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Transformation through Intimacy: The Journey toward Awakened Monogamy
A comprehensive guide to intimacy through greater self-awareness—for those who want more loving, passionate, and liberating monogamous relationships
Intimate relationship has long been viewed and lived as a lesser alternative to spiritual life. More recently, the need to integrate our spiritual and intimate lives, rather than maintaining separate spheres and relationships on autopilot, has become increasingly apparent. Given the high rates of infidelity and divorce, it would seem that the possibilities of freedom through intimacy have not been explored in much depth. Too often we pull away when relationships become difficult, missing out on the rewards of connecting more profoundly.
The passage from immature to mature monogamy is not only a journey of ripening intimacy with a partner, but also a journey into and through zones of ourselves that may be very difficult to accept and integrate with the rest of our being. Transformation through Intimacy explores intimate relationships through a four-stage me-centered, we-centered codependent, we-centered coindependent, and being-centered. Bringing his many years of experience as a psychotherapist and spiritual practitioner to the subject, relationship expert and integral psychoterhapist Robert Augustus Masters shows readers not only how to navigate the thickets of reactivity, conflict, shame, anger, fear, and doubt, but how to understand them in a new light so that a deeper level of relating to oneself and one’s partner becomes possible, opening new levels of trust, commitment, and love.
Intimate relationship has long been viewed and lived as a lesser alternative to spiritual life. More recently, the need to integrate our spiritual and intimate lives, rather than maintaining separate spheres and relationships on autopilot, has become increasingly apparent. Given the high rates of infidelity and divorce, it would seem that the possibilities of freedom through intimacy have not been explored in much depth. Too often we pull away when relationships become difficult, missing out on the rewards of connecting more profoundly.
The passage from immature to mature monogamy is not only a journey of ripening intimacy with a partner, but also a journey into and through zones of ourselves that may be very difficult to accept and integrate with the rest of our being. Transformation through Intimacy explores intimate relationships through a four-stage me-centered, we-centered codependent, we-centered coindependent, and being-centered. Bringing his many years of experience as a psychotherapist and spiritual practitioner to the subject, relationship expert and integral psychoterhapist Robert Augustus Masters shows readers not only how to navigate the thickets of reactivity, conflict, shame, anger, fear, and doubt, but how to understand them in a new light so that a deeper level of relating to oneself and one’s partner becomes possible, opening new levels of trust, commitment, and love.
304 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 2012
About the author
Robert Augustus Masters
19 books92 followersRobert Augustus Masters was born in Victoria, British Columbia in 1947. From an early age he was an avid artist, but in high school switched to the sciences, with which he stayed until he found himself at the age of 21 in a PhD program in biochemistry. Little more than a year later, only a few hours after a dream of dying, he left his doctoral studies, and began an odyssey of intense travel, initially outer, then inner.
As he did so, his passion for the arts reemerged, especially through writing. He began meditating, doing yoga, and exploring cutting-edge therapies and trainings. By 1978 he was working as a therapist and bodyworker. From the beginning his work was integral and creatively structured, combining the physical, mental, emotional, and spiritual. Structure was not (and still is not) preset, but was (and still is) allowed to emerge in fitting accordance with individual and group needs.
In 1981 he won his first literary prize — an all-expenses paid trip for two to Hawaii — for his story of a particularly perilous Indonesian adventure he’d had 8 years earlier. This spurred him to immerse himself more fully in his writing. He also deepened his psychospiritual work, which spread worldwide in the late 1980s.
In early 1994 his life abruptly and dramatically changed, following an extremely harrowing near-death experience, which is described in his book Darkness Shining Wild. Since 1986 he had been leading an experimental psychospiritual community (also described in Darkness Shining Wild), which had gradually gone strongly awry. He had become more and more of a guru, abusing his power, not seeing that what he was leading had become a cult. His near-death experience brought this to a halt, breaking him down so deeply that he could not resurrect his former way of being. A half year later, still shaken to the core and overcome with remorse, he disbanded the community, soon thereafter beginning a very different journey, that of fully facing and working through what had driven him so far off track.
A year later he resumed his work, but in a much more compassionate, radically inclusive manner, centered to a significant degree by the practice of becoming intimate with all that we are — high and low, dark and light, dying and undying. He became a student again, completing a PhD program in psychology at Saybrook Graduate School in 1999; his dissertation received the highest award (dissertation with distinction). In 1998 he co-edited the Fall issue of ReVision: A Journal of Consciousness and Transformation (the theme of the issue being “Intimate Relationships and Spirituality”).
