Enlightened Relationships - by Eckhart Tolle

[Guest guest]

Below is an excerpt from one of my favourite books, " The Power of Now " . Eckhart Tolle is a very different sort of a writer.

If you are very busy to read the whole thing then I would recommend you to at least the paragraphs on the bottom which is in bold.

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8.ENLIGHTENED RELATIONSHIPS

 

Enter The Now From Wherever You Are

 

I always thought that true enlightenment is not possible except through love

in a

relationship between a man and a woman. Isn't this what makes us whole again?

How can one's life be fufilled until that happens?

Is that true in your experience? Has this happened to you?

Not yet, but how could it be otherwise? I know that it will happen.

In other words, you are waiting for an event in time to save you. Is this not

the core

error that we have been talking about?

 

Salvation is not elsewhere in place or time. It

is here and now.

What does that statement mean, " salvation is here and now " ? I

don't understand it. I

don't even know what salvation means.

Most people pursue physical pleasures or various forms of psychological

gratification

because they believe that those things will make them happy or free them from a

 

feeling of fear or lack. Happiness may be perceived as a heightened sense of

aliveness attained through physical pleasure, or a more secure and more

complete

sense of self attained through some form of psychological gratification. This

is the

search for salvation from a state of unsatisfactoriness or insufficiency.

Invariably, any

satisfaction that they obtain is short-lived, so the condition of satisfaction

or

fulfillment is usually projected once again onto an imaginary point away from

the

here and now. " When I obtainthis or am free of that - then I will be

okay. " This is the

unconscious mind-set that creates the illusion of salvation in the future.

True salvation is fulfillment, peace, life in all its fullness. It is to be who

you are, to

feel within you the good that has no opposite, the joy of Being that depends on

 

nothing outside itself. It is felt not as a passing experience but as an

abiding presence.

In theistic language, it is to " know God " - not as something outside

you but as your

own innermost essence. True salvation is to know yourself as an inseparable

part of

the timeless and formless One Life fromwhich all that exists derives its being.

 

 

True salvation is a state of freedom - fromfear, from suffering, froma

perceived state

of lack and insufficiency and therefore from all wanting, needing, grasping,

and

clinging. It is freedom from compulsive thinking, from negativity, and above

all from

past and future as a psychological need. Your mind is telling you that you

cannot get

there from here. Something needs to happen, or you need to become this or that

before you can be free and fulfilled. It is saying, in fact, that you need time

- that you

need to find, sort out, do, achieve, acquire, become, or understand something

before

you can be free or complete. You see time as the means to salvation, whereas in

truth

it is the greatest obstacle to salvation. You think that you can't get there

from where

and who you are at this moment because you are not yet complete or good enough,

 

but the truth is that here and now is the only point from where you can get

there. You

" get' there by realizing that you are there already. You find God the

moment you

realize that you don't need to seek God. So there is no only way to salvation:

Any

condition can be used, but no particular condition is needed. However, there is

only

one point of access: the Now. There can be no salvation away from this moment.

You

are lonely and without a partner? Enter the Now from there. You are in a

relationship? Enter the Now from there.

 

There is nothing you can ever do or attain that will get you closerto salvation

than it

is at this moment. This may be hard to grasp for a mind accustomed to thinking

that

everything worthwhile is in the future. Nor can anything that you ever did or

that was

done to you in the past prevent you from saying yes to what is and taking your

atten-

tion deeply into the Now. You cannot do this in the future. You do it now or

not at

all.

 

 

Love/Hate Relationships

Unless and until you access the consciousness frequency of presence, all

relationships, and particularly intimate relationships, are deeply flawed and

ultimately

dysfunctional. They may seem perfect for a while, such as when you are " in

love, "

but invariably that apparent perfection gets disrupted as arguments, conflicts,

 

dissatisfaction, and emotional or even physical violence occur with increasing

frequency. It seems that most " love relationships " become love/hate

relationships

before long. Love can then turn into savage attack, feelings of hostility, or

complete

withdrawal of affection at the flick of a switch. This is considered normal.

