by
Eckhart Tolle
How quick we are to
form an opinion of a
person, to come to a
conclusion about
them. It is
satisfying to the egoic mind to label
another human being,
to give them a
conceptual identity,
to pronounce
righteous judgment
upon them.
Every
human being has been
conditioned to think
and behave in
certain ways - -
conditioned
gener
alically as
well as by their
childhood
experiences and
their cultural
environment.
That is not who they
are, but that is who
they appear to be.
When you pronounce
judgment upon
someone, you confuse
those conditioned
mind patterns with
who they are. To do
that is in itself a
deeply conditioned
and unconscious
pattern. You give
them a conceptual
identity, and that
false identity
becomes a prison not
only for the other
person but also for
yourself.
To let go of
judgment does not
mean that you don’t
see what they do. It
means that you
recognize their
behavior as a form
of conditioning, and
you see it and
accept it as that.
You don’t construct
an identity out of
it for that person.
That liberates you
as well as the other
person from
identification with
conditioning, with
form, with mind. The
ego then no longer
runs your
relationships.
Al long as the ego
runs your life, most
of your thoughts,
emotions, and
actions arise from
desire and feat. In
relationships you
then either want or
fear something from
the other person.
What you want from
them may be pleasure
or material gain,
recognition, praise
or attention, or a
strengthening of
your sense of self
through comparison
and through
establishing that
you are, have, or
know more than they.
What you fear is
that the opposite
may be the case, and
they may diminish
your sense of self
in some way.
When you make the
present moment the
focal point of your
attention – instead
of
using it as a means
to an end – you go
beyond the ego and
beyond the
unconscious
compulsion to use
people as a means to
an end, the end
being
self-enhancement at
the cost of others.
When you give your
fullest attention to
whoever you are
interacting with,
you take past and
future out of the
relationship, except
for practical
matters. When you
are fully present
with everyone you
meet, you relinquish
the conceptual
identity you made
for them – you
interpretation of
who they are and
what they did in the
pas – and are able
to interact without
the egoic movements
of desire and fear.
Attention, which is
alert stillness, is
the key.
How wonderful to go
beyond wanting and
fearing in your
relationships. Love
does not want or
fear anything.
If her past were
your past, her pain
your pain, her level
of consciousness
your level of
consciousness, you
would think and act
exactly as she does.
With this
realization comes
forgiveness,
compassion, peace.
The ego doesn’t like
to hear this,
because if it cannot
be reactive and
righteous anymore,
it will lose
strength.
When you receive
whoever comes into
the space of Now as
a noble guest, when
you allow each
person to be as they
are, they begin to
change.
To know another
human being in their
essence, you don’t
really need to know
anything about them
– their past, their
history, their
story. We confuse
knowing about with a
deeper knowing that
is non-conceptual.
Knowing about and
knowing are totally
different
modalities. One is
concerned with form,
the other with the
formless. One
operates through
thought, the other
through stillness.
Knowing about is
helpful for
practical purposes.
On that level, we
cannot do without
it. When it is the
predominant modality
in relationships.
However, it becomes
very limiting, even
destructive.
Thoughts and
concepts create an
artificial barrier,
a separation between
human beings. Your
interactions are
then not rooted in
Bing, but become
mind-based. Without
the conceptual
barriers, love is
naturally present in
all human
interactions.
Most human
interactions are
confined to the
exchange of words –
the realm of
thought. It is
essential to bring
some stillness,
particularly into
you close
relationships.
No
relationship can
thrive without the
sense of
spaciousness that
comes with
stillness. Meditate
or spend silent time
in nature together.
When going for a
walk or sitting in
the car or at home,
become comfortable
with being in
stillness together.
Stillness cannot and
need not be created.
Just be receptive to
the stillness that
is already there,
but is usually
obscured by mental
noise. If
spacious stillness
is missing, the
relationship will be
dominated by the
mind and can easily
be taken over by
problems and
conflict. If
stillness is there,
it can contain
anything.
True listening is
another way of
bringing stillness
into the
relationship. When
you truly listen to
someone, the
dimension of
stillness arises and
becomes an essential
part of the
relationship. But
true listening is a
rare skill. Usually,
the greater part of
a person’s attention
is taken up by their
thinking. At best,
they may be
evaluating your
words or preparing
the next thing to
say. Or they may not
be listening at all,
lost in their own
thoughts.
