The participants are filling out a survey on various needs in the most recent relationships one has had. Murshida Vera discusses autonomy needs in a relationship: emotional independence, financial independence, personal freedom, equality, reciprocity, being left alone, control. Security needs include: to be needed, comfort and safety, touching and magnetic field, financial. Other needs include: trust, predictability, mutual goals, approval, to be controlled. Love needs and sexual relationships are included. The difference between what do I want and what do I need is discussed. There is always cycling within the individual. Next is the need for direct communication in the relationship, give and take, intimacy, the need for discussion of personal issues important to each person in the relationship, need for openness and personal disclosure. Other needs include: to be loved, personal mutual respect, to be needed, to be appreciated, longing for the mate, encouragement to grow, to be jealous, to be nurtured, accepted without judgment, etc.

The lecture continues with scoring of the survey. How do you understand women and men in the relationship? Children are takers in relationship, caring about others comes with socialization. Women’s needs are connected with the need to communicate love. Father relationships, the affect on future relationships, commitment in relationship are discussed. Men’s need for nurturing, warmth and sensitivity to his needs in relationship is presented. The answer to all this has to do with building self-trust and transforming self-image. Hazrat Inayat Khan’s work on positive and negative poles is presented (like the relationship between the sun and the moon). Anxiety in the male and impotency is discussed. Murshida Vera’s definition of relationship includes the delicate balance of an issue, the decision-making and sensitivity towards the needs of the other person. Hazrat talks about proto types that will pull us back to the same situation. Murshida defines perception. To recognize one’s contribution in any relationship is learning to love within.

The group is working on evaluating and comparing the last 3 relationships in order to learn about patterns in relationships, how patterns are instigated and how patterns change. The characteristics being assessed are: physical looks, masculine or feminine type, family background, education, profession, future oriented, who cares most, commitment, acceptance of one another, change, intensity, etc. Are you choosing the same proto type in relationship each time? Lasting relationship fulfills something that one is missing in one’s life. If one is picking different characteristics, etc. each time with a new partner, that indicates the search within you for development of higher self. If one is repeating the same each time then that is a matter of accepting that one no longer needs what you have been choosing; it is safe and familiar.

If the things we are predominately attracted to in relationship have growth and fulfillment for us precariously, it helps make a successful relationship. Our patterns, including our personal needs influence our relationships a great deal. Wants are unrealistic expectations of another person. Some of Hazrat Inayat Khan’s teachings regarding relationship are presented. Murshida Vera mentions the practices of perceiving the light on vegetation and on water, inhaling the light and bringing it to the heart, circulation of the fire element within one’s being and the sun practices. Replenishing in adult life that which has been neglected in early transitions and developments through the qualities being given out in the elements, completing oneself through nature is presented. It is what we perceive in the human heart of our needs in relationship; we are patterned beings; we fulfill our lacks through many relationships not demanding from one relationship. The importance of accepting the masculinity and femininity of our beings is discussed. The group is working in partners on polarity practices using the divine light inhaled through nature. The purpose of this practice in beginning anew is to respect the light of the other person and the knowledge that it is more blessed to reflect that light than to receive it. Learning to transmit the light, direct and disperse the light of the heart to the other person is very important in beginning anew. The group practices the wasifa, Wahabo as the river of life flowing towards our hearts.

Murshida Vera is presenting wasifas to help with relationships (the beginning ones are difficult to hear). The group is chanting the wasifas, Ya Wali, Ya Hadi to master new patterns and situations within us, turning toward inner guidance, right relationship or expansion of relationship we already have. The group chants, Aqi al’ Nur, the dawning of new light, the intuition of the aura of the new person coming toward us, the light on the horizon bringing the new relationship or expansion of a relationship we already have, the light from the magnetic field to us in realization, understanding, recognition, attracting a totally new pattern, expanding the relationship into the light. One can use light in a creative way to practice on the magnetic field of a person. We need a surplus of light maintained through the light practices; we imbibe light from nature through the glance into our hearts to reflect our light. As we build a surplus of light, we become givers of the light and we can pull back to ourselves the guidance of the Wali. We have a divine right to fulfillment in relationships on this plane. All relationship demands risk. The animus and anima in our beings is discussed. Master yourself in all circumstances.

Murshida is talking about anger; all anger needs creative outlets, it must be expressed. Risk is necessary for relationships to develop at all; risk is necessary for spiritual growth. We must re-pattern ourselves to be reinforced by the everlasting roots in nature, kingdoms, elements, etc.

