The enemy friend is the "friend" who attacks, threatens to harm, causes damage, and lives in a manner in which they appear to be against us. We feel a lot of heavy pressure when interacting with them.
Faced with such a friend, we have a tendency to automatically or quickly contract and turn inward. If we allow ourselves to do this, the result will be a buildup of residue in the form of resentment and anger toward this person. The Erotic mind responds differently, slowly opening to absorb the full impact of the threat or attack. Doing this is an act of true power, requiring great strength. Our aim is to absorb the force of the attack without allowing it to trigger a kickback.
At the same time, we must not allow our attention to collapse by allowing the enemy friend to "defeat" us. Instead, we gently push attention out with the natural energy of compassion. It is not a performance of compassion, which achieves nothing. Instead, we realize that hurt people tend to hurt others. When a "threat" is sent in our direction, it is the result of discomfort rooted in the tumescent mind.
This results in the recognition of two things: we are now connected in pain and we have a shared opponent, tumescence. This movement of mentally converting our opponent into one with whom we share pain gives us access to their Erotic body—the only place where their tumescent behavior could potentially convert. An important thing to remember in these times is that all tumescent behavior is an unevolved attempt to achieve something. The other person wants to lose to something more deeply gratifying than a state of attack or againstness. The enemy friend is a great friend of the Erotic mind as it calls the deepest, most realized aspect of ourselves to respond.
The greatest level of transmutation can occur as a result of interacting with the enemy friend. We have one secret weapon—the realization that no one can tyrannize someone who receives them. To do this, we must be willing to release anything or be moved anywhere in order to stay open. The benefits of having a formidable enemy are great. We have the chance to grow. So as not to become hardened, we learn we must for- give and then further discover the mechanics of forgiveness are simply releasing our sense of entitlement. If there is no perception of rights, then nothing can or has been done to us. With our focus always on staying open, we are "forced" to become the person we truly want to be.
Rights are a feature of the tumescent mind—armored constructs in the form of mental demands. When we believe these rights are violated, further internal hardening occurs, forming into resentment. Rights are handcuffs we put on ourselves and make ever tighter in an attempt to control the behaviors of other people. When we remove our rights, we remove our illusion of control. We also remove the machinery of resentment, victimization, and grudges.
This is not to say that we then ask to be treated poorly. Rights are the act of passive attention, and passive attention demands others behave in specific ways. Instead, we wake up active attention, giving people the thing they most desire: quality attention. This incentivizes them to treat us well without needing to demand that they do. We create an environment where it just feels good to be good to us, which is an all-around more pleasurable place to live in than the compliance-based world of rights. When we're sometimes not treated well, we absorb and grow, we adjust distance and attention, and we remain open.
Most importantly, because those drawn to the Erotic path tend to prize freedom, releasing rights is a radical act of slipping out of anyone's ability to have power over us. When we have "rights" that can be "violated," we have places where we harden. Hardening is where we walk into our own prison cell and lock the door. If no one has anything to press against that would make us harden, then no one has power over us. If no one has power over us, we have true power: the ability to love irrespective of the behavior or actions of others.
It is therefore our responsibility in the face of the enemy friend to both continue to stand in our perfection and rightness, radiating Eros through the five cornerstones of attention—approval, intimacy, intuition, power, and optionality. At the very least, we are internally free. At best, we are a healing force anywhere tumescence seeks to bind.
The enemy friend is one of the most intimate relationships and has one of the greatest potentials for growth and liberation. If we remain in our nobility, and progressively open to receive impact by converting and releasing what does not serve us, we become the person we want to be. By continuing to radiate the warmth of Eros, we may find we not only radically increase our internal position and stability, in our most realized form, but we become a crucible that demonstrates the resilience of Eros. Being a friend with this kind of resilience, we prove to be a force soft and strong enough that the enemy friend—who never really wanted to "win"—can surrender to, potentially becoming a great ally.