So, to celebrate the launch and release of my new book, Secretly Loved: How to be Your Own Secret Admirer, to be released on Valentine's Day 2010, I am giving free hugs, tomorrow! Yup. I am gonna be on Ring Road tomorrow on the campus of University of California, Irvine, with a big free hugs sign, giving hugs to anyone who wants one. From 12:30PM to 3:30 PM PDT.

I figured this is a perfect way to promote my book since this is what the book is all about - instead of waiting for someone to come and save me or "attracting my soulmate", it is about experiecing Love in the Now, right here, right now. I kind of also want to create a movement around the book, and so I would really  appreciate if everyone who reads this also gives free hugs tomorrow, even if it was not with a free hugs sign, but simply something as simple as walking up to a complete stranger in coffee shop, and asking, "Would you like a hug?" And hugging that person if he says yes. Yup, get out of your comfort zone too. Or even something as simple as going up to a stranger and saying, "Hi! I don't know you, but I just wanted to say that you look really beautiful!" It will make someone's day! :) :) :)

There are 2 ways to live life - believe there is something to protect and defend - and thus also believe there are some things you have to do to protect and defend - some healers, for example, believe that they can't touch others too much, or else, their energy would be 'drained' or that they would absorb the other person's 'negative energy' - and thus they believe they must wash themselves with salt water after too much touching, or do a number of other things - I know, I was one of those healers - but there is only so much you can do to defend - in the end, it is too tiring to keep defending and protecting - sooner or later, I always got seriously sick.

And then I realized - it is so much simpler to believe that I have NOTHING to defend - because, now I have NOTHING to do to defend my self. Life is so much more simple now.

:)

May Everyone Experience True Reality some day!

I look at these droplets of water falling from the shower - somehow, they shimmer with, as Love, and when each drop touches me, I feel so loved and loving, and I feel like I am Love itself, and so is the water, and so it is like Love touching Love, Love kissing Love, Love massaging Love, Love soothing Love, Love, caressing Love. I feel each drop fall over the strands of my hair, my shoulders, my neck, my arms, the hairs on my arms, my chest, my nipples, my stomach, my hands, my thighs, my balls, my dick, the hairs around my manhood, my legs, my knees, my ankles, my toes, my feet - I feel it all in sensual detail, and I feel pleasure like I have never felt before, and somehow, I feel like I feel all this not because the water is there and I am here, and the water hits me - no, it is more like, I feel it because I AM the water also. It is the same when I look at the water droplets or hear the sound - it is not like the water is there and I am here, and I am looking - I see it because I AM It. I hear it because I AM it too. And it is as if the water droplets are alive, and that they have an intention, and only one intention - Love - and this love is expressed as giving me pleasure, feel-good sensations all over my skin and organs, especially my heart - this love is also expressed as beautiful lights around the water droplets for my viewing pleasure - this love is also esxpressed as soothing sounds when the waters touch my body and even the tub below.
It all started when I looked at a flower - normally, this is how we perceive the 'outside' world - I am here, and there is a flower over there, and I am not the flower, and the flower is not me. I am here, a separate being, looking at, through the sense of sight, through the retinas behind my eyes, a separate flower, outside of me. But what I perceived that moment was much deeper than that. It is hard to explain but I shall anyway.
What I felt was that when I looked at the flower, I was, in a sense, becoming the flower, or a part of me was becoming the flower, and the flower, or a part of the flower, was becoming me, and there was this merging of energy, and this was why I 'saw' the flower - but this time the flower was far more radiant and beautiful than usual - not only the flower, but even the leaves and the stems around the flower, and the dirt on the ground too! And in addition, I also 'felt' this energy coming from the flower towards me, and this energy moving from me towards the flower.

Sweetness flowing into me, through me, and a long, complicated, at times, very simple, arduous journey takes place - Pan's mischievousness brushes past Cupid's bow on her face, lips touch, tongues twist, rivers collide, arms around each other, rain pours down - I playfully hit her on the arms, and she squeals, "Ow!!!" and she sounds so cute, and I massage away the area on the arm I had hit, and she says, delightfully, " That feels so good!" So I tickle her, and she laughs and writhes and squirms and moves her body all over the place, like a little girl, and it is like the day the formless first became form - jaw-dropping, awe-inspiring...

I look into her eyes. Deep, soothing tears flow. She disappears. We disappear.

Finally, sweetness flows

As me,

As her,

And without me , without her,

And there is

Only

Sweetness.

