To exist, is to exist in relation to other forms and consciousnesses.
To be, is to be in relation.
Existence is entities interacting in space and time.

To relate is to discover how to be, how to be with another.
It is to discover what is different, and what is the same between you and all else.
It is to orient oneself in relation to other selves and other beings and other living consciousnesses.

We must all come to a reckoning with our relationship to ourselves, to others, to the world and cosmos, and to God/Life/Existence.

The Mirror of Relationship

Relationships are a mirror by which we are reflected to ourselves.  For everything we do comes back up us.
In our relationships we are given the lessons we need to learn – to grow, to wake up, to love, to be free.

Relationship is the greatest teacher
Life is relationship
Life is the greatest teacher

He who shuns relationship shuns life.
No man is an Island and no woman a desert.
To shun relationship is to try to seal yourself away so that you are not participating, it is to try to protect yourself. But no matter how hard you try you can never not be in relationship.

You are in relationship to the present moment
You are in relationship to your breathing
You are in relationship with yourself
You are in relationship to the earth, to the moon, to the stars
You are in relationship to all the creatures upon the earth
You are in relationship with every human being who walks the earth, who has ever walked the earth, or will walk the earth

Conflict arises when one’s relationship to life is tainted by desire or fear.   By trying to grasp and hold onto, or trying to avoid and push away.

Your relationship to anything reveals your state of consciousness.  It reveals your openness and participation.  Are you opening to life, opening as love?
Or are you shunning your relationships, are you escaping from reality?  Hiding  from living, from loving, and from dying?

Life is relationship
&
Relationship is life