The Future of Love

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The key to the emerging vision of love seems to be intention. Welwood, Needleman and others speak of conscious relationship, conscious marriage. Today, these theorists--in their own ways--are redefining relationship as a vehicle for awakening and self-discovery. In their view genuine, enduring love is possible only when couples let go of adolescent smoke-and-mirrors fantasies of each other and the relationship and dedicate themselves to the search for truth. As Stephen Levine, author--with his wife, Ondrea--of Embracing The Beloved, puts it, "When your priority becomes consciousness, even more than relationship, then conscious relationship is possible."

According to Harville Hendrix, founder and president of the Orlando-based Institute for Imago Relationship Therapy, a primary function of marriage is for couples to help one another identify and heal unconscious childhood wounds and unmet needs. "Romantic love is a selection process based on your childhood," he explains, adding that, in spite of any conscious intent to find a partner who does not resemble your parents, most people are attracted to mates who have both their parents' positive and negative traits. And, typically, he says, "the negative traits carry a higher charge." Moreover, if we stay locked in unawareness, once the initial rush of romance wanes, we become either mired in frustration or move on and reenact the drama with someone else. But, if we stretch ourselves to help each other grow, says Hendrix, childhood vulnerabilities eventually diminish--freeing up enormous reserves of creative energy.

The new vision of love, however, is not confined to achieving psychological wholeness. Call it what you will--awakening, transcendence, connection to the divine or, in the language of the Sufis, union with the Beloved--are also central to the vision. In this context, intimate relationship becomes a spiritual practice, a sacred, mystical union of two people connected to a larger reality. "What is sacred is the movement toward deeper truth, deeper connection, deeper understanding," says Welwood. "This involves a meeting of the human and the divine."

Though the idea of relationship as a vehicle for embodying the sacred is hardly new--especially in the tantric practices of India and Tibet, as well as in other Eastern traditions--never before has intimacy been so closely aligned with spirituality. "Now we have the opportunity to bring the sacred fully into our relationships, in a much more personal way," says Welwood--and not just for our own individual pleasure. "This is where we can start to regenerate our world. It has to begin between one person and another. How can we hope to create a better world when we can't even relate to our partner when we come home at night?"

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