Full Transcript:

Doug: Gibran says, "I've become estranged from someone very close to me. Recently I wanted to reconnect thinking it was only because I cared for them. But then I realized that one of the main reasons was because I didn't want the other person to stop caring for me. I realized I was, I am afraid that I didn't matter to them anymore. This has taught me much and I can see how liberating it's been to consciously bear the pain of this. But it can be very intense at times, very difficult. Any words of wisdom and encouragement would be appreciated."
 
Guy: There are so many different ways we can look at this, Gibran, and it should be understood that what I'm going to say is just one facet in an endless array of possibilities, higher possibilities. First, broadly speaking, how in the name of God can two human beings who love each other become enemies? We're just so used to riding on this weird up-and-down roller coaster in our relationships that it never brings about in those moments of estrangement, as the word is used, how odd it is that someone I love has become an enemy, or I have become an enemy of that person. And, to your benefit, the realization that this shouldn't go on, and that I don't want it to go on. But, failing to be able to see the way this consciousness works - or un-works - honestly, Gibran, our present nature and its proclivity for instantaneous identification with virtually any one of the endless characters that passing conditions pop onto the field of this mind, I feel like a man sitting in a field, watching a scrub or a rugby match, some kind of game of some kind, and without knowing it, he identifies with this player #22 on the blue side, and then he instantaneously identifies with #19 on the red side, and then identified with the water boy, and then the coach - and every last one of these identifications, every last one of these thoughts, these images that his mind is taken to - instantaneously creates an identity that is justified and strengthened by all the associations connected to the moment of that identity. So we're just played around like the ball on the field, we're just bounced around. We have no idea where our real, true understanding allows us to recognize the proclivity to take this and be identified with this person. Because everybody knows - one minute I'm identified with someone who doesn't want to have an enemy, I want to be loved, I want to have love, I want everything good, I know that's the right thing to do. And no more am I identified with that player than another player on the opposite field shows up and goes, "Well yeah, but wait a minute. They're going to think you're this, and what about that, they're going to misunderstand you..." And then you go "You're right!" Then there's another field player, and just back and forth, back and forth... until you get to a place where you don't know what to do with yourself.

I haven't had to do it, by the grace of God, but if I did, if I was estranged from somebody - and in one respect I kind of did this, maybe 30 years ago with my younger brother. My younger brother, when we were kids, for whatever reason he just worshiped the ground I walked on. It was a phenomenon. My mother would often tell me, your brother loves you so much. He didn't care much for my older brother - but if I had a shadow, it was that kid. And I was so cruel... and then finally seeing one day, not how I mistreated him but how this consciousness can be so hateful, so jealous, so envious... having seen that, many years ago I went to him and said, "You know what brother? I am so sorry. I'm sorry for everything I did, everything I said. I take responsibility for it, but I want you to know that was never me, I never wanted to be like that, even though I did all those things. Please forgive me. You know what he said? He said, "I don't know what you're talking about!" But I knew what I was talking about. Don't have an enemy. Don't have people in your life that you're estranged from and that you at least won't take the initiative to bring an end to it. You're so afraid of losing face. You're so afraid of some spiritual mistake. "I don't know, is this the right thing to do? Because I need to be unconditionally loving, or I need to be unconditionally strong, and I don't know who to be. I'll tell you who to be. Be the man or woman who understands, without thinking about it, that as long as you have someone that you haven't done everything you can in your life to bring an end to that estrangement, you're responsible for it. And if and when you try to make amends, and you're rebutted and rejected, then so be it - and it is on them from that point, and you know that you went to the end of what you knew was possible for you to do in that situation.
 
We are creatures without remorse, because we have something in us that just tells us, "You can forget this. You can forget the mess of this relationship. Just forget it." Here's how you forget it: blame them. Here's how you forget it: "Go on, you don't need them anyway." Here's how you forget it: "They're idiots." That's that story about that dark demiurge, that god that hypnotized those human beings on that dark, distant planet - and by the way, can you guess what dark, distant planet I'm talking about? Look, you can wish anything you want. Just wish to forget your responsibility as a human being. Just wish to forget that God gave you a purpose that has nothing to do with proving yourself to others, let alone making them prove themselves to you. You can forget it. And we go, "Thank God, I can forget that. Then I can go on with my life." But the problem is I can't, because the karma, the unfulfilled, unanswered action that requires reconciliation goes on and on, and it never leaves me - and it never will leave you until you understand what I'm talking about and then find out for yourself the truth of that.