<>Interview with Echart Tolle, conducted by Kim Eng.
Kim Eng met Eckhart Tolle in 1998. Born in Vancouver, Canada, her spiritual quests began as early as the ’80s and peaked after meeting Tolle. She is currently loved and associated with Tolle and carries his teachings all over the world. After seven years of intense spiritual training and great spiritual experiences, Kim began to teach others how to discover his own inner teacher and healer. As a counselor and spokesperson, as well as a mediator of the “Presence through Movement” workshops, Kim developed his own teaching modalities, following the process of transforming consciousness through the integration of spirit, mind and body.
In my conferences, Kim tells us, one of the most common questions is “What is it like to be in a couple relationship with a being who has states of enlightenment?” Why this question? Probably, because people have an idea or an image about the ideal relationship and they want to know as much as possible about it. Perhaps their mind wants to project itself into a future in which they too will be in an ideal relationship through which they will be able to find themselves.
What is it like to be in a couple relationship, with a being who has states of spiritual enlightenment?
As long as I have in mind the idea that “I have a relationship” or “I’m in a relationship” it doesn’t matter with whom, I will suffer. That’s something I’ve learned.
Along with the concept of “relationship” come expectations, memories of past relationships, as well as other conditioned personal and cultural mental concepts, about what a “relationship” should be like. We will always try to shape reality, according to these concepts. But we will never succeed in that. And so, we will suffer again. In fact, the truth is that there are no relationships. There is only the present moment – and in the present moment there is only relationship.
How we relate to others – or rather, how much we love others – depends on how emptied we are of ideas, concepts and expectations.
Recently, we asked Eckhart to tell us a few words about the ego’s search for “love relationships.” Our conversation quickly became a profound one, touching on some of the deepest aspects of human existence.
Eckhart Tolle: What we conventionally call “love” is a strategy of the ego, to avoid self-abandonment. You are looking for someone to give you something that you can only have in the state of abandonment. The ego uses that person as a substitute, in order to avoid the need to abandon themselves. Spanish is the most honest in this respect. In Spanish, the same verb te quiero is used, both for “I love you” and for “I want you”. For the ego, to love and to desire is the same thing, while true love does not have in it the desire, it does not want to possess or transform its lover. The ego finds a being it personalizes – and then it “makes” it special. He uses that person to cover up his constant sense of lack of content, of “insufficient”, of anger and hatred, which are closely intertwined. These are facets of a deep feeling, rooted in every human being and which is inseparable from the egotistical state.
When the ego personalizes something and says “I love you”, it is an unconscious attempt of its own to cover up or remove the rooted feelings that always accompany the ego: lack of content, unhappiness, the feeling that it is not enough, which is so familiar to it. For a while, this illusion really works. Then, at some point, inevitably, the person we have personalized or made special in our eyes, ceases to function as a cover for our pain, hatred, lack of content or unhappiness, which all originated in that feeling of “it’s not enough” or “it’s not complete.” Then, the feeling that has been covered appears on the surface, and it begins to project itself on the person who has been personalized and made special – and who we thought would “save” us. Suddenly, love turns into hate. The ego does not realize that hatred is a projection of universal suffering, which we feel inside. The ego thinks that that person is causing us pain. He does not realize that pain is the universal feeling of not being connected to the deepest level of our being – of not being what we really are.
The object of love is interchangeable – as interchangeable as the object of egotistical desire. Some people have many relationships. They fall in love and “fall in love” often. They love a person for a while, until this no longer works, because no person can cover all the time, that pain or permanent suffering.
Only abandoning yourself can give you what you are looking for in the object of your love. The ego says this is not necessary, because “I love this person”. It’s an unconscious process. The moment we completely accept what is happening, and abandon ourselves no longer resisting, something inside of us reveals what has been covered by egotistical desire. It is an inner, intimate peace, a state of stillness, of silence, of silence and the feeling of being alive. What we are in the essence of our being is something unconditional. It is what we seek in the object of our love. We are ourselves. When this happens, a completely different love appears, which is no longer the subject of love/hate. It does not personalize things or people, making them special. It is absurd even to use the same word to name it. However, as in the case of a normal love/hate relationship, it is possible to occasionally enter into the state of abandonment. Sometimes this can happen for short periods of time; we can live a deep, universal love and a state of total acceptance, which sometimes appears on the surface of consciousness, even in relationships that are in reality egotistical. If this state of abandonment is not sustained, it will be covered again with the old egotistical patterns. So, I’m not saying that true, deep love can’t be present occasionally, even in a regular love/hate relationship. But it is rare and usually lasts very little.
