What does an egoless relationship look like? Romantic and Platonic. And what's egoless sex?
Is there a difference if the egolessness is coming from one side?

Sex is a PMR activity and so is subject to the QoC (Quality of Consciousness) of the individuals participating.

Relationships in this kindergarten PMR (Physical Matter Reality) are generally full of ego because almost everyone has pretty high entropy.

From Tom:

The dominance factor is a function of the quality of consciousness of the individuals (males and females) within the culture. If the quality of consciousness is generally low (decisions primarily based upon fear, ego, belief, needs, wants, desires, and expectations) then that sets the condition allowing one gender to dominate the other. If, on the other hand, the quality of consciousness is generally high, decisions will be primarily based upon love, caring about other, compassion, and, long term system optimization (i.e., cultural growth, value, productivity, creativity, high standard of living, happiness, etc.). This condition of a population with overall high consciousness quality sets the condition for a culture that is optimized for all of its members -- dominance is automatically discarded as a suboptimal, dysfunctional, high cost, low productivity social arrangement.

Given a dysfunctional culture populated by mostly low-quality-of-consciousness individuals, then, if that culture’s (and the individual’s within the culture’s) most pressing current and historical needs are safety, security, and the procurement of sufficient resources (outside environmental problems), then that culture will be dominated by males since they have the genetic hardwiring to address these issues (sexual factor). The value of being female will be defined within that culture primarily in terms of a male viewpoint (given the initial conditions of this example – that would be a fear, ego, belief and expectation driven male viewpoint). Such a male viewpoint would be in terms of the expected services that men would want and expect from females (mostly services supporting the needs of the men and their children).

The history of the human race has been primarily one of a struggle for survival. Certainly, that was the case during the time that our genetic programs evolved. Security and the procurement of adequate resources (food, shelter, etc.) for both individuals and groups has been the most pressing and challenging problem of humanity until very recently. Thus one would expect that human social history is primarily a history of male dominance. Likewise, one would expect that male dominated social structures would constitute the vast majority of present-day social structures throughout the world and within many diverse cultures. Also, one would expect that both males and females are well adapted to this condition. Thus male-dominate social structures have deep roots in history, tradition, and genetic proclivities applied to basic survival needs.

Trying to change this outcome at a fundamental level is unlikely to be more than superficially successful unless those “most pressing current and historical needs” change. By force of intellect and education we can make behavioural changes -- we act better, more gracious and civilized – but there is a big difference between being and acting. Acting for a long time might eventually “bleed through” to the being level superficially, but such “leakage” is unlikely solid for the long run and can be rolled back quickly. That is why it is said that polite civilized society represents a thin veneer covering a rougher, more violent and self-centered humanity lurking just beneath the surface. Cultural programming can run counter to genetic programming, but mostly only at a superficial (polite) level.

On the other hand, given a dysfunctional culture populated by mostly low-quality-of-consciousness individuals, then, if that culture’s (and the individual’s within the culture’s) most pressing current and historical needs are relationship and networking based issues (inside environmental problems), then that culture will be dominated by females. The value of being male will be defined within that culture primarily in terms of a female viewpoint (given the initial conditions of this example – that would be a fear, ego, belief and expectation driven female viewpoint). Such a female viewpoint would be in terms of the expected services that women would want and expect from the men (mostly services supporting the needs of the women and their children).

Consciousness quality has no gender association so it would be exceptionally unlikely that a culture would be populated by one gender with a predominately low quality of consciousness and the other gender with a predominately high quality of consciousness, especially since a low quality in one sex would tend to aggravate and thus develop a low quality in the other (such an unbalanced asymmetric state would not be stable (would not last long). There would be a very high probability that the males and females in any given culture would be of similar quality of consciousness. However, there are some inquisitive readers with good imaginations, or perhaps strong biases, who would like to explore the possibilities anyway.

In a hypothetical culture where only the females maintained a high quality of consciousness, the men would be treated with as much unconditional love and caring support as conditions would allow, much as the women might treat their young sons who run about the house in superman costumes pretending to save the world. High quality consciousness could not act in any other way. The men in such a loving and supportive environment would have an optimal situation in which to grow up and most would probably grow up very quickly to a high quality of consciousness similar to that of the women.

The opposite condition would work just the same way. The high quality of consciousness males would treat the low quality of consciousness women with as much unconditional love and caring support as conditions would allow, much as the men might treat their young daughters who often play house by serving and teaching a deserving family of rag dolls. The women in such a loving and supportive environment would have an optimal secure situation in which to grow up and most would probably grow up very quickly to a high quality of consciousness similar to that of the men.