The participants are filling out a questionnaire that Murshida Vera developed. The development of humans is constantly evolving; the big transitions in life begin at the 9-year level, puberty, etc. Relationships are always in flux. No soul enters here without a goal; one has to discover that goal. The test of life and how we meet that test depends upon the maqaam we will attain to. It is the free will that enables us to take the path of life; we have made the path we are on. There is always testing, learning and unlearning going on no matter what age we are. We have to rediscover our family roots; they are part and parcel of relationships. Genetic inheritance has a ying and a yang; polarities exist. Cell memories never die; the cell memories cross over the planes. We can work on that memory within ourselves; we can expand consciousness. Each human being must be honored. The universe and tuning in to that universe is a truth. We have complex and individual trails in life to come to terms with. Outside of the physical body there is another body, the spirit body. The 90’s offer the opportunity to go within, to learn our senses. The key point regarding problems in relationships is that positive affirmation is essential.

Murshida Vera describes the inner work in the 90’s. We unlearn what we see is a fact; we learn that what we think, hear, feel and see is one type of vision only; we can be a servant of the divine impress by what comes through the pituitary. We serve from the heart by free will. How can we transform the old patterns and old conditions; one has to work on serving the other person, trusting and being tolerant. Hazrat Inayat Khan says that there is something in our struggle with ourselves and the conditions around us that helps us progress onward and forward in relationship. We have to first practice reciprocity then beneficence (the echo comes back to us of what we have done). We cannot possess the other person; the real changes are made when acceptance prevails, not judgment of the other. It’s necessary to recognize one’s own self in the other person. We have to review the relationship; look at the motive of the person’s actions, it may not be a conscious motive. In mating with another, the incompletion of oneself drives one to find the opposite pole of our being which can complete the inadequacies of our own self. There are different stages in the evaluation of mate. HIK says we mirror the weaknesses we ourselves possess. We cannot recognize weaknesses in another person which we have not had experience with ourselves. When mating begins with friendship, it ends up with friendship. It is the mirroring in a relationship that is the groundwork of the character and the success. The metal of the other person is seen under stress. Openness, trust, patience comes into relationship. Only love that can see through the idiosyncrasies and weaknesses and love the person in spite of it proves itself to be lasting. Negative attitudes toward women begin in the unconscious mind. Somewhere along the line retreat has to happen. Murshida is discussing the importance of genetic inheritance.

Murshida Vera is talking about the vibration of sound and the changes that can happen through the power of music and vibration. The answers from the questionnaire in the beginning of the workshop are presented. Murshida talks about single parents, the effects on children, time for self, economics, family living, father image, feelings, etc.

Murshida Vera is talking about couples’ relationships. The attitudes of the female and male in relationship are different. The importance of the bonding of infants to the mother after birth is discussed. The effect in relationship of the deprivation in one’s early life is presented. Touch and warmth, knowing that you are cared for is the most important thing, not the mechanics of sex. Spiritual laws have always taught the importance of the centers of the body, especially the shoulder blades. The great transfer of energy from the light body is through the hands. The lack of communication is the big thing that women note in relationship. The needs and wants are so different in couples; the importance of working for mutual needs is discussed. Trust is easily broken, very hard to rebuild trust in relationship when broken. Trust must be rebuilt within ourselves. The home is essential for nurturing and realigning ourselves. Using the breath for pulling the energy up the spine from the base center to the fontanel to shower light over our auras to seal the magnetic body is very important. The participants are working together as partners in touch exercises; touching palm-to-palm, hands to shoulders, Sufi hug. When at an impasse in relationship, one exchanges back massage with the other.

Murshida continues with the effects of exchanging back massage when at an impasse in relationship. In speech, change the use of the word why and substitute it for how. The group is participating in a couples exercise sitting back to back. The breath is inhaled and exhaled up the spine to the count of seven. The pair inhales and exhales at opposite rhythms. There is an exchange of energies that balances, that keeps the oneness of goal and concentration between two people. Sample answers from the questionnaire filled out at the beginning of the workshop are given. Murshida discusses the fulfillment in one’s personal relationship through qualities from the other person that completes one. Ways of protecting oneself within business relationships are given. Positive affirmations change and re-pattern people.

Murshida Vera continues to talk about the importance of positive affirmations in all our relationships. The practice of laughing is therapeutic; humor is the greatest healer of patterns in our life in relationship. Murshida answers specific questions from participants.

Murshida Vera is leading the group in visualization. Healing of the pain of a broken relationship is presented. Murshida mentions the two aspects in the broken relationship of the instigator and the rejecter. These topics are discussed: the stages of grief that are important to experience before going into another relationship, the need to be needed, nurturance, forgiveness and forgetting, spiritual practice, acceptance, service to a higher cause, new opportunity for expansion and growth, guilt, second family, problems that carry over from the first relationship, acceptance what one cannot change, memory of the good things, etc.