Foreword

At a time when a plethora of ungrounded and dissociative spiritual perspectives are taking flight in the west, it is profoundly important that we craft and root models of an embodied and relational nature to bring us back into balance. For far too long, spirituality has been framed as an isolationist, vertical experience, bereft of feeling and unconcerned with its impact on the external world. You find something called “enlightenment” alone on the meditation cushion, while floating through the fragrant emptiness, in the transcending of your physical form, personal identity, “pain body,” life story and ego. A funny kind of unity consciousness, where everything that challenges us on Mother Earth is removed from the non-dual field, and where we attempt to access unity in solitude, independent of our fellow humans. While I appreciate that detaching from the world is sometimes necessary, I also appreciate that detachment is a tool, it’s not a life. We can only do so much to heal and transform this planet from up high. The real work happens in the trenches of relatedness, with our feet planted firmly on the ground. When we forget this, when we confuse self-avoidance with enlightenment, our spiritual practices begin to look remarkably similar to the economic practices of the unconscionably capitalistic—where the narcissistic quest for mastery and individual achievement comes at the expense of the environment and the world around us. We imagine ourselves actualized or enlightened, while ignoring the plight of those less fortunate and doing nothing to better humankind.

When Evolutionary Love Relationships came across my publisher’s desk at Enrealment Press, I breathed a deep sigh of relief. It not only reflects the grounded and inclusive framework that I wish to publish, it takes the perspective that I have written from to the next level. In my book, An Uncommon Bond, I acknowledged the ability of certain love relationships to somehow crack the karmic code, catapulting each lover into a vaster and more expansive consciousness, one far more vital and inclusive than anything they could experience alone. In other words, I championed the idea that our most expanded spiritual path may actually arise relationally, in the heart of our connections. At the same time, I acknowledged that sustaining these glimpses into eternity is no easy feat. It requires an ongoing and determined willingness to work through everything that comes up to obstruct and undermine the connection. It requires a deep regard for each other’s authenticity. It requires a commitment to the relationship itself, as spiritual practice.

Chris Saade and Andrew Harvey invite us to the next stage of relatedness in Evolutionary Love Relationships. They remind awakening couples to also turn their energy outward, converting the sacred fire at the heart of their connection into a bonfire of giving that transforms the world we live in. There was a time when I believed that such couples had to shield themselves from the world until they had worked through their issues, but this was too narrow a perspective. It didn’t allow the couple to bring their vital energy into the world where it is needed and, as importantly, it didn’t invite them to be healed and influenced and deepened and humanized and elevated by the world, itself. Why can’t conscious unions touch some of their depths while staring into each other’s eyes, and some of it, while staring into the eyes of humanity? Why can’t we take action to work through our personal issues, while simultaneously taking action to work through our collective challenges? At this undeniably difficult stage of human development, I am not sure it can happen any other way.

One of the many things I love about this book is that its invitation to sacred activism is not only restricted to intimate relationships. It’s an inclusive invitation that also extends to other significant pairings in our lives: like-minded business colleagues, passionate friendships, and benevolent revolutionaries with a shared vision. We see a reflection of this in the book itself, where Andrew and Chris co-create and clarify their perspective through heartfelt dialogue. In addition, this book does not limit its message to those love connections that are psychotherapeutically focused or spiritually oriented. The call to sacred activism is equally available to those couples who have no interest in such matters, but who are interested in bringing their energy into the world to effect change. And for those conflictual couples who find themselves trapped inside of a tumultuous tomb of trauma, triggers and transference, this book’s call to action may well bring their connection back into the light. There may be no better way to remember what we loved about each other, than seeing one another give love to the world.

The book’s message is equally as inclusive with respect to the ways we choose to take action. Although the authors discuss activism in heightened and sacred terms, what they are describing is entirely attainable and down-to-earth, even for those who are overwhelmed in their daily life. Make no mistake, this is not a rarefied path only available to the few couples who have the time and money to walk it. A pairing does not have to devote their entire life to a sacred cause in order to reflect the principles at the heart of this book. It can be as simple, and as profound, as spotting a disenfranchised neighborhood kid and offering him work around your home, making lunches and hand delivering them to the homeless, devoting one day a month to cleaning up the river banks near your home. Anything that reflects your authentic nature, and simultaneously heals and elevates the world we live in. Stand on any street corner near you and look around with your eye of compassion and you will see endless opportunities for sacred activism. Your help is needed everywhere. If you think of all the energy that lives at the heart of powerful pairings and couples, you can easily imagine how much world change is possible if some of that energy is loved forward to those who need it. A cosmic and earthly win-win. The kind of gifts that keep on giving.

The important thing is that we do something. Painting a vision of ultimate possibility is a wonderful thing, but only if we are willing to do the real-time work to make it possible. It’s fine to point out what is wrong with a system, but far finer to couple that criticism with efforts to change it. If All-oneness means anything, it means that we actually get into the trenches together and take steps to co-create a world of divine possibility. That is what this profound book is inviting—a revolution of efforted connectiveness, one that celebrates accomplishment as a relational construct, with mutual benefit as our shared goal. Our rocket ship takes flight only when everyone gets a seat, and if we reach that stage, we may well stop looking up to the skies for our liberation. We may find it right down here, on the bridge between our hearts.

As this sacred text demonstrates, we are not just here together to keep each other company. We are here together to show each other God. The portal is each other. And that portal opens when we share our hearts—and our most benevolent, devotional intentions—with each other. Sacred activism is not simply a way to heal and transform the material world. It’s a way we become God together. Every act of giving and receiving is an act of divine co-creation. With this in mind, it is my prayer that you receive Andrew and Chris’s offering in the way that it is intended—as an act of sacred generosity that inspires you to love our world forward. From one giving heart to another…

—Jeff Brown, Toronto, Canada