Relationships of presence

In a chapter on enlightened relationships, Tolle observes that —most —love relationships?? become love/hate relationships before long.?? It is considered normal that we switch suddenly from love and affection to savage hostility and back again; as the saying goes, can't live with a person, can't live without them.

We believe that if we could just get rid of the negative states all would be well, but Tolle says that this can never happen. Both polarities of love and hate depend on each other, and are merely —different aspects of the same dysfunction.??

When we are in love, the other person makes us feel whole, but the downside is a growing addictiveness to this individual and the horror of any possibility of losing them.

The ego has a need for wholeness, yet romantic relationships are not the right place to look for this because they give us a sense of self that is dependent on something or someone outside of us. We all carry a body of pain inside us that appears to be healed when we are in love, but the pain is still there and emerges again when the honeymoon is over.

The purpose of real, long-term relationships, Tolle says, is not to make us happy or fulfilled; they are to bring out the pain within us so that it can be transmuted. They are to make us more conscious, and if we can accept this we can move to another level, and the relationship will flower naturally, free of our unreal expectations.

If your current relationship seems like an —insane drama,?? instead of trying to escape from it, go into it more deeply and accept the fact. Tolle's assertion is that close relationships have never been more difficult than they are now, yet they also offer possibly the greatest opportunities for spiritual advancement.

By ECKHART TOLLE

Wow Qbone....interesting! I'm in that now. It's crazy but you want out...but deep down its so real and that's hard to walk away from. When someone challenges you and pulls you out of your shell; its scary as hell.