The Most Important Question You Can Ask About Your Relationship | Eckhart Tolle

You are essentially the invisible consciousness that underlies all manifestation. That's the essence of who you are. And when you can sense that, you can sense it in the other. And that means there's a spiritual— that is the transcendent dimension in a relationship. When you're not only there as a personality as a mind and as a body, but you're also there as a field of conscious presence. You are, or every human being is, actually, ultimately, invisible. What you see about a person is very little. What you see about a person is the physical body. That's the first thing you see, and whatever they may put on their body. That's the first thing you see. Often that's the first attraction, you're attracted to somebody's physical form, and that's when the relationship operates mainly on the physical level. And then, of course, there's a personality there too that manifests through words and action. And that comes already out of the unseen, because there's a whole world of mind and emotion which you cannot see, you cannot detect with your senses. You can detect how it— certain emanations through facial expressions and the energy behind words that are being spoken. But thoughts are already invisible. Scientists have examined the brain, but they haven't actually found any thoughts. They don't even know yet really what a thought is. No matter how— with the most powerful microscope, you're not going to discover, if you examine the brain of a person, you're not going to find any sort of, 'Oh, there's a thought.' So we know very little about the world of mind, really. And I'm only talking about thoughts so far, not even about the underlying consciousness of which thoughts are only a temporary expression. Think back for, let's say, can you, when you were 10 years old, the house or the apartment where you lived, can you see it in your mind's eye? Can you sense you're opening the door and you're walking in? And then you're opening the door, if you had a room, you're opening the door to your room, and you can see what's in the room, and there's a kitchen too, and you were 10 years old, how old you are now, I don't know, maybe it was 15, 30, 40, 50 years ago. Now I asked you that question and suddenly the memory of that room came back to you, you can even Little details, even how something feels, how did the door handle feel? Why am I asking these questions? Well, how did, in what form did this memory live in you? Did it live in your brain in the form of certain molecules or atoms that were nerve impulses or whatever and that said, "Oh, that's the living room, and that's the feeling of the door handle, and that's that, and that's the smell of the kitchen." How did that survive? We don't know. It's all invisible, it's all the realm of the invisible. How does a memory survive in you, and you might not think about it for 20 years and suddenly you remember something? Where did that live? And where do these hundreds of thousands of memories, where do they all live? So then you as the mind, you are invisible. And you as consciousness— the mind is only a manifestation of consciousness— totally invisible. The essence of who you are is totally invisible, and not even just the essence, even on the mental level you are invisible. So, at the most essential level, feeling the realm of yourself, of your invisible self, feeling that in you is— realizing that you are essentially the invisible consciousness that underlies all manifestation. That's the essence of who you are. And when you can sense that, you can sense it in the other. And that means there's a spiritual— that is the transcendent dimension in a relationship. When you're not only there as a personality, as a mind and as a body, but you're also there as a field of conscious presence. And the other person also is not just a mind and a body plus emotions, but more essentially a field of conscious presence. And as that, you can sometimes sense that when you recognize it in another, that the other is essentially, in essence, the same as you on the level of consciousness. Not the content of consciousness, that's the mind, that varies, the very different content of consciousness, But essentially, when you can sense the essence of who you are, then you can also sense the essence of who the other— who or what the other person is. And sometimes you can sense it when you look into a person's eyes for a couple of minutes, and you can then join together and feel that oneness. Beyond the personality. And then you don't even need to set aside time, although you can still do it and enjoy it, but you don't need to make it into a particular practice, although you might want to do it for a while. But even when you are just looking at another person, you see the body, you are aware of how their mind manifests through their words, their facial expressions, and so on, and you interact with that. You might touch the body of the other person, you may engage with their mind, you might feel the emotional bond, but you can also sense the underlying presence in you and in him or her. So, that's the— that's spaciousness in the relationship. And then, a great thing, a great source of unconscious suffering in relationships is the need to be right. You find it all the time, couples having an argument. They need to be— the need to be right with great force. You need to show the other person that you are right, to make the other person wrong by implication. Needing to be right is to need to make the other person wrong so the other person can finally agree with you, but he or she won't, of course, because they're in the same pattern. And that is there because of this complete lack of spaciousness. The need to be right is a mental— the mental-emotional phenomenon of ego. You are identified with a certain position in your mind You derive your sense of self from it, and that's why you need to be so defensive and aggressive, because you are defending your very life. It's illusory, of course, but that's how you feel without knowing it. And that's ego. But if there's spaciousness in the relationship, You can have a discussion in a different way, where you're still able to listen to the other, and the other listens to you, and there's space around the mental positions, conscious space around it, and you are that space, you're not the position. The same with children. It's very important to give to— when you relate to children, if you have children, again, that element of spaciousness needs to be there, otherwise the most vital thing is missing in the life of the child, and that would be the 'your' presence for the child, and the child wants that without knowing it consciously. The child wants you to be there, and it just does not mean that you give attention to the child. Many parents give attention to the child only on the mental level, which usually means, 'Now you need to do this,' 'Don't do that.' 'Have you done that?' 'Now let's do this.' 'What did you do?' And so on. Many parents, they're doing their best with their children, but they're not really giving attention. They're only giving attention on the mental level. There's a lot of doing in many families these days. They continuously— Eckhart is doing— now what do we need to do next? No, get this done, don't do that. And then they're on their phones. Complete lack of spaciousness. And children already grow up with lack of spaciousness in themselves and in the entire family environment. Children grow up with cluttered minds already, more cluttered than ever before, because they already have these devices. So to counteract that, it's vital that the parents bring in the dimension of spaciousness. Listen to your child. Don't always say, "Do this or don't do that." Just listen sometimes. Bring the— being is another word for it. Bring the dimension of being it so that the entire family environment is not consumed by continuous doing. Bring being. Doesn't mean you stop doing, but being is something deeper that can actually be the background to your doing, and occasionally you don't do, you just Be, give attention, acknowledge the child, acknowledge the essence of the child, not just relate to the mind of the child or the emotional level of the child, acknowledge the essence of the child, but you can only do it if you have— if you're living from your essence. And the child wants to be recognized in his or her essence by you. It's very frustrating if the child feels that you're not really there, which is unfortunately the case with many parents who are not conscious. All the parents who are not conscious, the children feel this, "You're not there." Really? You're absent? With your children, but also other language, it means doing certain activities together that don't stimulate the mind too much. This can be very helpful. Being in nature together. Have times when— have agreements that there are certain periods when you Do not use your gadgets, your devices, so that you can be there with the other person. So the vital question, just to remember, is there space in this relationship?