Marriage Clone

Serial Marriages

The Triangle

For example, a woman in her late thirties, a computer whiz and part-time masseuse, lives in a household with both her current love and her former lover. Her former lover, now a a good friend gives her present lover counsel on how to treat her, explaining where he made mistakes, talking about the atttibutes which her current lover has which make him MORE fit for the job of loving her well. He speaks of himself as the guardian angel to their relationship. "I somehow always understood, even when I was with her," he says, "that I wasn't to be hers forever. I was there to enjoy her and to carry through a few things, but in actuality, I was just a stop on her way to her real destination."

"We'are all having an amazing, beautiful time," says the woman. "It has to be known that two people who love the same person don't have to be enemies. Somebody's got to start living this out and showing how it can work."

In their particular situation, they all support one another in a larger vessel of love. Ordinarily, in the world of personality, men compete with one another for the affections of a single woman, not only in the moment of trying to capture her, but even in retrospect. These two gentlemen, both STRONG and GENTLE men, are dissolving the archaic pattern of the male combative mode. In loving this woman together, they also embrace one another as men, which, for each of them, has been a movement toward spiritual expansion.

As their story shows, the soul is always interested in bringing us together. It isn't interested in hierarchies or egos. It keeps saying that love is all that matters. It keeps showing, through each of our little experiences, that if only we can open our hearts just a little bit wider, more love can flow in with every transaction.

Love is ease, love is grace. When we have to worry about such things as "I loved her first", or "I loved her better", or "She left me, so nobody else can have her," we keep constricting ourselves emotionally, physically, spiritually. Constriction takes energy. It wears us out. But each time we can expland, relax, and let more love in, we find a greater sense of ease, because we have nothing to defend, protect, or bark about. This is where we're all going, but it takes courage to get there. These people, who are doing it so comfortably, are lighting a candle and showing the way. They have tasted of the true grace which, expanded to infinity, is absolute seamless ease. It is love.

(I'd say the relationships betweem Juan Antonio, Cristina and Maria Elena in the movie Vicky Cristina Barcelona is another beautiful example of the Triangle).

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The Double Duo

Same-Sex Marriage

Cross-Gender Departures

Cross-Generational Marriages

The Parent-Child Bond

Friendship

The Sacred Circle of Friends

There will also be a form of communal relationship that I call the Wheel or the Sacred Circle of Friends. In this configuration, rather than having a single spouse, domestic partner, or main squeeze, an individual will have a collection of loved ones and friends who comprise his or her relationship life. In these formats, each person will be the hub of his own wheel, surrounded by a number of people, each of whom serves relationship function - the confided-in friend, the person who shares some financial burden, the occasional or serial lover, or the practical helpmate. Instead of this group being viewed as a stand-in for a "real relationship", this constellation of people will be celebrated as a bounteous gift, acknowledged as a relationship form in itself.

Vincent, a man in his forties, is a person whose entire relationship life, has been happily lived in this form. Although he has an occasional lover, this wheel is his relationship of record.

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The Emotional Spouse

Social Pairings

Voluntary Separations

The Solo

The Relationship Monk

Intentional Community

There are 2 aspects to this -

1. Many people are polyamourous by definition of the word because they tend to have deep bonded relationships with people other than their partners/spouses. This class of people do not indulge in guiltfreesex with their non partners tho.

2. The second class of polyamourous people have moved on from being possessive and sexually jealous about their partners and are secure enough about their inherent love for each other to allow themselves and their partners to explore aspects of themselves that cannot be explored in a monoamourous relationship.

This class of people, DOES have guiltfreesex with people they love who are not their partners and they are open/authentic/trusting enough of themselves and their partners to not become insecure about themselves or their current relationship. They tend to also have stronger bonds because their relationship allows themselves the FREEDOM to explore themselves without repurcussions :)

People who are monoamourous by choice inspite of the FREEDOM to explore new frontiers are the only true monogamous folk. Such folk have likely explored this aspect in reality in some depth (not just in thought) but decided they preferred monoamory.

Monoamorous people who are afraid to explore themselves or allow their partners to do so come from a space of insecurity and lack. This is not monoamory, it is more likely a marriage of 2 unhappy joyless individuals denying themselves the opportunity of authenticity.

Since "sex" and its associated connotations is a point of contention for many, many polyamorous relationships remain shy of indulging the physical aspect of the relationship.

Lastly, how is it possible to NOT love many people without rejecting your infinite capacity of love?

by Sougat Garai