Personal Love?

This is an interesting piece from Eckhart Tolle on love... 

It may help to understand the difference between ego love and the essence of love... worthwhile read...

Eckhart on Personal Love

Q:  If we’re all one, why do we feel drawn toward certain individuals in an expression of “personal love”?

ET:  True love is transcendental.  Without recognition of the formless within yourself, there can be no true transcendental love.  If you cannot recognize the formless in yourself, you cannot recognize yourself in the other.  The recognition of the other as yourself in essence – not the form – is true love.  As long as the conditioned mind operates and you are completely identified with it, there’s no true love.  There may be substitutes, things that are called “love” but are not true love.  For example, “falling in love”…perhaps most of us have experienced it.  Maybe one or two at this moment are “in love”, and those who have experienced it have also experienced “falling out of love”. 

We need to remember to understand [the difference between] true love and other forms of so-called love.  We are in the relative as form, and in the absolute as formless consciousness.  The two dimensions that the human being embodies are the ‘human’ and the ‘being’.  The human is the form, the being is the formless, the timeless consciousness itself.  It sometimes happens that the form has an affinity with other forms.  It could happen for a number of reasons.  One being that this form has come out of another form – called your mother – and so there is an affinity of this form with that other form.  You have a love toward your mother that might be called ‘personal’.  Another aspect of affinity with another form is male/female.  You can be drawn to another body in a sexual way, and it’s sometimes called “love”.  Especially if the sexual act is denied long enough, it’s more likely to develop into obsessive love…so much so, that in cultures where you could not have sex until you were married, falling in love could be a huge thing and could lead to suicide.  Naturally, there is an affinity of the male/female, the incompleteness of this form.  The primary incompleteness of this form is that you are either a man or a woman.  The oneness has become the duality of male/female.

The pull towards the other is an attempt to find wholeness, completeness, fulfillment through the opposite polarity, in an attempt to find the Oneness.  That lies at the basis of the attraction.  It’s to do with form, because on the level of form you are not whole – you are one half of the whole.  One half of humanity is male, one half is female, roughly.

You have the attraction for the other, then there may be finding certain qualities in another human being that resonate with certain qualities in yourself.  Or, if they don’t resonate, it may be the opposite that you feel drawn to.  If you are a very peaceful person, maybe you feel drawn toward a dramatic person, or vice-versa.  And again, you are hoping for some completion there.  You can have an affinity with another form, which can be called ‘personal love’.  If personal love is all that there is, then what is missing is the transcendental dimension of the formless – which is where true love arises.  Is that part of the personal love, or is the personal level all that there is?  That determines whether that so-called “love” is going to turn into something painful eventually, and frustrating, or if there is a deepening. 

There may be an attraction that is initially sexual between two humans.  If they start living together, this cannot endure for that long and be the fulfillment of the relationship. At some point, sexual/emotional [attraction] needs to deepen and the transcendental dimension needs to come in, to some extent, for it to deepen.  Then true love shines through the personal.  The important thing is that true love emanates from the timeless, non-formal dimension of who you are.  Is that shining through the personal love that is to do with affinity of forms?  If it is not, there is complete identification with form, and complete identification with form is ego.

Many times you may think “that’s it!” and after living together for a little while you realize “that was a mistake”, or “I was completely deluded”.  Even in parent-children relationships, which is a very close bond on the level of form, if the transcendental dimension does not shine through, eventually the love between children and parents turns into something else.  This is why so many people have very problematic relationships with their parents. 

Some relationships may start as purely form-based, and then the other dimension comes in after a while.   Perhaps only after a lot of problems, and perhaps you get close to a breakup, when suddenly there is a deepening and then you are able to bring in space.

The key is to ask, “Is there space in this relationship?”  Or are there only thoughts and emotions?  It’s dreadful prison to inhabit if you live with a person and all you have are thoughts and emotions.  Occasionally you are okay, but there is disagreement, friction. 

