reaction paper 9

In Chapter 8, Tolle evokes the topic of enlightened relationships. He talks of the popular perception of romantic love between two people as what makes life “complete”, and that it is essential for reaching enlightenment. For the author, this is just another case of not living in the “Now” and always waiting for something that will make us happy. Often, we think that having a relationship is the ultimate goal that will rid us of insecurity, of loneliness and of pain, but a lot of the times relationships do not help, or even end up increasing the already-present emotions. Tolle reiterates that finding inner peace needs to come from within. He also talks of the dynamics of romantic relationships, and how these relationships essentially thrive on emotions and conflict. He refers to them as Love/Hate relationships, because they enjoy high levels of pleasure as much as high levels of pain. Feeling such as lust or affection can easily turn into anger and resentment.  That is because these relationships are led by our minds first. It makes all the negative qualities that we are not necessarily even aware of come out, such as jealousy, deep insecurities, doubt, and even violent reactions, such as physical abuse. These symptoms are very similar to those of addicts, which makes Tolle argue that these relationships are not a form of love but of addiction.  Tolle says that true love is the only form of a relationship that exists without those opposites, because it comes from beyond the mind.

I do agree that a lot of the times, what we perceive as being in love with someone is not actually love. I personally have seen many cases where a relationship between two people seemed like addiction rather than love. For example, I knew a couple that were constantly attached at the hip, 24/7, to the extent where their lives had become “merged” since they studied, lived, and did everything together. Because of this, if at any point one of them did anything outside of their couple, jealousy and the fear of losing the other person would appear, and screaming matches would begin. I also experienced a moment in my life where a relationship I thought was true love turned out to be very emotionally abusive.

In a more general sense, constantly thinking about another person, from the moment we wake up to the moment we sleep, is what society considers as “being in love”. But this is actually our mind being addicted to thoughts of that person. I do not believe that true love consists of obsessing over everything that another person thinks or does, because that involves being consumed by the ego and turning away from the “Now”. True love requires us to be present in the moment, to disregard feelings of judgment and to completely accept the other person no matter what they do or think. This is something else that, judging from past experiences and what I observed in my life, seems very hard to achieve, but as always Tolle makes it seem possible after all.