This is a YouTube video titled "The Impact of Presence In Relationships" containing a spoken talk or lecture from February 13, 2020, discussing the nature of relationships through the lens of presence and consciousness. The content features a dialogue between two speakers, one identified as Sam, who explores how presence changes the way we relate to others, emphasizing direct experience over mental conclusions about relationships. The discussion focuses on spiritual and philosophical insights into human connection and the role of awareness in relationships.
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, try to try 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, 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 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 provide permanent satisfaction. It would provide short lived satisfaction, always followed by dissatisfaction. So you would be seeking something in the other human, 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 through the relationship, some kind of psychological completion through the other. And as long as there is the 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 derived 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. So some mental conclusion about relationships doesn't help you. It's only the direct observation, as relationships happen. And relationships happen the moment you look at another human being. It's not just intimate relationships, because that remains when you look at another human being. Who knows where it may lead. But if you already have a conclusion in your mind that says, I don't need relationships anymore, for example, or whatever it says, or I only have relationships with highly evolved beings, that's another conclusion in your mind. And then you would look through every human being on the basis of that conclusion, which really is mind stuff, and says, are you highly sufficiently evolved for me? And probably not. And that's the end of all relationships. Because every time, every person that comes in is what's the biblical expression? Weighed and found wanting, for example. So any kind of conclusion does not serve as a valid basis for your life. So you don't need to have an answer on that level whether relationships are still needed when you are present. Just start living the presence. You live in presence and then find out how it goes when you look at another human being and you listen to another human being and perhaps the words coming out of your mouth is, let's have a cup of tea without some kind of mental baggage about I'm now entering a relationship. Or even when you get, let's have a meal. And then, you know, sometimes the person asks, is that a date? They want some kind of concept to fit that into the meal. Is the meal a date or is it not a date? It's just a. It's just a concept. We're having a meal together, that's all. Is this a. Does this relationship have a future? No, of course not. There is no future. In fact, it's probably best to let go of the whole idea of relationship and just relate in the present moment, just which means you look, you listen, you sense your presence, and then you find words come out of your mouth, you say something, or you may even touch the other person without saying, should I touch or not. It's just there's a more. There's a flow to life when they are present, where you don't need to live from conclusions, but live out of the. Out of that presence. So the answer, the real answer to your question comes as you bring presence into your contact. Not calling it relationships now. Bring presence into your contact with other humans, and then you'll see how that evolves. Who knows where it will lead? An important thing is you begin to enjoy just simple relating, perhaps just looking and listening. You enjoy the presence of the other because you enjoy your own presence. That's where the whole neediness disappears from relationships. When you enjoy the other's presence, you don't need it, you just enjoy it. But you can only truly enjoy it if you enjoy yourself. And you can only enjoy yourself if you know yourself as consciousness, the light of consciousness, the aware, still vibrantly alive presence. And you are then primarily you are that. In second place, you are still a person, of course. So that's the. And then it becomes a beautiful thing. And less and less do you need these mental judgments about what to do or what its place is. So what the answer then is enjoy relating in the present moment. And then whether or not there can still be a close relationship, intimate relation or not, you have to find out. That's the adventure of it. But it will be enjoyable.
