The Third Thing
When looking back to the experiences of the last weeks, with the passing of my father and the changes going on in my family of origin, my wife and I were reflecting on what keeps people together and what makes them separate.
It seems that there is always a “third thing” or a “third force” holding together: At work, you collaborate with people to accomplish some job, or with clients, patients etc., who contact you because of some service. In a family you are together because of the relations in the family structure, and if the relation structure changes and there is no more common ground, the family falls apart. If there isn’t a third force, but only an emotional congruence, the relation won’t last. This might be the reason why many marriages fail.
“Birds of the same feather flock together” goes the saying, and this is true for religious people, bankers, disco-goers. People come to the yoga class of my wife not just because of her, but because of the yoga exercises. In our spiritual group people are attracted by the teachings and by the magnetism of the teacher. In my life, I have several times changed the the movement and teachings, and with it there has always been a change of the whole circle of acquaintances. So the relations weren’t on a person-to-person basis, as I had felt, but to a “third thing”, a common interest.
I met people complaining that others didn’t take real interest in them – was it because they didn’t take a real interest in the “third thing”? Some “third things” are of a fleeting character – you have an encounter just for a short time, maybe just once. Others are deep and long lasting. What “third thing” interests are there, going to the deepest core? Where you are meeting the inner centre, in yourself and in the others.
Watching a dawn together at Gemini Full Moon, Mount Rigi, Switzerland, May 99