True listening goes
far beyond auditory
reception. It is the
arising of alert
attention, a space
of presence in which
the words are being
received. The words
now become
secondary. They may
be meaningful or
they may not make
sense. Far more
important than what
you are listening to
is the act of
listening itself,
the space of
conscious presence
that arises as you
listen. That space
is a unifying field
of awareness in
which you meet the
other person without
the separative
barriers created by
conceptual thinking.
And now the other
person is no longer
“other.” In that
space, you are
joined together as
one awareness, one
consciousness.
Do you experience
frequent and
repetitive drama in
your close
relationships? Do
relatively
insignificant
disagreements often
trigger violent
arguments and
emotional pain?
At the root of such
experiences lie the
basic egoic
patterns: the need
to be right and, of
course, for someone
else to be wrong;
that is to say,
identification with
mental positions.
There is also the
ego’s need to be
periodically in
conflict with
something or someone
in order to
strengthen its sense
of separation
between “me” and the
“other” without
which it cannot
survive.
In addition, there
is the accumulated
emotional pain from
the past that you
and each human being
carries within, both
from your
personal
past as well as the
collective pain of
humanity that goes
back a long, long
time. This
“pain-body” is an
energy field within
you that
sporadically takes
you over because it
needs to experience
more emotional pain
for it to feed on
and replenish
itself. It will try
to control your
thinking and make it
deeply negative. It
loves your negative
thoughts, since it
resonates with their
frequency and so can
fed on them. It will
also provoke
negative emotional
reactions in people
close to you,
especially your
partner, in order to
feed on the ensuing
drama and emotional
pain.
How can you free
yourself from this
deep-seated
unconscious
identification with
pain that created so
much misery in you
life?
Become aware of it.
Realize that it is
not who you are, and
recognize it for
what it is: past
pain. Witness it as
it happens in your
partner or in
yourself. When your
unconscious
identification with
it is broken, when
you are able to
observe it within
yourself, you don’t
feed it anymore, and
it will gradually
lose its energy
charge.
Human interaction
can be hell. Or it
can be a great
spiritual practice.
When you look upon
another human being
and feel great love
toward them, or
when
you contemplate
beauty in nature and
something within you
responds deeply to
it, close your eyes
for a moment and
feel the essence of
that love or that
beauty within you,
inseparable from who
you are, your true
nature. The outer
form is a temporary
reflection of what
you are within, in
your essence. That
is why love and
beauty can never
leave you, although
all outer forms
will.
What is your
relationship with
the world of
objects, the
countless things
that surround you
and that you handle
ever day? The chair
you sit on, the pen,
the car, the cup?
Are they to you
merely a means to an
end, or do you
occasionally
acknowledge their
existence, their
being, no matter how
briefly, by noticing
them and giving them
your attention?
When you get
attached to objects,
when you are using
them to enhance your
worth in your own
eyes and in the eyes
of others, concern
about things can
easily take over
your whole life.
When there is
self-identification
with things, you
don’t appreciate
them for what they
are because you are
looking for yourself
in them.
When you appreciate
an object for what
it is, when you
acknowledge its
being without mental
projection, you
cannot not feel
grateful for its
existence. You may
also sense that it
is not really
inanimate, that it
only appears so to
the senses.
Physicists will
confirm that on a
molecular level it
is indeed a
pulsating energy
field.
Through selfless
appreciation of the
realm of things, the
world around you
will come alive in
ways that you cannot
even begin to
comprehend with the
mind.
Whenever you meet
anyone, no matter
how briefly, do you
acknowledge their
being by giving them
your full attention?
Or are you reducing
them to a means to
an end, a mere
function or role?
What is the quality
of your relationship
with the cashier at
the supermarket, the
parking attendant,
the repairman, the
“customer”?
A moment of
attention is enough.
As you look at them
or listen to them,
there is an alert
stillness – perhaps
only two or three
seconds,
perhaps
longer. That is
enough for something
more real to emerge
than the roles we
usually play and
identify with. All
roles are part of
the conditioned
consciousness that
is the human mind.
That which emerges
through the act of
attention is the
unconditioned – who
you are in your
essence, underneath
your name and form.
You are no longer
acting out a script;
you become real.
When that dimension
emerges from with
you, it also draws
it forth from within
the other person.
Ultimately, of
course, there is no
other, and you are
always meeting
yourself.
