lives. Its aim is also to clearly distinguish relationships from
relating. Relationships are something we ‘have’ or don’t
‘have’. Relating is something we do. So the fact that people
may ‘have’ or ‘be in’ relationships, whether short- or long-
term, is no guarantee that they relate to one another – let
alone relate with awareness. Similarly, though people
engage in all sorts of relational activities with others –
whether educational or economic, recreational or
therapeutic, social or even spiritual – this is no guarantee
that they actively relate to one another in doing so.
Relational activities are no guarantee of active relating.
Then again, people are aware of having all sorts of everyday
practical relationships with others – whether within the
workplace, family, privately or as public citizens of state
and society. But this too is no guarantee that they engage in
aware relational practices – practices that are not a means
to an end – even spiritual ends – but instead transform
relating into a spiritual end in itself. For individuals can
only sustain a deepened spiritual relationship to God
through a transformation of the relational practices through
which they engage with others – practices aimed at drawing
out both the divine essence of the other and fulfilling the
divine qualities and potentials at the core of their unique
human individuality.
The Principles and Practices of Awareness that
constitute ‘The New Yoga’ offer a wholly new dialectical
and dialogical understanding of the essence of ‘Advaita’ or