BUT I do think that truth is the most important thing, period. Truth first, compassion second.

IF you make a mistake, yes, of course, learn from it and breathe in, breathe out, move on (that’s Jimmy Buffett).

My fear is that too much navel-gazing gives you excuses *before* the fact. (I *know* this is wrong, but hey, I’ll grow…)

Any insecurity is brought immediately to the surface, and rather than looking deep into our own fragile sense of being OK, we want to lash out at the one that has brought our wounded ego into our awareness.

Monogamy offers the illusive possibility of eternal assurance that I am loveable. When someone says “I will always love you.” it rarely means “even if you cheat on me” which implies that the truth is “I will always love you as long as you always love me.”

The old word for “cheating” is “Adultery” and this gets closer to the matter. The problem with cheating is that it adulterates - waters down - an intensity of relationship that is supposed to foster self-exploration and psychic growth. What is so difficult to grasp in this discussion is that relationships are not about two individuals - me and you. From a deep spiritual point of view, every “individual” is merely another attempt for the collective to evolve. This doesn’t diminish the individual. Rather it gives the “individual” cosmic importance. Each of us is here to further the evolution of consciousness. Every event that happens to “me” happens to give me the opportunity to work on my issues so I can help the collective grow. This is true even of painful experiences like being cheated on.

Again, it doesn’t justify the cheater. They have their own spiritual work to do. But it does deny each of us the right to feel “victim”. Instead it calls each of us to do the work that answers “Why is this happening to me?” Like Mission Impossible, it is giving us a mission, and asks whether we are willing to accept it.

It seems that in order to receive valuable air time and media attention, it is an almost safe gambit: being a celebrity and confessing about cheating your partner. What is it that grabs collective attention to such an act?

This question is even more perplexing due to the background cultural mode: The divorce rate is high; the nuclear family is in a process of adjusting itself to a new paradigm; serial monogamy is a valid lifestyle. But, still, there is a certain muscle in the collective attention that has a spasm when facing a side love affair.

Is it pure naivety when people commit totally to each other in a marriage ceremony? Is it pure blindness that couples still believe in the concept of one lasting love? And… Is it ignorance to hold to a concept that politicians are not asking for self-power, but for a post to benefit and be of service to others?

Many spiritual scriptures point out that as long as one is relying on the personality, the ego, the small ‘S’ self as the source of attraction in relationship — the relationship is limited.

In these days during which a new paradigm is evoloving, we all are learning how to build relationship upon the aspect of ourselves which is infinite, unconditioned — and is love. Some of the politicians of today cannot lead the way; It is up to us. We are the initiator of the new emergent paradigm of relationship — relationship which is based on the big ‘S’ self, and the greater aspect of our being.

LOL. Nobody said it was going to be easy. If you aren’t up to the task, get yourself a job as a parking lot attendant.

I hold leaders to a higher standard because they ARE leaders. I expect they have reached a higher plane of consciousness. At least the ones I vote for

I think the best example of a leader who IS up to the task is the Dalai Lama.

The pressures of high office make honesty and impulse control much more difficult. (Alan Greenspan claims in his book “The Age of Turbulance” that he tried to get a bill past to the effect that anyone who was willing to do what it took to become president shouldn’t be allowed to be president.) We have checks and balances in the government precisely because we know that the human beings that make up government make mistakes, either willingly or unconsciously. There are checks a balances within the individual also - some call them Ego, Id and Super-Ego. I prefer Body, Mind and Spirit. Spirit being, for me, the influence that seeks to “correct” my mind and sometimes over-rule my body (or at least my reptilian brain).

Kabbalah speaks of more light energy (grace) being available to one who struggles to grow than one who always does the right thing. Perhaps the “bringing down” needs to be more “developing humility” than “falling ifrom grace”. Time will tell whether that humility is, in fact, developing. If it does, it might make for an even better leader.