Greetings from the Land of Enchantment: Amalgamation

Tuesday, July 10, 2012

Amalgamation

Recently I was with my husband's family in the finger lakes region of New York. It was beautiful and relaxing and challenging (as family often is). I awoke one morning knowing that something wasn't quite right; my sister-in-law Graham noticed it right away commenting, "Something's not right in Sat Purkh world." I couldn't quite put my finger on it at the time, but she was right. Something was amiss. I alluded it to it by casually saying, "I think I've fallen too much in love with my husband." And I was right. This was not an unfamiliar sensation. As the hours passed, the feeling of being lost grew deeper and wider until a great chasm had opened up within me. I suppose I thought I wouldn't experience it in my marriage as opposed to the many times I'd experienced it in other relationships--that feeling of disappearing, becoming lost in the other person, a sensation that I imagine is like dying. The shabad, Ik Ardaas, refers to this pattern of a woman falling in love with her husband and family and losing sight of the Guru. I recognized it for what it was, but couldn't quite shake myself out of it.

I confessed  my confusion to my beloved and he said so sweetly, "it's okay to keep falling in love with me." And I realized that the fear that accompanies this feeling of disappearing is based on experience but not necessarily on Truth. In the past the person I've disappeared into often disappeared in turn, leaving me empty and hollow. But my Beloved remains, reflecting me back to myself and loving me more deeply with each passing day.

So perhaps this sense of disappearing is what happens when two become one? Here's a wonderful quote from Yogi Bhajan about the process of amalgamation; merging into the other so completely that neither is the same, ever again: "One girl sat with a boy and they started discussing their matrimonial proposal. The girl said, "Suppose, my dear, I lose my eyes." He said, "Dear, I'll become your eyes." She said, "Suppose I lose my legs and hands." He said, "Dear, I'll become your legs and hands." And finally in the end she said, "Suppose, dear, I lose myself." And he said, "Darling, then I'll become yourself." She said, "All right. I think we must marry each other."
Marriage is to lose yourself into one another. It is the process of amalgama­tion. If you put copper and zinc together, you'll end up with a new alloy-brass. There is neither copper nor zinc. In the institution of marriage two people become totally inter-merged. They lose their basic properties and come out with a common alloy which is socially known as a married couple, with totally different virtues and different alloca­tions of duties in life." (Beads of Truth #33/34)
So the lesson is to keep diving more deeply into the other; remaining curious and letting caution fly upon the wind for doubt is a destiny-killer. And my destiny is to be one with my beloved and allow the fruit of that union to unfold in Guru's Grace.

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