Evolving in fitting parallel with his relationally-rooted psychospiritual work has been his writing. He is the author not only of fourteen books, but also of numerous essays. In 2000 his essay “Wrathful Compassion” won the Editor’s Award for the best article of the year in the Journal of Transpersonal Psychology. His essays have appeared in a number of publications, most recently Spanda Journal. His books have received critical acclaim; Christiane Northrup, Jean Houston, Ken Wilber, Harville Hendrix, and Jack Kornfield are among those who have strongly endorsed his writing. In 2008 his book Transformation Through Intimacy was a Nautilus Book Awards finalist (Silver Winner). His latest book is To Be a Man: A Guide to True Masculine Power.
As he did so, his passion for the arts reemerged, especially through writing. He began meditating, doing yoga, and exploring cutting-edge therapies and trainings. By 1978 he was working as a therapist and bodyworker. From the beginning his work was integral and creatively structured, combining the physical, mental, emotional, and spiritual. Structure was not (and still is not) preset, but was (and still is) allowed to emerge in fitting accordance with individual and group needs.
In 1981 he won his first literary prize — an all-expenses paid trip for two to Hawaii — for his story of a particularly perilous Indonesian adventure he’d had 8 years earlier. This spurred him to immerse himself more fully in his writing. He also deepened his psychospiritual work, which spread worldwide in the late 1980s.
In early 1994 his life abruptly and dramatically changed, following an extremely harrowing near-death experience, which is described in his book Darkness Shining Wild. Since 1986 he had been leading an experimental psychospiritual community (also described in Darkness Shining Wild), which had gradually gone strongly awry. He had become more and more of a guru, abusing his power, not seeing that what he was leading had become a cult. His near-death experience brought this to a halt, breaking him down so deeply that he could not resurrect his former way of being. A half year later, still shaken to the core and overcome with remorse, he disbanded the community, soon thereafter beginning a very different journey, that of fully facing and working through what had driven him so far off track.
A year later he resumed his work, but in a much more compassionate, radically inclusive manner, centered to a significant degree by the practice of becoming intimate with all that we are — high and low, dark and light, dying and undying. He became a student again, completing a PhD program in psychology at Saybrook Graduate School in 1999; his dissertation received the highest award (dissertation with distinction). In 1998 he co-edited the Fall issue of ReVision: A Journal of Consciousness and Transformation (the theme of the issue being “Intimate Relationships and Spirituality”).
Evolving in fitting parallel with his relationally-rooted psychospiritual work has been his writing. He is the author not only of fourteen books, but also of numerous essays. In 2000 his essay “Wrathful Compassion” won the Editor’s Award for the best article of the year in the Journal of Transpersonal Psychology. His essays have appeared in a number of publications, most recently Spanda Journal. His books have received critical acclaim; Christiane Northrup, Jean Houston, Ken Wilber, Harville Hendrix, and Jack Kornfield are among those who have strongly endorsed his writing. In 2008 his book Transformation Through Intimacy was a Nautilus Book Awards finalist (Silver Winner). His latest book is To Be a Man: A Guide to True Masculine Power.
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Displaying 1 - 9 of 9 reviews
January 4, 2015
As I read the text, I oscillated between feeling inspired, critically engaged, and at times downright offended. Some of the writing brims with insight and awareness – while other portions lack historical and cultural understanding and take an overly simplistic and negative attitude towards topics such as polyamory, pornography, and kink/BDSM.
Good things:
The strength of the book is in the psychology. He's very good at pointing out patterns of behavior and looking for possible causes.
Behavior:
p. 92: "In blind compassion we confuse anger with aggression, forcefulness with violence, judgment with condemnation, caring with exaggerated tolerance, and moral maturity with spiritual correctness."
Causes:
p. 94: "Many who act from blind compassion do so for reasons of survival having learned as children that the best way to survive or handle confrontational or violent situations was to make nice and to make excuses for the abusive behavior of others."
p. 66: "Become more aware of the roots of your reactivity. Notice how and to what degree your current behavior is tied in with your history, including your early years. Don't overlook the value of such exploration."
I also really appreciated learning about the distinction between rejecting your partner versus rejecting something they're doing.
Bad things:
He has a tendency towards generalizing too much and universalizing his experience without thinking about how others' lives might be different. He's too prescriptive in telling people how to live their lives.
His judgmental attitude towards poly-
p. 27: "Multiple-partnering confuses love and sexuality, eroticizing (and legitimizing the eroticizing of) connection with more than one other person. Yes, we can love more than one person deeply, but this does not mean that we can or need to be sexual with them!"
p. 28: "Multiple-partnering is an avoidance of awakened monogamy and the deep maturity and integrity implicit in it."
He's very judgmental towards polyamory, even as he claims not to be.
Overall:
It's worth reading, but there are some frustrating things about it.
Good things:
The strength of the book is in the psychology. He's very good at pointing out patterns of behavior and looking for possible causes.
Behavior:
p. 92: "In blind compassion we confuse anger with aggression, forcefulness with violence, judgment with condemnation, caring with exaggerated tolerance, and moral maturity with spiritual correctness."