We need to acknowledge that there are personal affinities.  But in themselves, they are never ultimately fulfilling.  More often than not, they are a source of suffering.  Love becomes a source of suffering when the transcendental is missing.  How does the transcendent come in?  By being spacious with the other.  Which essentially means that you access the Stillness in yourself while you look at the other.

Not mental noise, not emotional waves.  That does not mean that there cannot be emotions or thoughts, but there is something else present in the relationship.  That applies not only to close personal relationships, but also to more superficial relationships at work.

With any human relationship, the question is, “Is there space?”  It’s a pointer.  Space is when thought becomes unimportant – even an emotion becomes unimportant. 

When people live together, sometimes the other is no longer acknowledged in daily life because there is so much to do.  If you wake up in the morning, is there a moment when you acknowledge the presence of the other?

It’s the most wonderful thing if you can be there for the other as space, rather than as a person.  At this very moment, you can either be here as a person, or you can be here as the space.



Until later,
Leland

More about love

Most of us consider love to be something desirable and often missing from our lives. It is important to consider how we are defining that experience/feeling/behaviour.

What is love to you?

It's no wonder we get confused about that elusive concern!

Recently Exhart Tolle was interviewed about love in relationships and I thought that his comments were worthy of repeating... His web site is http://www.eckharttolle.com/

Th following is an exerpt of that interview:

ET: What is conventionally called "love" is an ego strategy to avoid surrender. You are looking to someone to give you that which can only come to you in the state of surrender. The ego uses that person as a substitute to avoid having to surrender. The Spanish language is the most honest in this respect. It uses the same verb, te quiero, for "I love you" and "I want you." To the ego, loving and wanting are the same, whereas true love has no wanting in it, no desire to possess or for your partner to change. The ego singles someone out and makes them special. It uses that person to cover up the constant underlying feeling of discontent, of "not enough," of anger and hate, which are closely related. These are facets of an underlying deep seated feeling in human beings that is inseparable from the egoic state.

When the ego singles something out and says "I love" this or that, it's an unconscious attempt to cover up or remove the deep-seated feelings that always accompany the ego: the discontent, the unhappiness, the sense of insufficiency that is so familiar. For a little while, the illusion actually works. Then inevitably, at some point, the person you singled out, or made special in your eyes, fails to function as a cover up for your pain, hate, discontent or unhappiness which all have their origin in that sense of insufficiency and incompleteness. Then, out comes the feeling that was covered up, and it gets projected onto the person that had been singled out and made special - who you thought would ultimately "save you." Suddenly love turns to hate. The ego doesn't realize that the hatred is a projection of the universal pain that you feel inside. The ego believes that this person is causing the pain. It doesn't realize that the pain is the universal feeling of not being connected with the deeper level of your being - not being at one with yourself.

The object of love is interchangeable, as interchangeable as the object of egoic wanting. Some people go through many relationships. They fall in love and out of love many times. They love a person for a while until it doesn't work anymore, because no person can permanently cover up that pain.

Only surrender can give you what you were looking for in the object of your love. The ego says surrender is not necessary because I love this person. It's an unconscious process of course. The moment you accept completely what is, something inside you emerges that had been covered up by egoic wanting. It is an innate, indwelling peace, stillness, aliveness. It is the unconditioned, who you are in your essence. It is what you had been looking for in the love object. It is yourself. When that happens, a completely different kind of love is present which is not subject to love / hate. It doesn't single out one thing or person as special. It's absurd to even use the same word for it. Now it can happen that even in a normal love / hate relationship, occasionally, you enter the state of surrender. Temporarily, briefly, it happens: you experience a deeper universal love and a complete acceptance that can sometimes shine through, even in an otherwise egoic relationship. If surrender is not sustained, however, it gets covered up again with the old egoic patterns. So, I'm not saying that the deeper, true love cannot be present occasionally, even in a normal love / hate relationship. But it is rare and usually short-lived.

