In the past several weeks, I’ve been noticing how people reach out to others and relate in a loving, meaningful way. And I’ve also been noticing how so many people hold back from doing that, or relate to others in a way that serves their own self-interest.

It seems to me that, from a spiritual perspective, most people fall into these two categories when it comes to how they relate:

1. Introverts who don’t extend themselves to others
2. Extroverts who relate to others because they want something from them.

There are relatively few people who are in a third category. These are people who have found a way of relating to other people that is born out of generosity. It is an approach to relationship in which the person who is connecting to another realizes they have something profound to offer to that person that could be a gift and a blessing to them. That thought comes unattached to an expectation of reward, even though, if you want to have fulfilling relationships in your life, this is the only way to go about it.

The irony of it is that if a person allows the results they expect to achieve for themselves to dominate and that becomes the motivating factor, it puts them into the second category—the extrovert who is relating to others because they want something. That attitude undoes the magic of relationship that opens up when a person’s motivation is unattached to a personal reward.

I see these factors applying to all relationships, irrespective of the nature of the relationship, and irrespective of the context in which we have it, whether it is in work, in home life, social life, in love and romance, or in community life. This is universal. It is applicable whether it is a relationship between a man and a woman, between men, or between women.

So what is the gift that we have to give to another person in relationship seen from a spiritual perspective? There is complexity to it because people are so different and there are so many kinds of relationship. There are differences in age and gender and context. Is there are a core truth that applies to any relationship?

I would like to explore a core truth that applies to all relationships, beginning with the relationship between a man and a woman. This certainly applies to a man and woman in a romantic relationship or in a life partnership. But it also relates to any relationship between any man and any woman.

What is the ultimate generosity that a man can bring to any woman in his life from a spiritual perspective? Something momentous and life-changing happens for a man when he realizes that he can relate to the women in his life—and in fact, every woman in his life—in a way that gives her a greater opportunity to know the masculine face of God. If that thought really enters his head so that he sees the opportunity for what it is, it has to change his life. It has to change the way he relates to every woman in his life. It awakens new thoughts.

They could feel the reality of Father God. They could feel that reality as it comes through me; they could feel that reality within themselves and the potential of it coming through themselves. They could feel a greater closeness with that reality, a communion with that reality.

The truth of the masculine face of God is that it’s not a discrete reality. It is a reality in me and it is a reality in you, but it is a reality in all people and in all creation. So there’s no way that someone touching that reality in me is touching it only in me. If it’s the truth of the masculine face of God, it is that reality for all the whole earth and for all humanity.

So if a man fully appreciates this opportunity, how could it not change him? He is compelled to ask himself, How can I allow all of the ego mechanisms that are at work in my psyche to recede so that I could be transparent enough so that Father God could be known more fully by this woman?

Obviously this comes sharply to focus in close, intimate relationships. But it is not in any way confined to that. I’ve experienced ecstasy and delight over the counter at a restaurant, buying a donut and a cup of coffee from a woman who was serving me on the other side. This potential is present in every relationship between a man and a woman.

Relationship becomes ecstasy when a man is not operating in the first two categories that I named; when a man is not giving way to his own introvertish tendencies so that he is not bothering to share who he is with a woman across a counter at a restaurant or a coffee shop, or anywhere else. When a man’s intent is to offer to a woman a deeper connection to the masculine face of God, relationship become magical.

This is a view from the male perspective. How does it look from the female perspective? How many women do you know whose primary intention in relating to the men around her is to reveal something of Mother God and make sure that the men who she relates to have the opportunity to experience a deeper connection with the reality of Mother God because she is there? You can feel that reality through many women. But it’s often a bait-and-switch: “Here, see this beauty of Mother God. Now do something for me.” Similar to men, women often fear that they won’t be taken care of, that there won’t be a returning cycle; that if she gives away the presence of that reality of Mother God, that she will be abused and bereft. And so the tendency is to believe that it should not be given away freely, that it should be bartered. It is a rare woman who handles these issues with nobility, generosity and wisdom.

These are some of the essential issues for both men and women. Clearly the issues are far more complex than that. For one thing, we don’t just relate to members of the opposite sex. There are other factors that come between men, certainly. I know a few men who don’t have any issues about their own power and don’t have any issues about my power as a man, or anybody else’s, for that matter. It’s just not an issue for them. They are free in joining with the power of another man and the authority of another man and the direction being brought by another man. They’re free to create, they’re liberated; it’s not an issue for them, it’s not a problem. And they are free when they are taking the initiative.

