CONVERSATIONS WITH RAJ
JULY 1985
Vol. 2 No. 7

QUESTION: Why was I drawn to a homosexual orientation in this life?

RAJ: Very simply put, homosexuality and heterosexuality are both biased. Neither one reflects or manifests the whole of unconditional love. Both isolate some part of the Brotherhood from the other part. As repulsive as it may sound to a heterosexual or a homosexual, the capacity to connect with unconditional love with the sex that is not presently embraced, must eventually come to pass. It is not so much a question of why you chose a homosexual path as it is why you didn't select a bisexual path. Understand also that the question you asked with all seriousness is equally valid for those who have selected heterosexuality.

At the bottom line, it is the capacity to love, which is the essence of relationships. Regardless of who is involved in the relationship, the necessity is for that love to more and more emerge from the awareness of one's Wholeness. The more consciously aware you are, experientially, of your Wholeness, your divineness, the more aware you will be of your fellow man/woman in that same light, and the more you will be able to freely and unconditionally love.

Literally, the issue is learning HOW to love, not WHO you are going to love. That your laboratory for this learning involves a male is irrelevant. The learning would be the same with a woman. Whether one is heterosexual or homosexual makes it no easier to trust into one's Wholeness, and the distinction is artificial.

So, you have the capacity to love deeply, fully, unconditionally, a man. Big deal!

QUESTION: Would you please address the relationship that I have with the person I'm living with? Should I view it as a life-long relationship?

RAJ: I know what you mean, but there is no such thing as "life-long." Literally, the ego wants the kind of security that the concept of "life-long" provides. But it needs it so that it feels safe in giving fully in the present. This is not unconditional love!

I encourage you to be in the Now in the relationship, and dare to be unconditional in the Now, because Now is where the Wholeness of You and the Wholeness of your partner is going on. The Now is where it is available to be experienced fully.

So that there is no confusion, I am addressing the relationship in relatively absolute terms. It is the intent of [your] Being to fulfill Itself perfectly, and Now is the only conscious experience in which that fulfillment can occur. Therefore, give your attention fully to the relationship in the Now because that is where the fulfillment is to be experienced. It is there to be experienced because that is the ONLY Movement of Being that is going on. Being is not moving "toward" fulfillment. It is the Movement of fulfillment!

Your willingness to be in the relationship in the Now is what will enhance the relationship. It is presently appropriate and fulfilling Purpose. Honor it.

QUESTION: Do I have a soul mate in this lifetime, or will I find a marriage partner, a committed partner?

RAJ: The concept of a "soul mate" is a very romantic notion, which, from the human standpoint is marvelous and wonderful. But, it presupposes an incompleteness of you, which will be completed by the presence of this one "special" one.

When it begins to dawn in your thought that because you are the direct expression of the Life-Force, the Life-Principle, or God, and that therefore you are the expression of a Wholeness, a Totality, which is forever intent on fulfilling Itself because It MUST forever manifest the eternal creativeness of the Father, then it will become obvious to you that whatever forms evolve to identify fulfillment are arising out of the Wholeness that You Are, rather than the "incompleteness" that you are.

As this begins to dawn in your thought, it will become obvious that this has to be absolutely true of any individual who may come into your experience and apparently constitute a committed life partner. Thus, it will become obvious that the relationship that evolves will simply be constituted of the harmonious blending and unfolding of the universal Life-Principle, which is constituting your Individuality and the Individuality of the one with whom you are sharing the relationship.

Now, it is the Intent of your Being to fulfill itself perfectly. Therefore, you can ANTICIPATE the coming into your experience of that which will identify experientially the Fullness or Wholeness of your Being.

Being is not finite. Your Being is not finite. Restated: Your Being is infinite. The harmonious unfoldment of that Infinity embraces every other aspect of the infinitude of your Being of which a potential partner is one part. You constitute an aspect of the infinitude of that "other one" who would constitute a partner. And, again, your coming into each other's conscious experience simply constitutes the harmonious flow of the tapestry of Life, the tapestry of your Being, his Being, without any actual sense of "separated beings."

QUESTION: A feeling of total connectedness?

RAJ: Exactly. Each of you will bring to each other out of the Wholeness of your Being, rather than out of a sense of partiality, of separated incompleteness.

Now, if your Being is Total at this moment, then at EVERY moment you are subject to the fullness of the experience of that Totality. And there is not some partner who may or may not be incarnated at this time, who you may or may not connect with, who you may or may not overlook, etc. And yet, all of these factors come into play in the concept of soul mates.

You can dare to be alert to see how your Being unfolds Its fulfillment in the form of a partner, while at the same time, within your anticipation, being aware that this "other one's" Being is in the process of manifesting Its fulfillment. The coming together is a total, divine activity that expresses the Oneness of Being, rather than the coming together of two tiny, inconsequential, little mortal organisms who may be able to manufacture enough satisfaction to make life worth living.