Do you see why I suggest to those couples who wish to evolve their relationships from need based to love based that the men initiate this evolution by giving themselves up entirely to love (or whatever his female thinks love is), thus, giving their women a sincere, rock steady environment of unconditional love in which to flourish, to grow themselves? Because females in our male dominate culture are likely to be a tad insecure, uneasy and not entirely trusting of the beneficence of male intentions, it is not reasonable to ask females to be the initiator in this process of giving herself up entirely to love (or to whatever a male from a male-dominate culture thinks love is). Expecting her to initiate this process would, for most women, be asking too much. It is clearly the men who need to lead this process within our culture. More reasons follow:

Could a female lead this process? Of course! But it will be less likely that the male, in a male dominant culture will respond as quickly, or as productively as the female is likely to respond if the male is the initiator.

You see, in our culture, if the male initiates this process to move to a love based relationship, he is inviting the female to enter a relationship situation (her speciality) that she has dreamed of and hoped for her entire life (total commitment from him) and that resonates grandly with her genetic programming. Her immediate response, once she believes his invitation to be genuine and sincere, is to make sure that she will always be worth it to him, that he never changes his mind or sees her any other way. And to accomplish that, she will gladly grow and change to meet his needs – because that is smart relationship building.

If the female initiates the move to a love based relationship within this male-dominate culture, she is inviting the male to enter a new relationship situation (he has no solid sense what that means) that he has always assumed was his due, his birthright as a male. If his woman initiates, he thinks that things are now the way they should have been all along. Why should he change anything at this point? Life is now great on the home front – the rule is: don’t change what isn’t broken. His genetic program and cultural program are satisfied and no big internal push to grow is triggered at the being level or the intellectual level because all this relationship stuff just is however it is – there is really nothing anybody can do about it. Let the good times roll!
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Now, as we move from the industrial age into the information age, our Western culture (mostly “first world” countries) has arrived at, or is approaching, the point where a majority of the population is no longer in a desperate struggle for survival. The struggle has moved to the quality and dignity of that survival rather than survival itself. The most pressing problems of our culture are in the process of changing from scarcity and security to getting along with each other productively (relationship building) -- or at least a mixture of the two. Thus, the initial conditions required for making fundamental progress toward a culture with no gender dominance have been steadily growing stronger over the last 200 years or so.

However, the inertia of a few million years of scarcity has institutionalized itself within our culture. Old habits and attitudes resist change. It is changing these habits and attitudes (beliefs) of scarcity and insecurity (both fearful attitudes) that hold the key to elimination of cultural male-dominance. Trying to force change in the symptoms of male-dominance rather than eliminate the cause may encourage a little more of that “thin veneer of polite civility”, but it will not fix the problem and is likely to aggravate it making things worse. It is a trick of the ego to believe that one can use hostility to end hostility. The only way to end hostility is with love (a higher quality of consciousness).

Focus on moving the culture from the mindset of scarcity and physical security, to the mindset or relationship building, and the male-dominance within our culture will slowly melt away on its own – and not cosmetically, but fundamentally. The genetic programming of both sexes will eventually ensure that result.

So what sort of gender neutral culture can we create given the general low quality of consciousness that we live in? And how do we go about creating it? First and foremost: We need to raise the level of consciousness in the general population. Secondly, we need to reduce the level of fear in our culture by reducing the level of fear in ourselves. As quality raises and fear diminishes, our agendas will automatically shift from fear of scarcity and lack of security to the now more important business of relationship building. In the short run (the immediate future), it would be good to ratchet down the contentious rhetoric on both sides and begin an effective educational program that starts with a basic understanding of our genetic programming and cultural-social programming. One must always begin with an understanding of the truth of the present situation.

Although manipulation of the outside world can potentially provide needed resources as well as safety and security, which is absolutely essential to everything else, we must understand that a continual culture of scarcity and of fear will generate and maintain a culture with a lopsided male-dominate viewpoint.

We must learn that our connectedness and interaction with others (relationship) is central to our evolution and growth. That it is relationship, not the manipulation of the material world, which provides the primary learning ground of consciousness evolution.
We, as individuals need to learn what it means and what it is like to be male and female in this culture -- to appreciate the view from both sides and begin to dismantle (gently over a long term view) the cultural (man made) structures that stand in the way of optimizing our system/culture for all people.

We can improve our personal relationships by realizing that need-based relationships are but a scant shadow of the real thing (love-based relationship). As we put unconditional love back in our personal lives more and more, we will begin to accelerate our process of consciousness evolution, thus adding both fuel and fire to burn away the heavy stultifying dross of fear and belief that so limits us, our culture, and our species.

