Being More Present in Our Relationships: Compilation Video | Eckhart Tolle

Because that's the Western mind especially tells you you can do something to remedy the situation. You must be able to do something. There comes a point when further doing is not possible. And sometimes it inflicts more pain because it wants to do something, because it doesn't know anything else.

Another question. I used to be very angry and resentful towards my parents. Awareness of their unconsciousness removed these feelings. Yet in their presence, I turned to a bitter person. Am I in denial? This question beautifully illustrates the two dimensions one could say to acceptance, or perhaps the two steps to acceptance. The first step is an understanding. You understand that your parents.

Do what.

They do, did what they did because of their unconsciousness. So you can understand how unconsciousness controls people's thinking and behavior. So you've understood that, and that's good. And because you understood that you no longer feel angry and resentful towards your parents. It removed those feelings, except when you visit them. And that brings us to step two. It's very good to understand and then become to some extent free. But that's not complete freedom yet. There also needs to be the presence in you. And it's only that that provides the.

Deeper.

Dimension of acceptance. And when you are not with them, it's enough to understand them. But the moment you stay with them, all the past comes back. People with whom you share a lot of past, it's all very, very easy to be drawn back into past reactions. And it's only by being absolutely alert and present that you can then become free, even while you're with them. So understanding often operates when you're not immediately challenged by this whatever situation it was that causes you the upset. First, you understand that it's unconsciousness in them. But when you actually confronted with them or any other situation, then it's vital you realize understanding is helpful, but not quite enough yet. There also needs to be the presence, the alert presence while you are with them. And especially there you need to be. That's the challenge and that's your spiritual practice, to become especially alert in that situation.

My second question is from my husband, who's not here tonight, and he was recently diagnosed with Parkinson's disease. And his question to you is, how can he heal?

Well, let's start with the second one. There's something more important. Whether or not it can be healed, I don't know. There is something more important than the healing of that physical condition or any physical condition. And that which is more important than the healing, which I'm going to just briefly talk about now, is also that which in some cases brings about the healing. But that's not the main thing. That which is more important than the healing is to use the condition. In this case, it's a deterioration of the physical form which comes slowly over years, as far as I understand. To use that to push you into intense presence. Practice, that's all you can do. So allow it to push you into that which changes the entire vibrational frequency of the physical body. When you truly live in presence, which affects every cell of the body, the entire frequency of the physical form changes. If you do intense body awareness, you can feel that for yourself. It's an enormously enlivening energy field. And that practice also burns up the ego. So the opportunity there is. You have an enormous motivation to embrace the state of consciousness that we call presence. That's the most vital thing. And that may bring about healing, or if it does not bring about healing, it may delay considerably the onset or the process of deterioration that comes with that disease. I mentioned in the New Earth that when I was a graduate student, every day in the cafeteria, I would observe the physicist Stephen Hawkins, who was eating lunch there every day. While being fed lunch, he had a similar condition. It wasn't called Park. It's not called Parkland.

It's a.

In England, they call it a motor neuron disease. Or do they call it that here? But anyway, that's his condition. At that time, he wasn't world famous. He was just well known in the university and everybody said. And it was common knowledge that he had been given, I think it was three or four years maximum, five years to live. And that was when? 30 years ago or more. So he had this deterioration. All the doctors said just a few more years. That's all you have. Thirty years later, he's still alive. Yes, he's incapacitated, but his mind is not. And he has come, as I mentioned in the New Earth, he may not be. I don't believe he is spiritually awake, but he has entered a state of considerable surrender to his condition. There's nothing in him that has created negativity as a reaction to his physical condition. That's very rare.

My sister.

Your sister?

Yes, she was. Had cancer, breast cancer, a really bad kind. And she got complications and infections and with the chemo. And she was wonderful and happy and not showing. And I saw her suffering so much.

Yes.

And sometimes she couldn't talk. It was so painful what she was going through and what they were doing to her. Trying to save her life a couple of times. Yes, I Wanted to run away. I wouldn't because I hadn't been there for her. But I was reading you your books and trying to be present. I know that I couldn't change the situation. I could be there for her. That's the only way I could help her. But I couldn't take her pain away. And the fright. She was frightened. I couldn't take her fear away. And I wanted to. So I wanted to run or think about the future. So I did not want to stay present.

Yes. Thank you.

It was hard to stay present.