Always when we accept what is happening, something deeper appears. Otherwise, we become trapped in the most painful dilemmas, external or inner, of the most painful feelings or situations; but the moment we accept what it is, we go beyond all manifestations, we transcend them. Even if we feel hatred, the moment we accept that this is what we feel, we transcend that feeling. It may still exist, but suddenly we find ourselves in a deeper “place”, where it doesn’t matter so much anymore.
The entire universe of phenomena exists because of the tensions between opposites. Hot-cold, growth-decrease, win-loss, success-failure, these polarities are part of existence – and, of course, of any relationship.
Kim Eng: Then is it fair to say that we can never get rid of polarities?
Eckhart Tolle: We can’t get rid of polarities, at the level of form. However, we can transcend them by abandoning ourselves to them. When we abandon ourselves to life, we find ourselves in touch with a deeper level within our being, where polarities do not exist. But they continue to exist on the outside level. However, even at this level, something changes in the way polarities manifest themselves in our lives when we are in a state of acceptance or abandonment. Then the polarities manifest themselves much gentler.
The more unconscious we are, the more we identify with the form. The essence of unconsciousness is this: identification with the external form (a situation, a place, an event or an experience), with a thought form or with an emotion. The more we attach ourselves to form, the harder we abandon ourselves to the present moment, to life and the more extreme, violent or hard the experience of polarities becomes by us. There are people on this planet who literally live in hell – and on the same planet, there are simultaneously people who live relatively quiet lives. And those who are quiet inside live the polarities, but in a much gentler way and not in an extreme and violent one, as they are still lived, by many human beings. So, the way in which the manifestation of polarities is perceived changes. Polarities cannot be removed, but we could say that when we abandon ourselves to life, the entire universe becomes more benevolent. It’s not so threatening anymore. The world is no longer perceived as hostile – because this is how it is seen by the ego.
Kim Eng: If enlightenment or existence in the state of awakening consciousness does not alter the natural order of things, the duality, the tension between opposites, then what happens when we live in this state? Does it affect the world in which we live or does it just affect its subjective experience, by the one with awake consciousness?
Eckhart Tolle: When we live our lives in a state of abandonment, something passes through and manifests itself through us in the world of duality – something that does not belong to this world.
Kim Eng: Does this actually change the outside world?
Eckhart Tolle: The inside and the outside are essentially one and the same. When we no longer perceive the world as hostile, the fear disappears – and when there is no more fear, we think, talk and behave differently. Love and compassion arise in our being, and they have an impact on the world. Even when we are in a conflict situation, there is a flow of peace in the manifestation of polarities. And then, something really transforms.
There are certain teachings that say that nothing changes, nothing transforms. It’s not like that. Something very important was transforming. That which is beyond the form, shines through the form, the eternal shines in the form, in this world of form.
Kim Eng: Is it fair to say that the lack of “opposition”, the acceptance of opposites in this world, brings changes in the way opposites manifest themselves?
Eckhart Tolle: Yes. Opposites continue to manifest themselves, but they are no longer fueled by us. What you said is a very important point: the fact that we do not resist means that polarities are not fueled. This means that there is a collapse of polarities, such as those that occur, for example, in conflict situations. No person or situation is turned into an “enemy” anymore.
Kim Eng: So, thus, the opposites become weaker, instead of becoming stronger. And perhaps in this way, they begin to dissolve.
Eckhart Tolle: Exactly. Life lived in this way means the beginning of the end of the world, as it is now perceived by us.
Source: http://psihologus.wordpress.com/2010/07/26/relatia-dintre-doi-oameni-iluminati/