Your Soulmate Should Be Your Spiritual Teacher
“What is your reality, O Divine One?”- Shakti to Shiva in the Vijnanabhairava Tantra
In Hindu mythology, the practice of yoga was first told by Lord Shiva to his wife Parvati (Shakti), after their marriage. The philosophical and spiritual teachings are told in the form of a conversation between the two deities, as they sit together conjoined.
I resonate very strongly with this story, as it describes the experience I’ve had with my soulmate over the past few years as we have both ascended in our spiritual journeys.
We are each-other’s gurus. Exploring the most profound questions of existence, through extended dialogue. We each have our own spiritual quest, and each complements the other perfectly, so that when I come to my love with questions about consciousness, and ideas that I want to understand better through the process of expressing them to him, he gleans insights for his own questions about ethics. Likewise when he reads his ethical “reveries” to me, and we discuss them, I come away with a better context for my own understanding of reality.
Every day, I am uplifted and inspired, feeling myself to grow into divine awareness. I am manifesting, day by day, the Self I want to be. And I could not do it without my love, my soulmate, my teacher.
It’s not that he tells me things I did not know. Just as Parvati doesn’t ask questions to Shiva because she doesn’t know the answer. She knows everything, for she is Shakti, the life-force of everything that is. Rather, by talking with him, I am able to put to words the truths I know intuitively. He teaches me as much by listening while I talk, as he does speaking.
And I do exactly the same for him. I am his goddess. His guru. His Parvati.
When we talk and share our true selves with each other, we are each climbing together on the journey of spiritual discovery. Realising more and more of our glorious nature, becoming more compassionate, empathetic, ethical. Though we are far apart physically, and have been for years, and will be for years to come, we are never apart spiritually. He is a part of me, and I am a part of him.
The night we realised we were soulmates and revealed our divine selves to each other, he said to me:
“As long as you remember yourself, you will remember our love, and as long as you remember our love, you will remember yourself”.
And it’s true. It’s not that we are more “one” than any other part of the universe, because actually we are one with everything in nonduality, but rather that in our mortal incarnations we both woke up to it at the same time, and we help each other realise it. Through the experience of oneness with him, I realise my oneness to everything. In loving him, I realise my love for everything that is.
Oh, what joyous bliss! To have someone who truly helps you to awaken to your true Self! To have found the person through whom you access the feeling of connection to All!
Oh Divine Other, Who is One with My Self
In Realising my Oneness with You
I Realise my Oneness with Everything
Beyond Concepts and Words
“Nowhere is more holy than this.
Right here is the sacred pilgrimage.
Live in alertness for such a moment, my Beloved,
As if it were your one meeting with the Creator.”—Shiva to Shakti, The Radiance Sutras as translated by Lorin Roche