The

relationship then oscillates for a while, a few months or a few years, between

the

polarities of " love " and hate, and it gives you as much pleasure as

it gives you pain. It

is not uncommon for couples to become addicted to those cycles. Their drama

makes

them feel alive. When a balance between the positive/ negative polarities is

lost and

the negative, destructive cycles occur with increasing frequency and intensity,

which

tends to happen sooner or later, then it will not be long before the

relationship finally

collapses.

It may appear that if you could only eliminate the negative or destructive

cycles, then

all would be well and the relationship would flower beautifully - but alas,

this is not

possible. The polarities are mutually interdependent. You cannot have one

without

the other. The positive already contains within itself the as yet unmanifested

negative.

Both are in fact different aspects of the same dysfunction. I am speaking here

of what

is commonly called romantic relationships - not of true love, which has no

opposite

because it arises from beyond the mind. Love as a continuous state is as yet

very rare

- as rare as conscious human beings. Brief and elusive glimpses of love,

however, are

possible whenever there is a gap in the stream of mind.

The negative side of a relationship is, of course, more easily recognizable as

dysfunctional than the positive one. And it is also easier to recognize the

source of

negativity in your partner than to see it in yourself. It can manifest in many

forms:

possessiveness, jealousy, control, withdrawal and unspoken resentment, the need

to

be right, insensitivity and self-absorption, emotional demands and

manipulation, the

urge to argue, criticize, judge, blame, or attack, anger, unconscious revenge

for past

pain inflicted by a parent, rage and physical violence.

On the positive side, you are " in love " with your partner. This is at

first a deeply

satisfying state. You feel intensely alive. Your existence has suddenly become

meaningful because someone needs you, wants you, and makes you feel special,

and

you do the same for him or her. When you are together, you feel whole. The

feeling

can become so intense that the rest of the world fades into insignificance.

However, you may also have noticed that there is a neediness and a clinging

quality

to that intensity. You become addicted to the other person. He or she acts on

you like

a drug. You are on a high when the drug is available, but even the possibility

or the

thought that he or she might no longer be there for you can lead to jealousy,

possessiveness, attempts at manipulation through emotional blackmail, blaming

and

accusing - fear of loss. If the other person does leave you, this can give rise

to the

most intense hostility or the most profound grief and despair. In an instant,

loving

tenderness can turn into a savage attack or dreadful grief. Where is the love

now? Can

love change into its opposite in an instant? Was it love in the first place, or

just an

addictive grasping and clinging?

Addiction And The Search For Wholeness

Why should we become addicted to another person?

 

The reason why the romantic love relationship is such an intense and

universally

sought-after experience is that it seems to offer liberation from a deep-seated

state of

fear, need, lack, and incompleteness that is part of the human condition in its

 

unredeemed and unenlightened state. There is a physical as well as a

psychological

dimension to this state.

On the physical level, you are obviously not whole, nor will you ever be: You

are

either a man or a woman, which is to say, one-half of the whole. On this level,

the

longing for wholeness - the return to oneness - manifests as male-female

attraction,

man's need for a woman, woman's need for a man. It is an almost irresistible

urge for

union with the opposite energy polarity. The root of this physical urge is a

spiritual

one: the longing for an end toduality, a return to the state of wholeness.

Sexual union

is the closest you can get to this state on the physical level. This is why it

is the most

deeply satisfying experience the physical realm can offer. But sexual union is

no

more than a fleeting glimpse of wholeness, an instant of bliss. As long as it

is

unconsciously sought as a means of salvation, you are seeking the end of

duality on

the level of form, where it cannot be found. You are given a tantalizing

glimpse of

heaven, but you are not allowed to dwell there, and find yourself again in a

separate

body.