You see this is part of waking up into the Wholeness of your Being NOW! It constitutes beginning to see yourself in a new way HERE! Not off in the future after you have Ascended.

QUESTION: Is there anything I need to know at this time?

RAJ: The key need here is self-confidence and competence. It is important to understand that as long as you are depending upon your reasoning and thinking processes and your memory, you will always feel a lack of competence and self-confidence, because you know that there is always something which may escape your grasp, something which you may not have sufficient knowledge about in order to be able to cope as well as you would like.

If you insist on depending upon your limited education and limited experience at reasoning, extrapolating, and coming to conclusions, you will overlook the fact that you, within your Being, embrace all that there is to know. And, that there is a place in you where you can access this deeper level of Knowing. Yet, this is the one essential thing for you, and indeed for everyone, to discover.

You are not totally oblivious of this, and you are not totally unfamiliar with this place, even though you can afford to devote more of your attention to it. So, I am going to encourage you to allow yourself to even more consistently draw from your greater capacity to be aware in dealing with any and every situation, which confronts you.

It is out of your Knowing that your self-confidence will emerge, and your experience of your competence. It will seem to be what you would call "intuitive." You have not been encouraged by the educators in your educational system to rely heavily on Knowing that doesn't arise out of the mental processes of data gathering, sorting, reasoning, and coming to conclusions. Yet, as you are aware, those processes never allow you to come to a place of real security, real self-confidence, even though it will bring you to a reasonable level of competence.

Again, this is specifically the area that needs your attention at this time. The more you are willing to trust into your deeper levels of Knowing, which you brought with you into this life experience, and which have continued to be with you constantly, the more you will find your self-confidence and self-appreciation growing. It will be with a sense of stability and competency that will not be accompanied by a fear of potential guilt, because what you know will not be subject to personal judgment.

Since you do not "figure out" what you Know, you are not subject to judgment for it, and from an ego place you are not able to take credit for it, either—other than for your willingness to be in that inner Place where you can access your deeper levels of Knowing. That you WILL have been responsible for.

Again, I encourage you to continue to let your efforts be in this direction. It is the right direction. In the meantime, if you find yourself feeling unsure, be willing to override it and hang in with your intent to listen deeply within for the knowledge needed at any given time in your day, whether it is with a client, whether it is deciding between a roast or ground round for company the day after tomorrow, or whether you want to take in a show.

Realize that you are not actually reaching outside yourself. You are not turning your life over to some external source. You are choosing to gather your information from a much deeper level of your Being, which Knows exactly what is most appropriate because It sees the larger picture—a picture which you presently are unable to grasp directly, other than by this process of going within and listening specifically. The harmony, which will result, will further substantiate your ability to trust, and this will increase your feeling of competency and confidence.

QUESTION: I feel like I've been on this journey so long. I feel like I made "deals" with myself when I was really small that I still haven't fulfilled or finished.

RAJ: I want to point out to you that the focal point should not be that you haven't finished them, but the fact that you made them, that you made the commitments. That is what is significant. That is what is keeping you "on track." Your commitments have kept you from going down innumerable alleys and byways and side trips. They have served as a protection, in the sense that early on a goal was established, and it was established without the bias of a well-developed ego.

It is less important WHEN you complete what you have set out to do than it is that you have been, and still are saving yourself from needless distractions. Do not now let the ego distract you by suggesting that you are failing or not doing well enough in terms of those commitments. The self-depreciation that follows is, itself, a sidetrack. Honor and appreciate the fact that commitments were made. They are still as valid as they were when you made them, and they are still providing, literally, the red carpet treatment.

Again, there is no deadline. The commitment was an expression of a clear desire. And, as always, the desire is the key. You are in so much better a position than those who do not have a conscious desire and a conscious commitment that has not arisen out of the ego. I am not attempting to make a distinction and put you in a "better" place than another. But, it is essential for you not to dishonor where you are. I could more accurately say that you are in a much better position than you would have been if those commitments had not been made. They were not frivolous or useless, but extremely valuable.

You see, the ego always projects everything onto a time line and then sets limits and puts you in a state of inner conflict. But, what the ego does is never valid, and it is not necessary for you to bind yourself by its structures. Those commitments will be fulfilled. Do not bias them. Do not distract yourself from them, by judging yourself. Judgment will simply distract you from your fundamental intent, which is embraced in those commitments.

You are okay. You are not moving too slowly. Stay with the desire. Stay with the commitments, and do not dally with any self-judgments around those desires or commitments.

QUESTION: Can you talk about how I bind myself with inner conflicts about whether or not I'm doing things fast enough or in the right way? Is that connected up with the joint problems I experience?

RAJ: There is a connection, yes. Because when you obligate yourself to "accomplish," and to accomplish efficiently, quickly—when you pressure yourself in the relentless way you tend to do it, in the unmerciful way in which you tend to do it, in the thoughtless way you tend to do it—the pressure you apply is literally manifest physically, and it hurts!