As was said above, first and foremost we must raise the level of consciousness in the general population – and we accomplish that best by raising our own consciousness quality.

viewtopic.php?f=5&t=7805&hilit=primal+man

This didn't answer my questions.

Perhaps what is then needed is some clarification of your question as these are very extensive and thorough expositions and would seem, to me, to surely contain the answers to your question. As the old saying goes, 'what do you want, egg in your beer?' If you can't pick your answer out of those responses, we simply need a better asked question and will try again.

Note that the duplicate post was deleted.

Ted

i didn't see the messege that said the post was needed to be approved the first time
if you think the quote had answers to my questions could you pick out where?
i quoted the whole thing besides the link because i didn't visit it, although i may have in the past

Tom is saying that in order to have a better relationship you have to be a better person. A relationship is less what you do and more who you are. Being that we are participating in a kindergarten virtual reality, it is almost impossible for anyone to have an ego-less relationship. We are all here to work on our fears and beliefs.

TOM:
We can improve our personal relationships by realizing that need-based relationships are but a scant shadow of the real thing (love-based relationship). As we put unconditional love back in our personal lives more and more, we will begin to accelerate our process of consciousness evolution, thus adding both fuel and fire to burn away the heavy stultifying dross of fear and belief that so limits us, our culture, and our species.

So now that, as a society, we are no longer spending the bulk of our time trying to fight off predators, or finding something to eat, it is time for conscious evolution. It is time for the genders to let go of their cultural beliefs and genetic programming. Men don't need to dominate women and women don't need to play a secondary role in the relationship (or society.)

In fact Tom goes even farther. He suggests that women lead the relationship.

TOM:
Do you see why I suggest to those couples who wish to evolve their relationships from need based to love based that the men initiate this evolution by giving themselves up entirely to love (or whatever his female thinks love is), thus, giving their women a sincere, rock steady environment of unconditional love in which to flourish, to grow themselves? Because females in our male dominate culture are likely to be a tad insecure, uneasy and not entirely trusting of the beneficence of male intentions, it is not reasonable to ask females to be the initiator in this process of giving herself up entirely to love (or to whatever a male from a male-dominate culture thinks love is). Expecting her to initiate this process would, for most women, be asking too much. It is clearly the men who need to lead this process within our culture. More reasons follow:

Could a female lead this process? Of course! But it will be less likely that the male, in a male dominant culture will respond as quickly, or as productively as the female is likely to respond if the male is the initiator.

You see, in our culture, if the male initiates this process to move to a love based relationship, he is inviting the female to enter a relationship situation (her specialty) that she has dreamed of and hoped for her entire life (total commitment from him) and that resonates grandly with her genetic programming. Her immediate response, once she believes his invitation to be genuine and sincere, is to make sure that she will always be worth it to him, that he never changes his mind or sees her any other way. And to accomplish that, she will gladly grow and change to meet his needs – because that is smart relationship building.

If the female initiates the move to a love based relationship within this male-dominate culture, she is inviting the male to enter a new relationship situation (he has no solid sense what that means) that he has always assumed was his due, his birthright as a male. If his woman initiates, he thinks that things are now the way they should have been all along. Why should he change anything at this point? Life is now great on the home front – the rule is: don’t change what isn’t broken. His genetic program and cultural program are satisfied and no big internal push to grow is triggered at the being level or the intellectual level because all this relationship stuff just is however it is – there is really nothing anybody can do about it. Let the good times roll!

Does this help clarify? Tom also admits that you have to both have a certain level of QoC to make this work. Many a male has been incensed by the idea of a relationship led by the woman.

No, it didn't really add to the way I understood it when I read it

I don't think I remeber all that was written, so I am not able right now to recall if he suggested that the relationship should be led by women. And did you mean the relationship, and or the society? Why not by all genders equally?

If more relationships start to be led by woman then it would filter into society.

Tom:
Women are hardwired to direct their energy towards mastering the inside world of personal relationship -- building, maintaining, and networking with others – including her man and his family/social connections. These relationships optimize her ability to keep her man focused on her and her children – they represent the connectedness and responsibility that creates the nuclear family and the glue that holds it together. Additionally, such relationships and networks provide her with assistance as needed, generate a social system of encouragement, support, and solace, as well as bind the male to a shared responsibility within a meaningful set of family relationships.

She guides, forms, and manipulates her reality to suit her through the relationship she builds with her man, personal connections, and a network of friends. Most of her interaction and strategy in the world is focused on the inside environment of profitable connectedness (relationship).

A few characteristics, driven by her genetic programming, that fall under the fat part of the bell curve:

The need to spread her focus simultaneously over many tasks, necessitates the development of an ability to Parallel process.

