The topic I am most often asked to speak and write about is relationships. It is not surprising – relationships are the stuff of life. We live in the relative world and so by definition we live in relation to others and the world around us. At ALL times we are relating to someone or something.

This is a biggie and not one that I can deal with in a single blog entry – instead I want to tackle it in instalments. I’m going to start the ball rolling today by looking at the most fundamental relationship of all. I hope this will spark some thoughts and questions and from there we can develop this further.

So, where to start?

Let’s begin with the most important relationship of your life because this is the one that will impact every other relationship you have.

Quite simply it is your relationship to yourself. Yes – you and You.

For how can we relate to others if we don’t know who we are?

This is all about the relationship between your small self (small s) and your big Self (capital S).

Your small self is your individual aspect – your individual likes and dislikes, your personality, characteristics and traits, your unique psychophysiological make up.

Your big Self is your universal aspect – that part of you that connects to the Absolute, unified aspect of nature, that field of non-change that is at the basis of all life in the universe.

Think of your small self like a wave and your big Self as the ocean from which it arises. Like a wave on an ocean you are not separate from the world around you. You are the wave and the ocean simultaneously.

However if we do not know how to de-excite our individual wave we will always feel separate to some degree. If we are solely identified with the ever-changing, transient aspects of small self and we have not stabilised our identity to the inner field of non-change then we are like a ship without a rudder – buffeted about by the ever-changing world of things, people and events around us.

From our very first meditation our individual wave settles down and becomes more broadly identified with the ocean of pure consciousness deep inside. We do this every day, again and again and over time our individual wave aspect identifies more and more with the grounded inner aspect of non-change. We become what we see.

As we capture that oceanic status our identity is transformed from a dislocated blip to a state of oneness with the source of life.

When this most fundamental relationship is established, when small self knows big Self, then we are free and able to truly relate. We know who we are and are no longer reliant upon the ever changing outside world for our sense of identity.

Established in that inner reservoir of bliss and energy we can give to others rather than looking for our own neediness to be funded by those around us. This will transform every relationship you ever have.