Description

Unmarried people are often preoccupied with the idea of finding that special someone who will satisfy them all the time. This is impossible, and unrealistic expectations of this sort lead to conflicts and divorces. People, especially women, don't know how to find a good match today. While desiring happiness they don't know how to attain it, confusing reality with fairytales. Inside every person is a sea of egoistic hatreds and misunderstandings that must be contended with before happiness can be secured. The first order of business is to nullify this internal chaos by rising above one's ego. The second order of business is to seek connection on this higher ground transcending both fantasies and concessions.

Transcript

TV Program with Dr. Michael Laitman
"20 Ideas"

"Are Soul Mates for Real?"

With participation of Patrice Perry

June 29, 2009
New York

Patrice Perry: I consider myself the classic New York woman, who's single and goes out and likes to party and hang out and meet people. But a big part of the things that I do and the adventures when I go out at night, of course, is looking for that person-the one!

I guess for me, I'm at a point where I'm asking the question, "Does that actually exist?" Is the whole concept of looking for a soul mate... I'm looking for that something that makes them, that sets them apart, from every other guy that I could meet, that I could be wonderful friends with.

Dr. Michael Laitman: You mean something special about that guy that's right for you?

Patrice Perry: Yeah.

Dr. Michael Laitman: What is special about you, so that will exist in him, and so it'll create a match?

Patrice Perry: That's a great question.

Dr. Michael Laitman: That's why today, a lot of people get married. They go out on a date and then they end up divorcing. People don't understand how to find the right spouse, the right person to connect with.

Patrice Perry: Yeah, yeah.

Dr. Michael Laitman: Especially women, who so need an emotional connection. She needs to understand what she wants from the man, what kind of man she wants.

Patrice Perry: Right, right, and I know that maybe I don't have specific enough understanding of what I expect. I mean, what is it that I should be looking for, because I'm really not at all clear on that?

Dr. Michael Laitman: I think that the most important thing for a woman is to respect her man, to feel that he is great, that he is important. What should be in your man so you'll feel that he's great? What should he be, four hundred pounds, seven feet tall, what? Should he be a scientist, maybe a judge or a physician or an artist, a thinking person, what? What do you... You want to have a special man?

Patrice Perry: I do. I do, and want someone with a heart that's four hundred pounds, that I can feel love from so intensely and that I can return, that we can have that. I mean, sure, it would be nice if he were a thinker, because then we wouldn't have very much conversation, but...

Dr. Michael Laitman: But you understand it doesn't exist?

Patrice Perry: Well, that's what I figured.

Dr. Michael Laitman: Okay, so you need to make concessions. You need to relinquish something. In ordinary life people make concessions and they understand they don't have a choice because you've got to get married, you've got to have kids. Then you look at the man and if-a man or a woman-do we fit in order to have a household and have kids until we grow old and pass away?

Or, maybe you should look for a special kind of connection, which is above our egos, above concessions, above demands. Meaning, to look for a person who can transcend his own ego and his own demands, and you too will be the same. Then if we meet above our egos, there we will unite in such a way that it will be good for both.

Patrice Perry: Right, well that sounds all fine and good.

Dr. Michael Laitman: But are you ready for it?

Patrice Perry: That's another very good question. Most days I don't think so. I feel that I do want that, but I think a good part of me is a little afraid of it. I will admit that I'm someone who enjoys her own company very, very well and likes to have things her way, and...

Dr. Michael Laitman: But in the social circles you go with, you find no one? Let's say you have an interest of some sort; you go out to some place, you do some things. Where you are, something that is more for your way, for your perspective, for your life philosophy, are you not finding anyone who thinks like you, who sees things like you, who's a match?

Patrice Perry: Well, yeah. I mean, I see people that have those certain qualities, that are similar to me, that I have things in common with-important things in common with-but I don't know... I don't know, maybe it's the little girl's fairy tale story that's still stuck in my head that...

I haven't found my fairy tale; maybe I'm still looking for that and looking for the wrong things. But so far I'm still single. I have a ring on my finger, but it's more of a toy than anything else.

Dr. Michael Laitman: Besides wanting kids and a husband, and a home and a decent life, is there anything else you want? Something special in life? Because that's what everyone wants, something special, beyond, by which you have to look for that person, otherwise you won't match each other.

Patrice Perry: Well, I mean... I say it jokingly, but I think I pretty much mean it. I mean, most of the time I just want to be happy. What it would take from another person for that to be the case, I'm not entirely sure.

I definitely want someone who wants the same things that I want. Probably, hopefully, he wants happiness for himself too, who wants to be committed and wants to have a life together and the children, and who loves music and arts and culture and all sorts of fun things. And maybe we won't want to kill each other, at least maybe fifty percent of the time. Yeah, I just want to be happy, that's it.

Dr. Michael Laitman: Until you become happy, you've got to go through a lot of... You've got to eat a lot of salt. That's the problem with our generation, people don't understand how to attain happiness; because to attain happiness you have to know, first of all, who you are, what you're looking for, what is the real happiness. Is it attainable? How?

When you find out, when you try to ask yourself, you see that you can't do it because happiness for us is to constantly satisfy ourselves, and that's impossible and no one would agree to it. So people get together and then feel that the other guy doesn't want to satisfy me. What do I do? I get a divorce. That's what happens.

You've got to know how to make concessions; meaning, I think when you look for a man, you've got to see if he's willing to make concessions to you and you're willing to make concessions to him. Can you learn how to get along in the most unpleasant situations, where no one agrees, no one understands the other one?

And at the same time, even though you're like two...like two dogs fighting, like cats. You know cats, you know how they fight. But you're still above it, willing to rise above your egos and connect, while inside you have a sea of hatred and remoteness and separation, and misunderstandings, but above it you know how to connect. If you don't have it, you may have to, like most people, get divorced, because our egos have so grown over time, over history, that it's gotten so big in us that we cannot be with others.

People can't even stand themselves. People take drugs, they're depressed, even when they're alone; all the more so with someone else to share my apartment, my house, my bed. I can't, I can't. If we don't learn how to rise above it, above our egos, we won't be able to ever build a family. Our kids, even if we have them, will not grow up in a family. It'll always be some kind of one-parent family. We first have to learn how to rise above the ego.