Answering an audience question, Eckhart Tolle maps the layers of an intimate relationship — physical, emotional, mental — and argues that none of them sustain it long-term without the transcendent dimension: each partner's awareness of the consciousness in the other.
Transcript
Can you have a clear spiritual or transcendent relationship if both beings haven't fully recognized their essence? I feel caught every now and then in the wish for my partner to recognize his beness more. At the same time, I realize that in my wish for this, I have myself moved away from that experience. So basically the question is can can you have a clear spiritual or transcendent relationship if both beings haven't fully recognized their essence. I don't I wouldn't say that you need to fully or continuously be connected to your essence but in any relationship uh there needs to if it's to be a harmonious relatively harmonious and pleasant and loving relationship. The transcendent dimension needs to be there at least to some extent. Let's just take for example intimate relationships. There many other types of relationships but the transcendent dimension in intimate relationships. Intimate relationships are the connection is there on the physical level. There's sexuality. Some relationships start that way. They start with physical attraction and sex. Then sometimes the emotion comes in the emotional level is activated. Sometimes it begins with the emotional level and then the physical or sexual part comes after. That's possible too. So you feel connected on an emotional level. There is and on the emotional level is what we call this uh love in the conventional sense. You feel emotionally connected to the other person. And then there can also be the the mental level. you you share things on the level of mind, on the level of viewpoints and so on, interests and so on. These these are all important aspects of a relationship that works and in talking about intimate relationships, the physical, the emotional, the mental. Uh these days it happens quite often that the beginning of the relationship is sexual and that's the sexual attraction has a certain lifespan. You might even start living together or getting married and still experiencing the sexual as the main thing that draws you together. But the lifespan is that if this if the emotional doesn't come in more fully and the mental is absent, uh the relationship will quickly become frustrating and no longer satisfying after a certain period of time. The longer you live with a person, the more important it is that you discover the other dimension that's usually not spoken of, and that's the transcendent dimension to the relationship. If it's going to last, the transcendent element needs to be there. Physical is not enough for longlasting fulfilling relationship. Emotional also exists very much in the realm of polarities. One day I hate you, the next day I love you. hate, love on on that level of emotions that you identify with. In the absence of the spirit dimension, you identify with the emotions and love and hate are on that level very close together. You can you can say one day I love you and the next day I hate you. uh and sometimes love the emotional love that people fall in love which is emotional dimension uh and it lasts for a while and then after a year or two or even less or bit more the two people who had fallen in love with each suddenly hate each other. Very weird. The divorce courts are full of cases like that. Two or three years ago, there was a wedding and the honeymoon. Wonderful. Oh, found my the ideal person. He she she is going to make me happy and you enjoy all that. Three years later, just to give a number, the same two people are in the divorce court and they hate each other. So the very same person that made you happy couple of years ago, the very same person now makes you extremely unhappy. It's a strange phenomenon and that's the case even if you don't get married. often happens that relationships are one of the major sources of unhappiness for human beings. Also happiness, the temporary happiness, the elation when it in the early stages of relationship. Yes. And then the other polarity, a enormous source of unhappiness. And of course what's left is the mental realm. So you relate on the also on the realm you exchange opinions and you discuss and you talk and this and that and uh might be okay for a while but then there's friction there too. So the most important question is is there spaciousness in the relationship? That's the important question. What does that mean? There needs to be spaciousness in you and hopefully some spaciousness in the other person so that you can meet on the level of the transcendent dimension. For example, when you're listening to your partner, are you able to be still and give him or her your complete attention? Be receive what the person is saying to you in stillness. Alert stillness. That's the space. That is the spaciousness that's arising in you. You may have heard of gazing. And gazing means looking into another person's eyes. Not to be confused with staring. You gaze into a person's eyes, which means you look at the other and you can sense yourself as conscious presence while you look at the other. And there's no thought. And as you look into the eyes of your partner, you can sense their essence as consciousness also. And the partner is looking back at you doing the same thing, not doing experiencing the same. This is a wonderful way of having some spaciousness in the relationship. Occasionally just look at each other. At first it might be strange and uncomfortable, but then you begin to enjoy it if you don't overdo