She is nudged by her genetic programming to develop and maintain female support group, a clique of relationship “insiders” who encourage, console, and generally support each other.

Females tend to divide people into two groups: “Insiders” who are the special people in her life with whom she has developed a special bond. She protects and supports these insiders (her man, her friends, her children, all those who “belong” to her. Everyone else is classified together as “outsiders”. She is as sensitive and attentive to the needs and problems of her “insiders” as she is indifferent to the needs and problems of outsiders.

Relationship primarily depends on communication, thus females are prodigious communicators who typically speak nearly twice as many words each day than the average males does.

Females apply their intellect to the inside environment in order to create potential personal value/advantage for herself and her children though her relationship with those who could directly influence the lives of her and her children. She gets by in the outside environment with the assistance of those with whom she has established a relationship.
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Thus, Women are said to be from Venus while men are from mars.

Women dominate and speak the language of the inside environment of personal relationship (the implicit or indirect power of personal relationship that is necessary for a physically smaller woman (with several children to care for) to genetically succeed in the evolution game).

On the other hand, men dominate and speak the language of the outside environment of personal power -- the explicit or direct power to succeed in the outside world in order to control and accumulate sufficient security and resources to ensure the survival and continuance of both the tribe and one’s family.
viewtopic.php?f=5&t=7805&hilit=primal+man

Do you not think men could catch up to women if indeed this hardwiring gap is real?
Do you not think they could become equals and grow together?

Men and women do not have any differences in regard to QoC. But there is a real difference in biology.

It is certainly possible that the two sexes could evolve a more equal relationship, and that seems like a natural progression to evolution. Time will tell.

Here is something Tom wrote on Facebook some time ago in response to a question:

When we say we fall in love with another, what most of us mean is that we have fallen in need. It would follow that what many of us love most about those we love is how much they satisfy our needs; how much they do, act, feel, and respond in relation to us as we would like them to -- ahhh... that feels so good, but it has nothing to do with love. When our needs are not satisfied, we feel frustrated and unfulfilled -- not appreciated or understood. All this is about fear, a derivative of which is ego. Other derivatives are belief, expectation, wants needs and desires. Fear is the opposite of love.

Honing a relationship to the perfect complementary balance of need is civilizing, practical and rewarding in many ways because learning to be aware of, consider, and care about another enough to limit one's fear and ego to achieve that balance (rather than struggle or suffer) in a relationship tends to encourage real love to blossom.

We simply are who and what we are; our evolution requires us to start from wherever we are and move forward toward love. Our ego (fear) based needs [which accounts for the majority of our needs beyond the basic physical needs (food shelter, sex)] represent limitations and impediments to that evolution. They also challenge us to grow up, to overcome fear and ego -- thus serving also as learning tools that provide immediate feedback.

Need and feeling do not belong in one basket. Feeling, joy, sadness, pain, passion, and emotion are not necessarily about you. They can be about other and thus can have a basis other than need/fear. Concern for getting your needs satisfied necessarily flows from a self-focused intent. Except for one or two outliers on the spectrum of needs like "the need to evolve the quality of your consciousness", needs are most typically based in fear, ego, want and expectation – it is a “ but what about me” thing”. For example, the need to be loved is primarily fear/ego based and because fear and ego are more common than dirt (i.e., normal) in our reality system, many think that such a need is fundamental to being human -- it is only fundamental to having fear and ego which is common to being human. Having fear and ego is not inevitable, just extremely pervasive. The inevitability of need is a little like the inevitability of contracting a venereal disease – more or less difficult depending on your attitude and the circles you travel in.

The non-conditional, completely "other" is the only kind of love there is. Anything else is not love at all, but something else. Need, masquerading as love, in a culture that cannot differentiate between these two opposites (love vs fear) cannot turn self-focused needs into love no matter what name is given to it.

Thanks for this - it's an interesting discussion.

I have a problem with the "hard-wiring" bit though. I take Linda's point that neither gender is necessarily superior in the QOC stakes, and that either can lead; not sure about the statement that men are from Mars and women are from Venus though - John Gray has a lot to answer for IMHO.

To somewhat specify more what I want to know, what creates the bond if not ego need/s in an egoless 'romantic' relationship? What separates it from other relationships where you practice unconditional love? What makes sex not just putting two genitals together, without involving ego, like 'teasing'/either side being submissive or dominant/ego needs being satisfied in different ways practicing sexual behavior/s?