Yes. Yes. Sometimes acceptance means acceptance of the unacceptable. And this is an example where what is happening seems to be impossible to accept. But it is happening. And of course, there are millions in the world who go through similar pain. It doesn't make it any easier, but it is a fact. And many others go through other kinds of extreme suffering. People who go through it and people who are around them who want to help, like yourself. You want to take away their suffering. You don't want them to suffer and you can't help. So the only way is really to find a place within you where you touch something that is deeper than anything, that has formed the very life within you. If you can close your eyes and find that not necessarily now, but in a painful situation, to sense. To go deep enough so that you sense the life that you are. Because the life that you are beyond form, the very consciousness that you are that pervades the entire body and goes far beyond, is also the life that she is. So if you sit, the same applies to a dying person. It's another thing that sometimes can be very painful. Especially if death seems to come too soon. Even if it's an old person who is dying, it can be painful. But if it's a younger person, who one would say is not meant to die, but you sit with a dying person, this can take. For the dying person, of course, it's a different experience. The dying person, if there's been any, even the slightest understanding of acceptance, surrender, stillness, when they were in their lifetime, the slightest. And they will then be able to access that and go very deep. Sometimes it's more difficult for the person around them than for the person who is dying or who is very ill. You need to take your attention deeper. Let's say you sit with your sister or with any. Or a dying person or very sick person, and you sit there. The mind says, I should say something, I should help. But of course, there's nothing you can do. But you can be. You can go deeper into being. And so really it's becoming still, let's say you just sit next to her bed or hold her hand, let go of the idea of doing. When my mother was falling ill and her body was failing as she was getting older, she kept asking me, what do I do? And right now there's nothing to do. That was the old conditioning in their mind, because that's the Western mind especially tells you you can do something to change the situation, you can do something to remedy the situation. You must be able to do something. And of course all the whole in hospitals also, it's all to do with doing. But there comes a point when further doing is not possible. But the Western mind doesn't understand that it continues wants to do. And sometimes it inflicts more pain because it wants to do something. Why does it want to do something when whatever you do can only be causing more pain? Because it doesn't know anything else. The Western mind is not confined to the west, but I call it the Western mind. Even the east is now adopting the Western mind. But be is not recognized in the west as anything that even exists or is valuable. But you have to go into being. And if you have done it before, before the situation became so difficult, that will be a help. If you've never heard of it, even then it might be possible. So. But anybody who's here, and of course we will all face either being with someone close to us who is dying, and we will all face of course, sooner or later the moment our approaching death. And if by then, by the time you sit with someone close to you, it dies or death comes approaching, if by then you haven't gone into being, haven't even touched, may be hard to go that deeply within then. But if you've even touched it during your life, as you all have, and many of you more than touched it, then there will be any kind of extreme suffering of that kind either happening close to you or to you, will bring about an enormous deepening. It forces you to go deeper. You have to become deep in a situation like that. If you are not deep, you suffer enormously. But even if you are deep, you still suffer. You suffer on the surface you cry, you feel sadness and pain, but underneath the suffering you can suddenly sense a stillness, a vastness in yourself, so to speak.

Hello. As the now becomes more and more my experience, I started to question why be in a relationship with another? And I guess I want to know a little bit more about how things shift in what we're seeking in a relationship.

Okay. And Again, through observing yourself in relationships, you can actually find the answers to your question or the answer to your question. Nevertheless, I will continue to speak. It's to ask, to find. Trying to find some mental conclusion about the function of relationships when you are present or awakened actually isn't that helpful. Although many people actually wanted to know the answer to your question. That's why you're here. But you can observe yourself how relationships operate in your life, or how new relationships, if they come into your life, how they differ from the old relationships. When you were not present. You may notice that when you're not present, you seek something from the other person. It may be very subtle thing, or it may be not so subtle. But when you're not yet connected to the source within yourself, which is the transcendent dimension, which is the stillness, which is consciousness. When you don't know yourself as the light of consciousness, as a living realization, which is not difficult, it's right here. But when that gets obscured, you seek, because that's the only source of true satisfaction and peace and aliveness. But if that is blocked, you're unaware of it. Then you seek it's through something else. And often it's through another human being. So you seek something that the other human being cannot really give you, nor any other situation can give you, because you may seek it through some imagined situation. I have to work out the right structure for my life. Good income so that I don't have to worry anymore. Nice place to live, lovely relationship on top of it, and be able to travel. Wouldn't that be great? And even that would not be your satisfaction would not provide permanent satisfaction. It would provide short lived satisfaction, always followed by dissatisfaction. So you would be seeking something in the other human to some kind of completion. Make me complete, make me at home in the now. Help me find myself through you. We'll have a deal. I make you feel complete and you make me feel complete. It sounds good when you say it like that. But when you actually begin to live, doesn't work, not for long. So you see, in the old way of seeking relationships, there's the seeking something through the relationship. It could be just physical pleasure, that is often the case. And then of course comes the psychological pleasure, pleasure through the relationship, some kind of psychological completion through the other. And as long as there's a seeking for completion through the other, the relationship is doomed ultimately. And as presence arises, the mind may still ask, well, would I still need a relationship or want a relationship? You don't need to find some kind of answer. Abstract answer or arrive at some kind of conclusion about relationships and then live the rest of your life on the basis of that mentally arrived at conclusion about relationships. The mind loves that. It says I need to sort out to my mind what relationship is all about and whether it's still needed when I'm present. And once I have the answer to that, I can use that for the rest of my life and build my life on that. Of course, you would be back in mind activity, and that kind of conclusion is just a limitation you would impose on yourself.

Sa.