Many people are enthusiastic these days to talk about Polyamory and open relationships. Those who are locked up in a monogamous structure are dreaming about the freedom it might allow them to finally experience love with others who were “forbidden” before, and those who already live in an open way for a short while are usually excited to share advice from their “rich experience”…

In my eyes, the question of open or not open relationships is not the real question that matters, from the perspective of spiritual development. It is just the one that is easy to get lots of attention. It is just a catchy subject, but not the one that really matters.

Dawn Cherie and I live in an open, yet deeply committed and devoted relationship for the last 18 years. From our first “date” we decided that we are going to be open, this is our way.

Yet, this is also why we both feel that the “open or not” question is missing the real point: People might live in monogamous relationships and experience deep freedom of the heart, or in polyamorous relationships and be total slaves — slaves to lots of demands and dramas, as well as to their own fear of depth.

In our eyes what is important to talk about in relationships is the sacred aspect of it. In other words: is this relationship “Open to God” or not? (and by the word “God” I never mean the god of religions, god forbid… but the sacred great oneness of sweetness and awe, that lies beyond the world of duality).

Some people use the words of open relationships to justify their fear from the depth of intimacy. They cannot even go deep with one beloved, yet they use the polyamorous jargon of “loving many”, but it is basically done to keep their ego safe.

The ego is terrified from the depth of existence, since there, in the deep, it ceases to exist. The ego is nothing but a mental mechanism meant to help us define ourselves from others (our mother’s breasts to begin with) but when we grow up, Love is here to remind us that this well-defined “I” that we have, is nothing but a useful illusion.

Love is lethal for the ego as the ocean is for a raindrop. Nevertheless, the rain keeps on falling into the ocean and we keep on falling in Love, in the hope to return home to the One.

The ego doesn’t really know how to love, it only wants to be loved, which is something totally else.

In love, we die. The separate “I” loses itself into a realm so much deeper and richer than the I itself, a realm that rejuvenates the soul but at the same time confuses the ego. The separate “I” experiences existential loneliness at its core, and is suffering from it, yearning to be undone and return “home”, but can never do it for itself.

For Dawn and I Love itself is sacred.

This love serves as the fire on the altar, where the ego comes gladly to be consumed and transformed by the flames of divine love — “Shalhevet-Yah” in the Song of Songs terminology.

When you decide to go on a relaxing journey with someone you can put the egos in the center and expect the relationship to serve you. It is fine, there is no “sin” in doing so, but for some people, this is just too boring.

There is a time in your life journey when the ego itself knows already that it is not the lord of your kingdom or queendom, but the humble servant. The ego is needed, of course, to function in the world of duality, but it knows it is here to serve the soul, and the soul is here to serve Love — the Great Love.

Great Love, or “Ahava Rabba” in the words of the Jewish liturgy, is this love that is not privatized by egoic aspirations. This Love is not here to answer to my fears of abandonment but to challenge me to rise beyond them and sometimes willingly burn the fearful ego on its altar.

Your relationships can be the altar of Love if you chose to go the Sacred way.

When you go this way, love itself will show you the way and you will learn to feel “what LOVE wants?”: Do we need to be open or not? To include other lovers in our relationship or not? Do we need to have hierarchical structures of relating or not? Do we need to devote all our eros to God through one person only or through many? And eventually — for the service of Love — do we really need to be together, or not?

When you surrender to Love itself in the core of your being, you will know the answer to what is right for you, in this specific time and place.

If the path of Sacred Relating is meaningful for you, more than just “who to stay together with longer” or “how to finally have better sex…”, we have something to tell you:

Dawn and I have recorded a course about those topics and called it: “Sacred Relationships — open or not”.

It has 20 classes of about 30 min each, in which we discuss ways and tools that worked for us in our 18 years of walking this roadless road with no map.

We are very excited to share our intimate experiences, in a very real and vulnerable way, with people who are inspired to walk this path too.

Ohad Pele / October, 2020

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