Causes:
p. 94: "Many who act from blind compassion do so for reasons of survival having learned as children that the best way to survive or handle confrontational or violent situations was to make nice and to make excuses for the abusive behavior of others."
p. 66: "Become more aware of the roots of your reactivity. Notice how and to what degree your current behavior is tied in with your history, including your early years. Don't overlook the value of such exploration."
I also really appreciated learning about the distinction between rejecting your partner versus rejecting something they're doing.
Bad things:
He has a tendency towards generalizing too much and universalizing his experience without thinking about how others' lives might be different. He's too prescriptive in telling people how to live their lives.
His judgmental attitude towards poly-
p. 27: "Multiple-partnering confuses love and sexuality, eroticizing (and legitimizing the eroticizing of) connection with more than one other person. Yes, we can love more than one person deeply, but this does not mean that we can or need to be sexual with them!"
p. 28: "Multiple-partnering is an avoidance of awakened monogamy and the deep maturity and integrity implicit in it."
He's very judgmental towards polyamory, even as he claims not to be.
Overall:
It's worth reading, but there are some frustrating things about it.
February 22, 2019
The topic is a good one but unfortunately, it was very poorly dealt with here. The writing itself is also frequently pretty fluffy and platitudinous.
April 18, 2022
The writing is beautiful and wordy. Interspersed between page after page of the promises and joys of awakened monogamy are neat little poems expressing deep emotion and the painful beauty of pair-bonding. Chapter after chapter talks of this grand promise-land of a perfect, yet messy and beautiful relationship. You keep reading and reading and reading, waiting for the actual INSTRUCTIONS on HOW to achieve a state of "awakened monogamy". The problem is the instructions never really come. You have to read through nearly 300 pages of flowery and overly poetic fluff and then attempt to glean the actual process which produces this relational nirvana. A self-help book which promises and pumps a superior state yet never explains HOW to achieve it is pretty much useless. Enjoyed the writing, but if you want something which you can APPLY with action steps, this book won't provide that.
November 12, 2017
A very good read for anyone that is interested in going deeper than the common me-centered-relationship. Robert clearly knows what he is talking about and paints a complete picture in a fairly down to earth way. I did hope for more concrete practice tips, but maybe it's best to let the practice manifest spontaneously between partners.
July 31, 2023
Unfortunately this book was just not my cup of tea.
1. I do believe that openness and intimacy is absolutely needed to have a true & profound relationship - he’s certainly right about that.
2. The book’s language is poetic and esoteric… there’s long, fluffy passages that say very little but take up a lot of space. I was cringing. I love poetry, but I thought it was misplaced in this type of book. That might just be me. 🤷🏻♀️
3. The advice given was straightforward and reminded me of kitchen poster quotes. I didn’t get any advice I felt could be transformed into practice.
4. I don’t subscribe to his view on monogamy. It’s too puritan and strict for my liking. Partners are not allowed to flirt with others even. I find that my partner flirting with other women can bring energy into our relationship. Robert doesn’t see it that way, so I guess we will just have to agree to disagree.
1. I do believe that openness and intimacy is absolutely needed to have a true & profound relationship - he’s certainly right about that.
2. The book’s language is poetic and esoteric… there’s long, fluffy passages that say very little but take up a lot of space. I was cringing. I love poetry, but I thought it was misplaced in this type of book. That might just be me. 🤷🏻♀️
3. The advice given was straightforward and reminded me of kitchen poster quotes. I didn’t get any advice I felt could be transformed into practice.
4. I don’t subscribe to his view on monogamy. It’s too puritan and strict for my liking. Partners are not allowed to flirt with others even. I find that my partner flirting with other women can bring energy into our relationship. Robert doesn’t see it that way, so I guess we will just have to agree to disagree.
December 31, 2017
Overall, one of my favorite books on relationship. At times, Masters was speaking a language beyond me that made the book hard to follow. It definitely felt more like it was written for folks in his "realm" than it was for "the regulars." Not a negative, at all, but it made it less approachable and more difficult to read as someone who doesn't fluently speak his language.
February 5, 2018
Inspiring
Simple.
Aspirational.
Heartful.
Helpful, guiding.
And and and and and and and and and and touching many important aspects. End
Simple.
Aspirational.
Heartful.
Helpful, guiding.
And and and and and and and and and and touching many important aspects. End
January 17, 2013
Like many other books of Robert's, this book is clear and insightful. It is a lucid look at monogamy and awakening and a how-to manual for creating a spiritual relationship. Coming from someone who—literally—wrote the book on spiritual bypassing, it is an open-eyed look at what one must bring to the table in order to have a deeply intimate relationship!
March 27, 2012
Excellent road map for those of us who are called to evolve on the path through inter-relational dharma.
Displaying 1 - 9 of 9 reviews