. This Love is the source of ourselves and the fundamental essence of the other.

This is the final step of Alchemy, but it is a constant process, an art of observing. When we hold this recognition of the essential nature of the other as not the same as ours, we create a space for compassion and acceptance of their differences and their shadows as they reveal themselves to our gaze. The relationship ceases to be a window through which we see something far from us, to become a mirror, an opportunity to see ourselves through the other. Be our loving light or our shadows. The art and constant challenge is to see through the shadows the light that always shines. Through the heavier metal, lead, the pure and steady nature of brilliance we are, gold. A relationship that promotes love and growth is the relationship in which, in this mirroring, art becomes recognizing the shadows but exalting the light. And this process does not take place chemically, that is, unconsciously, this is a path of artistic construction, an Alchemy.

@Pyotan