It is not necessary for you to be unkind to yourself, because you are not going to be judged! It is only the ego, which makes judgments, and it is only from within the ego's frame of reference that it appears that judgments are necessary. It is only from within the ego's frame of reference that you can seem to experience yourself as being incomplete, and therefore NEEDING to strive for completion. And, it is all an illusion.

Your process of accessing your greater capacity to be aware, your process of Awakening, is literally a matter of allowing yourself, letting yourself into the conscious experience of your preexisting Wholeness. And I only use the word "preexisting" in the sense that it was there prior to the development of any partial ego sense. It has continued to be present even when the ego sense was fully developed.

Your Completeness is active at this instant! Your Wholeness is manifesting Itself totally and successfully at this very instant! This Reality of your Being is the only Reality of your Being. And therefore, because It is succeeding totally, the only judgment there could possibly be from any source that you might need to consider as valid would be, "This is my beloved [expression]"—meaning you—“in whom I am well pleased."

The ego would have you see yourself as an ego "working toward" a divinity, which it is, itself, creating by its striving. In actuality, the process of Awakening is one which can be described as the dissolving of the artificial boundary of the ego, which separates you from your immediate, direct experience of the Totality of your Being—the divinity, the Wholeness of your Being, which is functioning wholly at this very instant.

Therefore, since What You Are is present in Its Totality at this moment, the need is for you to be willing to shift your identification from the ego to your Being, which doesn't involve an "improvement" of the ego or an "improvement" of your present sense of self at all! If you are not going to be improving yourself, then there is no process present to be judged by you, or anyone else, or anything else.

If you are standing in front of a fun-house mirror that causes you to be very short and fat in appearance, and right next to that mirror is a normal mirror, and you simply shift your position so that you are standing in front of the mirror, which reflects you perfectly, has there been any process of growth? No. Only the release of a vantage point which caused you to appear to be a way that you weren't. Is there any judgment involved around the process of shifting the vantage point? No. If there is any judgment, it might relate to why one would continue to stand in front of the distorting mirror. And yet, that isn't even a valid source of judgment, because the You that is standing in front of the mirror is absolutely undistorted in the first place, no matter which mirror you are looking in.

Your Being is absolutely sinless, absolutely pure, and absolutely Whole at this instant. You are not moving toward perfection! You ARE apparently moving toward the conscious experience of your Wholeness, but your Wholeness is present to be observed and experienced at every instant. There is NEVER a valid reason for judging yourself in any terms other than, "This is my beloved [expression) in whom I am well pleased."

The Father, the Life-Principle, sees you in your Totality, and does not buy into your partial dream, is not deluded by your "nightmare," and is pleased with the Reality of you that is totally present and totally active, in spite of the tiny dream.

Love yourself—not for what you appear to be through the ego's lenses, not for what you appear to be in the distorting mirror—but love yourself for what you Really Are at this moment! Thus, you will begin to shift your vantage point and you will set yourself up for the conscious experience of your divine Reality.

QUESTION: What is required for ascension?

RAJ: What is required is the conscious awakening to your divinity, to the divine Reality of your Being. It will constitute a shift from a partial, ego sense of yourself, to the conscious awareness of the Totality of your Being in Its Wholeness.

Understand that your Being is functioning Totally at this moment, and with complete success. In other words, It is presently fulfilling Itself perfectly, but, just outside the reach of your present conscious awareness, since you are defining yourself and conceiving yourself to be what you see, feel, taste, smell, and hear.

It is the limiting of your self-awareness to the data which the five physical senses present you with that blinds you to the Total experience of your Being. Who and What You divinely Are is absolutely and totally present, right now, and the process of Awakening is one of accessing your greater capacity to be aware—remembering Who You Are.

What you call Ascension will simply be the shifting of your attention away from this particular experience. You could liken it to teleportation. It is not something which spontaneously happens when you become enlightened, because in the state of being fully enlightened, you are quite free to be right here and experience the here and the now in its divine Reality. This only appears to be a place to "get out of" from within the limited ego sense. It is truly part of the infinite manifestation of God, and in its accurate perception, it becomes one of a universe-full of places to be divinely.

I want to encourage you not to work "toward" your Ascension "in the future." Let your intent be to be so fully present in the moment, in the Now, that your attention is not distracted from the fulfillment that is occurring perfectly in the Now. The Now is the only existent, the only eternal instant in which the Wholeness of your Being is occurring.

Therefore, you will awaken into the "Instant" of Wholeness and the Awakening will have nothing to do with what you conceive to be "forward movement" through time.

Your Wholeness and Completeness is a present Fact which, figuratively speaking, you simply need to open your eyes up to see. Once you understand that you are not moving "toward" It, and that Now is the time in which to experience It, you will stop seeing It as an achievement to be gained through growth and time. And you will not consequently resist seeing It Now because you think It isn't present yet.