 

 

 

----

On the psychological level, the sense of lack and incompleteness is, if

anything, even

greater than on the physical level. As long as you are identified with the

mind, you

have an externally derived sense of self. That is to say,you get your sense of

who you

are from things that ultimately have nothing to do with who you are: your

social role,

possessions, external appearance, successes and failures, belief systems, and

so on.

This false, mind-made self, the ego, feels vulnerable, insecure, and is always

seeking

new things to identify with to give it a feeling that it exists. But nothing is

ever

enough to give it lasting fulfillment. Its fear remains; its sense of lack and

neediness

remains.

 

But then that special relationship comes along. It seems to he the answer to

all the

ego's problems and to meet all its needs. At least this is how it appears at

first. All the

other things that you derived your sense of self from before, now become

relatively

insignificant. You now have a single focal point that replaces them all, gives

meaning

to your life, and through which you define your identity. the person you are

" in love "

with. You are no longer a disconnected fragment in an uncaring universe, or so

it

seems. Your world now has a center: the loved one. The fact that the center is

outside

you and that, therefore, you still have an externally derived sense of self

does not

seem to matter at first. What matters is that the underlying feelings of incom-

 

pleteness, of fear, lack and unfulfillment so characteristic of the egoic state

are no

longer there - or are they? Have they dissolved, or do they continue to exist

underneath the happy surface reality?

 

If in your relationships you experience both " love " and the opposite

of love - attack,

emotional violence, and so on - then it is likely that you are confusing ego

attachment

and addictive clinging with love. You cannot love your partner one moment and

attack him or her the next. True love has no opposite. If your " love "

has an opposite,

then it is not love but a strong ego-need for a more complete and deeper sense

of self,

a need that the other person temporarily meets. It is the ego's substitute for

salvation,

and for a short time it almost does feel like salvation.

 

But there comes a point when your partner behaves in ways that fail to meet

your

needs, or rather those of your ego. The feelings of fear, pain, and lack that

are an

intrinsic part of egoic consciousness but had been covered up by the " love

 

relationship " now resurface. Just as with every other addiction, you are

on a high

when the drug is available, but invariably there comes a time when the drug no

longer

works for you. When those painful feelings reappear, you feel them even more

strongly than before, and what is more, you now perceive your partner as the

cause of

those feelings. This means that you project them outward and attackthe other

with all

the savage violence that is part of your pain. This attack may awaken the

partner's

own pain, and he or she may counter your attack. At this point, the ego is

still uncon-

sciously hoping that its attack or its attempts at manipulation will be

sufficient

punishment to induce your partner to change their behavior, so that it can use

them

again as a cover-up for your pain.

 

Every addiction arises from an unconscious refusal to face and move through

your

own pain. Every addiction starts with pain and ends with pain. Whatever the

substance you are addicted to - alcohol, food, legal or illegal drugs, or a

person - you

are using something or somebody to cover up your pain. That is why, after the

initial

euphoria has passed, there is so much unhappiness, so much pain in intimate

relationships. They do not cause pain and unhappiness. They bring out the pain

and

unhappiness that is already in you. Every addiction does that. Every addiction

reaches

a point where it does not work for you anymore, and then you feel the pain more

 

intensely than ever.

 

This is one reason why most people are always trying to escape from the present

 

moment and are seeking some kind of salvation in the future. The first thing

that they

might encounter if they focused their attention on the Now is their own pain,

and this

is what they fear. If they only knew how easy it is to access in the Now the

power of

presence that dissolves the past and its pain, the reality that dissolves the

illusion. If

they only knew how close they are to their own reality, how close to God.

 

Avoidance of relationships in an attempt to avoid pain is not the answer

either. The

pain is there anyway. Three failed relationships in as many years are more

likely to

force you into awakening than three years on a desert island or shut away in

your

room. But if you could bring intense presence into your aloneness, that would

work

for you too.

 

The Power of Now, Eckhart Tolle (From Pg 93 onwards)

-- -----_/|\_ (Namaste) " Let Noble thoughts come to us from every side " . - RigVeda (1-89-i)