My experience is that this is rare. Sometimes issues between men are overcome in limited situations. In the military, it’s forced on men and they just have to deal with it. Sometimes in that situation men learn something and get over their issues. They find a degree of liberation. That can happen in corporate life too. But if it doesn’t go beyond the man’s experience in the military or in a corporation, it is limited liberation which isn’t really liberation at all.

Do you know men who share the intent to bring the masculine face of God to the world? Who share the intent to allow their own ego patterns to melt away, to reveal the majesty and the glory of the Divine? These are men who face the Divine with humility, and who live this prayer in relationship to God: in Your way, by Your truth, for Your glory.

Most men worry, “What is happening to my way? What is happening to my truth? My glory?” A man has to face his own tendency to hang on to his own life, to be looking for his own way and his own truth and his own glory. To bring the masculine face of God to the world, a man has to come to the point of releasing all those tendencies, once and for all. The fear is that I will lose myself. That’s not actually what happens. A man finds himself when a man yields to the spiritual reality within himself.

I’m grateful to know some women who are conspiring together to let the feminine face of God be present in their world. An ego-centered woman can’t do that. For an ego-centered woman, it’s all about me and mine, and How do I use my femininity to get what I want? Women who are conspiring together to transparently reveal and bring the feminine face of God into the world, and who have no issue doing it together are rare.

Certainly, in my relationships there are issues that come up that have to do with my human personality, my cultural background and so on. Those same issues come up for everyone with whom I relate. So finding out how our humanity fits together with another person is quite an experiment. From a place of selflessness, it isn’t hard to do. Living from ego, it’s impossible.

The magic of life is that in some way we fit together with everyone, if we’re willing to allow our humanity to be fluid and to conform to our own intention to do so. The more different we are from another person in outer form, the more miraculous it is when find the way we fit together.

The process of relationship takes some time and patience, and it takes openness. It takes ongoing generosity. Just as the seeds of destruction are present when a person approaches a relationship with a self-seeking perspective, the seeds of success, fulfillment and joy are present when the intention is selfless.

Here is some of the personal part of this consideration for me. It has to do with my own purpose in life and my spiritual mission. I am intensely interested in opening a gateway to a higher dimension of Being. That could sound like science fiction, but to me, it is real. I’m interested in finding the key to that gateway, inserting it into the gate and opening it up. I’ve had personal experiences of that, and I have shared the experience with others. But it has been on a relatively small scale next to what I know is possible among a group of people who commit themselves to this.

I don’t think it’s possible to open that gate without moving out of category number one and two, the introvert or the extravert as I described it, and into category number three, the one who is intent on revealing the face of God. That may sound extraordinary—“Oh, you want me to be like God?” And what I say is that it’s the most natural thing to do. It’s not at all natural to be self-seeking. It is uncomfortable and painful to live in ego identity. That is not who we are as human beings. It’s not how we’re made to function. That’s not our primal spirituality.

There is another complexity in the process. While it’s true that a man has a particular opportunity to reveal the masculine face of God, and a woman has a particular opportunity to reveal the feminine face of God, men and women both have the opportunity to reveal both. And it isn’t just the face of God we are here to manifest. It is also the power of divine action. The power of the radiance of the divine masculine, the beauty of the light in expression, is available to man and woman alike. The power of encompassment and enfoldment and the ability to hold creation in our arms is given to each of us. We can’t find these powers if we are self-seeking.

What I am describing is the Attunement process. Attunement is an opening to the Divine so that a person adopts the attitude, In Your way, by Your truth, for Your glory. The endocrine glands, which are the physical aspect of spiritual gateway, open up so that a higher dimension of Being enters our human experience.

From the standpoint of the endocrine system, the pineal gland is the throne for the masculine face of God and the radiant release of love in the human body and in the world. And the pituitary gland is the womb of creation. It is a gateway for that power in the physical body of a human being, but it is also the gateway through which that power of Mother God can come through us into our world.

This is a process, and I’m up for the process. But I’m also earnest in the process. I am patient and I am impatient. How about you? How much time do you have to fulfill these things in your life? And what are we doing with the time that we have, if not this?

I hope you feel my invitation in these words. Yes, the invitation for you to consider these things and to see if there’s a change you want to make in your own life to find a more enlightened way to live. The other part of the invitation is relational. I can express it this way: with respect to whatever self-seeking is still present in your experience, do you want to let go of that, to free yourself up to have a different experience and a different relationship with me and with others who are interested in the same thing? So that we could find our way together to a generative, joyful, creative life. So that we could open a gateway to higher dimensions of Being, and let that reality be present as we live on earth.