I think the ruleset of the reality pretty much guarantees that sexual attraction will always be around. We have hormones and beliefs that pretty much assure the primal reaction between men and women. It is what you do after that in forming and maintaining a relationship that will determine how much ego and need is tossed into the mix.

TOM:
To want to find your "true love" is natural enough -- indeed, it is programmed in your genetics - but this is not something you make happen, it is something you let happen. Don't look to manipulate it into being by applying your intent in order to mold an outside reality, rather apply your intent to mold an inside reality. You achieve the result you want not by making it happen, but by stopping making it not happen. What has to change is the inside reality - when the inside reality is as it should be, the outside reality will automatically adjust itself to deliver not what your ego wants and needs, but what you deserve, and it will quite automatically deliver those opportunities for which you are ready and from which you are able to gain the most personal growth.

So, the solution is to change yourself such that you are ready to make the most of, and deserve to find, "true love". You must change yourself such that a "true love" relationship will offer you an optimal growth path as opposed to just making your ego purr. When you use your focused intent to remake yourself in this way, a love relationship with a woman is very likely to materialize out of thin air. The only reason that an opportunity for a growth inducing love relationship will NOT take place is: your being frustrated in this particular way offers a greater potential for your personal growth. In other words, failure in this area of your life contains a higher potential for personal growth than does success. Your job is to grow up enough to make sure the second condition (growth spurred by frustration) is much less likely than the first (growth spurred by your capacity to give/love) to be a successful catalyst for your entropy reduction.

It is about what you can give to a relationship from your heart and soul, NOT what you can get from a relationship to make you feel warm, wonderful, and wanted (that's all ego junk - very pleasant, but often nonproductive and short lasting for most of us because any ego we retain will naturally poison the relationship with requirements to meet our neediness and toxic self-satisfied indolence and arrogance. Bottom line: You have to let warm, wonderful, and wanted just happen on its own as an untended consequence of right being.

You must realize that your wants and needs for such a relationship are built upon fear as well as genetics. Fear that you are missing out, fear that you are not lovable, fear that you will never find a true love - that opportunity is slim and passing you by. It is the nature of a consciousness system that. Fear makes both you and the larger reality act and be in such a way as to materialize your fears (make your fears come true). You must let the wants, needs, desires, hopes, and expectations, i.e., the fear, go. If you can accomplish this, your problems will soon dissolve (run into delightful but challenging solutions) without you having to DO anything to make the solutions happen.

Bigger picture: Define a relationship (one without expectations or hidden agendas) very generally as an interaction with another person - any sex, any age, and any connection. You establish relationships with almost everyone you meet more than once. What all positive relationships should all have in common is respect and caring for the person with whom you are interacting - it's about them - about what you can give - what value you can add by participating in their reality. You do this Not because you are trying to create a relationship that will make your reality more comfortable and rewarding but because you simply like people and care about them, empathize with their needs, and see where you might be helpful. You are this way, you have this attitude because it is a reflection of your consciousness quality -- it is in no way derived from your intellect - you are not acting, you are simply being. Almost all of your relationships will be positive.

More specifically:
To be successful in making this transition of attitude you must grow up such that you interact with people in general, particularly females, without regard for your personal needs (this is best done by eliminating your needs rather than just suppressing them, but do whatever you can). Think of females not in terms of potential love relationships - or in terms of what they think of you, but just as interesting beings with whom you interact - no expectations, no hopes, no games, no manipulations, no hidden agenda. Then interact with your main interest being in them, their wants, needs, and expectations, their lives and issues -- be interested and attentive, give empathy and understanding because you care about them NOT because you are trying to set yourself up with them, show them what a great guy you are, or develop a relationship, much less a specific type of relationship. The first is truly about them - a simple straightforward interaction with no expectations or hopes or hidden agendas; the second is primarily about you, about getting something, or leaving the impression you want. Forget about the relationship - let it take care of itself. Let it develop, or not, in its own way and at its own pace. get to know them and interact with them as other beings whose paths you sometimes cross. If you are without needs and sincerely care about others, productive relationships with those others will develop on their own. Good personal relationships are not made or even encouraged very much; they just happen all by themselves and unfailingly mirror the quality of the beings involved. Look for quality you can build on.

Do not over intellectualizing or over analyzing until you confuse yourself. Simply interact naturally with an honest caring interest with females whose path you cross and let whatever happens happen. Don't try to direct it with your intellect -- just let the relationship develop however it does -- each will be different and unique. You will be clumsy at it at first, and your ego will keep jumping in, but once you grow enough and gain enough experience to get good at this open, non-self-focused interaction without requirements or expectations or ego, one of the relationships will develop more depth than the others -- just go with it and see where it goes (still no expectations, no ego).
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