Whenever you accept what is, something deeper emerges then what is. So, you can be trapped in the most painful dilemma, external or internal, the most painful feelings or situation, and the moment you accept what is, you go beyond it, you transcend it. Even if you feel hatred, the moment you accept that this is what you feel, you transcend it. It may still be there, but suddenly you are at a deeper place where it doesn't matter that much anymore. The entire phenomenal universe exists because of the tension between the opposites. Hot and cold, growth and decay, gain and loss, success and failure, the polarities that are part of existence, and of course part of every relationship.

KE: Then it's correct to say, we can never get rid of the polarities?

ET: We cannot get rid of polarities on the level of form. However, you can transcend the polarities through surrender. You are then in touch with a deeper place within yourself where, as it were, the polarities no longer exist. They continue to exist on the outer level. However, even there, something changes in the way in which the polarities manifest in your life when you are in a state of acceptance or surrender. The polarities manifest in a more benign and gentle way.

The more unconscious you are, the more you are identified with form. The essence of unconsciousness is this: identification with form, whether it is an external form (a situation, place, event or experience), a thought form or an emotion. The more attached to form, the more unsurrendered you are, and the more extreme, violent or harsh your experience of the polarities becomes. There are people on this planet who live virtually in hell and on the same planet there are others who live a relatively peaceful life. The ones who are at peace inside will still experience the polarities, but in a much more benign way, not the extreme way in which many humans still experience them. So, the way in which the polarities are experienced does change. The polarities themselves cannot be removed, but one could say, the whole universe becomes somewhat more benevolent. It's no longer so threatening. The world is no longer perceived as hostile, which is how the ego perceives it.

KE: If awakening or living a life in an awakened state does not change the natural order of things, duality, the tension between the opposites, what does living a life in the awakened state do? Does it affect the world, or only one's subjective experience of the world?

ET: When you live in surrender, something comes through you into the world of duality that is not of this world.

KE: Does that actually change the outer world?

ET: Internal and external are ultimately one. When you no longer perceive the world as hostile, there is no more fear, and when there is no more fear, you think, speak and act differently. Love and compassion arise, and they affect the world. Even if you find yourself in a conflict situation, there is an outflow of peace into the polarities. So then, something does change. There are some teachers or teachings that say, nothing changes. That is not the case. Something very important does change. That which is beyond form shines through the form, the eternal shines through the form into this world of form.

KE: Is it right to say that it is your lack of "reaction against," your acceptance of the opposites of this world, that brings about changes in the way the opposites manifest?

ET: Yes. The opposites continue to happen, but they are not fueled by you anymore. What you said is a very important point: the "lack of reaction" means that the polarities are not fueled. This means, you often experience a collapse of the polarities, such as in conflict situations. No person, no situation is made into an "enemy."

KE: So, the opposites, instead of becoming strengthened, become weakened. And perhaps this is how they begin to dissolve.

ET: That's right. Living in that way is the beginning of the end of the world.

Something to consider... I'm hoping you've read the whole interview... if you have... I suggest reading it again!

Until later,

Leland

Leland@CounsellingandMediation.com
http://www.counsellingandmediation.com/
705 443 8290
905 510 9117

Oh For the Love of God!

Remember that expression? What connection does it have for you? I think of my Mom saying it the same way she would say Oh for Pete's sake!.... Oh, for the love of God!

More often than not it was with a note of exasperation with a hint of sarcasm and typically followed by... and would you stop it... (the behaviour that precipitated the comment in the first place).

The expression contains two frequently used terms over which there is great debate and passion... love and God. What are they anyway? Consider for a moment what you think they are... What connection, attachment or association do you have with those two words? What is love... What is God? Write down what you're thinking. It'll help clarify your understanding and belief and... there's no right answer!

Now, once you've completed that arduous task, consider the two words together... love and god...
Write down what those mean for you.

Many of us learned at an early age that God is Love and then it follows that Love must also be God.
We tend to complicate what is a relatively simple concept. Our little brains become overactive in our attempt to understand and in doing so, add images, thoughts, memories and feelings into our projection.

