A great test in the couple relationship is the consumption attitude.

We call it the consumption attitude, because it is the attitude of someone who always wants to consume the effects, without trying to look at the causes that produced the desired effects.

This attitude is not connected only to the couple relationship, it is about their entire existence. For example, some people like comfort. Because their life is comfortable they consider themselves lucky. But they never ask themselves where this is coming from, why do they like this state of comfort, where does this luck come from, which makes them have a comfortable life, what is the source of this comfort? One day, the wheel of fortune turns and they start to be followed by bad luck instead of good luck. Then, they are destroyed and try desperately to go back to what was before. This is a consumption attitude. Or, for example in the couple relationship, we like to make love and we feel very good making love to the other one, but we never ask ourselves what are the mechanisms of this pleasure, we do not go deeper into these things.

One day, we notice with surprise that the erotic attraction between us is gone and we do not know what to do, because we never asked ourselves where it came from or how was it possible. We just happily consumed everything that was there and when the state of attraction starts to fade, we get desperate, we act like we are squeezing an old lemon in our tea. Instead of cultivating an entire field of lemon trees, so that we constantly have fresh lemons, we keep squeezing the same lemon, until nothing comes out of it. This is the consumption attitude. This attitude is a real plague of the modern couple relationships, because basically we live our entire existence at this superficial level of effects, without aiming to find the level of the causes.

Therefore, in order to pass this spiritual test, we must always aim to have a spiritual direction. In fact, the spiritual direction means to always shift from the effects towards the causes. Ultimately, it means to direct ourselves towards the ultimate cause, towards God, that is why we can say that the spiritualization of the couple relationship automatically dissolves this consumption attitude.

This attitude is superficial, gregarious, in which we just want to consume – the supermarket attitude. Many yoga practitioners, when they complain that they have lost aspiration or that they had certain states and that they’ve lost them, and you ask them “OK, but how did you get those states? What triggered them?”, most of them have no clue about it. Some say: “They came from God.” In fact, this is a great revelation, it is not just a stamp. In that moment, the state of unhappiness that the yogi feels as a result of the loss of the state of happiness or fulfilment that he had before is a lesson that teaches us that we did not understand the cause of that wonderful state we had before. This game always tends to direct us towards the causes. In the couple relationship, the consumption attitude is deadly. It destroys the couple relationship.
There is a situation that appears extremely often, especially in women. It is like this: she does not have a lover. This is a problem, because all these revelations about transformation in a couple do not apply. Moreover, God made man and woman to be together and the androgynous state is reached more easily through love in a couple relationship. As a spiritual relationship, evolution in a couple is much faster then individual evolution. So, the woman has every reason to try to find a lover. By going to a shakti group, she receives many techniques for finding the ideal lover. She is a spiritual person, she is open to transformation, she takes part in all courses, conferences, meetings, she practices a lot, she is involved in extra activities – such as being in the theatre group, etc. She is a complex person, with her heart open to love.

Eventually, she becomes an extremely wonderful being, fascinating and attractive and she finds a lover. Unfortunately, in time, after a few months, the following situation appears: the woman (this is also valid for the man) starts to give up, one by one, the activities she was involved in before, saying: “Now, I have a lover, we have to spend more time together, we must work for our relationship, we must become harmonious.” And she does this by giving up those spiritual activities which had made her a very special and wonderful being, worthy of finding a couple relationship.

These spiritual compromises change that being into a less and less interesting person. In fact, she is no longer interesting from the spiritual point of view, even energetically. Everything she used to manifest before, in the theatre plays, or by applying the knowledge received in the courses she attended to her life, or by making sacrifices in her spiritual practice, fades away. She says: “Now I cannot practice, I have a lover that takes me for a walk,” as many people do. It is sad, but true - this state of spiritual compromise, through which the two stagnate and even regress after a while. After a few months – a year, she changes from a being that was actively transforming and becoming wonderful, due to the fundamental confusion that made her think that finding a lover is a purpose and not a way – a way to create a spiritual couple, which is also not a purpose in itself, but a way of evolution, the respective person enters a state of inertia, saying: “Now, I have a lover. There is somebody to call me, to take me for a walk, to take care of me.” And she gives up the individual transformation and even the practice.
They involve themselves in materialistic issues, such a making a company, building a house, moving somewhere else, having a child. Little by little, from the yogic ideal, which is to put God in the first place and to follow the spiritual life towards this goal, the two lovers put all kinds of other things on the first place and this is reflected in them. Sadly, after 1, 2 years, even less, that lover who had fallen in love with a wonderful being, which had manifested a certain aspect of the Divine Mother in a fascinating way due to the tapas she kept, he looks and he sees a more and more ordinary and boring being, who indulges in discussions such as: “Shall we go to that activity or shall we better go for a walk on the beach? Or shall we go and eat, because we were at that restaurant and it was so good, let’s see if we can repeat the experience.” In this situation, the consumption attitude is manifested, because the woman wishes and throws herself, blinded, into the new relationship, especially if this happens after a long period of loneliness, she is truly blinded by the glamour of “Now I am not alone anymore, somebody loves me and takes care of me”, and she spends her time and energy for that false support of the relationship and she makes more and more compromises with the spiritual aspects.

You must be aware that the responsibility to evolve spiritually is that of the individual, and every now and then the couple must look back and see where they started from and where they are now. If they started from a state of spontaneity, effervescence, joy, happiness, love, manifested in a wonderful way and now they are fighting and being jealous, possessive after one year, then they must be very careful. Because they have made compromises on the spiritual path and other mistakes, after one year friends have to tell people who did not manifest jealousy and other impurities before they entered the couple relationship: “You are worse than before you found the lover you worked so hard to find.”


Taken from "The spiritual couple relationship", conference kept by Mihai and Adina Stoian in 2006, in Costinesti - Romania.

Published by Natha.net