The Twelfth Insight - James Redfield [65]
She shook her head. “You know what I was taught as a child by my mother? That men and women are completely different animals, with a different outlook and language, and doomed forever to misunderstand and manipulate each other. She taught me to lie and control to get what I wanted from men, and as I tried to manipulate my way through one failed relationship after another, I grew to hate men for making me do that.
“And I hated my mother for not preventing the world from being that way. I quit speaking to her for years … and then she died before I could get back home to talk to her.”
She looked over at me and I tried to stay with her gaze.
“I know now,” she said, “that it wasn’t her fault. I wasn’t the only one with this misunderstanding. We all play the game of sex and security. You think you have to be in control so you limit your connection with me, or manipulate it in some way. But the fact is, this habit of closing off to some women is something you’ve probably always done.
“I bet you’ve never really opened up to any woman. You were busy manipulating, hoping to entice them into a relationship with you, or, on the other hand, dismissing them altogether if they didn’t seem like a sexual possibility. We’re all stuck in not fully connecting with those of the opposite sex—women using their sexuality to manipulate men, men manipulating women to get sex. But now, as we figure out how to really tune in to each other, we’re on the verge of being able to blow past sexual manipulation altogether.”
I was watching her speak, struck by her open, authentic expression of all this. It was done with a deep soul Connection to me—yet it was a Connection that meant nothing more than that: deep Connection.
“How did you get so clear about this?” I asked spontaneously.
“My mother told me.”
“I thought you said she died before you could speak to her.”
“She did.”
I just looked at her, thinking of the implications of her remark. And in that moment, I realized that my fear of connecting with her seemed to be fading.
“I’ll tell you soon about my communication with my mother,” Rachel went on. “But that’s not what we need to be doing now. This distance between men and women has to be healed. For most of us, it’s been romance or nothing when it comes to the opposite sex. And we can’t go forward into another elevation of consciousness until this changes.
“If a template group works at all, it’s because it sets a new pattern by agreement and sends that energy out into the world, to help set a new cultural standard in the collective mind. So what you and I heal here and now influences the world in that way. We have to get back to where we were on Secret Mountain. We have to be souls to each other!”
She reached into a large satchel that she carried and pulled out about a dozen crumpled pages. “I don’t know how much of the Eighth Integration you’ve read. But here it is.”
I found a bench near the fountain and began to read where I had left off. It immediately held me spellbound.
To completely join minds, it said, we must intend Oneness, but we must also come back to a love state that totally transcends sexual complexity. It named this emotion Agape.
I looked away for a moment and thought about the word. Agape was Greek, and it meant a particular kind of love: one of the soul for all of creation, but most particularly, a love for other people that is platonic in nature. Centering in this kind of love, the Document went on, even more than intending Oneness or Conscious Conversation, lifted those in interaction into their highest soul wisdom. Moreover, this elevation was multiplied many times when practiced by a group.
I put down the pages then and walked into the other room, finding Rachel standing in the doorway waiting for me. Our eyes met, and this time I just let myself go fully into her eyes, setting the intention for Oneness and opening to love.
Suddenly, I felt