This is universal and a fundamental belief...  I mean that most believe in love as well as some form of God. I'm not getting all "religious" here, nor am I being bias one way or another.... simply attempting to explain what stopped my confusion about the concept of love and God... just words. In fact, I'm more or a religious skeptic, most religions seem to have a political agenda that is related to what I consider to be more of an human ego interpretation, normal but confusing and not necessarily all inclusive. Remember... keep it simple.

Could it really be that simple???? Hmmmmm.

Consider the following:
Nothing real can be threatened, nothing unreal exists, ... therein lies the peace of God.
The question then arises... what's real... what's unreal?

It is helpful to understand how our minds really work (even though we don't want to believe this). That which we think is true... we often have biases and pre-existing conclusions which develop a frame of reference that our minds then rely on to interpret the circumstances of our lives. We then gather evidence to support that pre-existing conclusion that we do not think about. We consistently project our beliefs and fears into our world without being aware that we are doing so. If you want to look at what you really believe, look at the defensive responses you have as indicators. Often we cannot do this on our own, which is where I come in to help you identify, clarify and explore without the judgement or editing that we all have individually. It's a difficult task to do this ourselves because we only have our own filters and perceptions to guide us. How could we not continue to come to the same conclusions?

Consider for a moment... suspend your judgement... why do you think what you think? Where do those pre-judgements and biases come from? Do we not have the ability, once discovered, to alter or expand those thoughts... not by dismissing the ones we have but by understanding where they come from and why. What evidence do you gather to support the thoughts?

And again... consider now the thoughts of love and God...
Do you thoughts seem to come from fear? or love?

Until later

Leland Clipperton, H.S.C.

http://www.counsellingandmediation.com/
info@CounselingandMediation.com

(905) 510-9117
(705) 443-8290

Improve Your Relationships

What most people are longing for and yet feel is missing from their life is a good relationship. We yearn for "true" love or to be "in" love.
Why is it that we have such a difficult time with this? Why are most problems we encounter in our lives about our closet relationship?

We feel disconnected, negatively judged and critisized. We can feel adequate and competent in all other areas of our lives and not feel that way with our partners, parents, children, etc. Our focus is on what's wrong with me or what's wrong with them!

Let's first look what factors are involved in what creates a positive and nuturing relationship...
Primarily it seems important that we feel acknowledged and supported. If there is judgement, it is expressed and utilized in a positive manner. Feeling acknowledged allows us to hear "constructive critisism", it allows us to feel the information is being provided with good intent, not a reminder of our inadequacies.

When this occurs, we are suspending our need to be right about something and listening to another's perspective or opinion on something. We can then encourage them to explore why they have the opinion that they have and to open up a dialogue where there is an information exchange... just ideas, thoughts and feelings, not judgement with implied righteousness.

It invites a sense of curiosity which helps each person find out more about each other. Not just what you are thinking, but why. Where does your information come from? Why do you feel that something is important.

It is then important to acknowledge that information and to, again, expore it further. It helps to identify obstacles that we may have in terms of the process of or discussion... are we really listening or are we busy feeling judged or thinking about what WE need to say next, or feeling unheard. It is the removal or suspension of these obstacles which allows for a closer connection and improved communication.

Your choice to be with someone in particular in your life is more about preferences and tolerances, not about whether you care about that person or not. Of course, the care needs to be there to begin with, but it does not create a longer term satisfying relationship. Being able to air your differences about those preferences and tolerances with a positive goal of improving the relationship is a process which can grow daily.

Identify a time in the day when you can share your day with each other... be honest... no secrets. Don't just report your day, talk and ask questions about how you feel about your day. Build a relationship filled with integrity. Remember as you are sharing, suspend judgement and your need to be right. Acknowledge and explore each others ideas.

You will feel more connected and closer as a result.

Until later,

Leland

http://www.counsellingandmediation.com/

info@CounsellingandMediation.com
(905) 510-9117
(705) 443-8290