09/06/2026
Being Present In Relationships
"And then even more challenging, meeting humans with whom you share a lot of past.
The more past you share with them, the more the old behavior patterns will want to come back in. You know that with meeting your parents, your wife, your husband.
After many years of marriage, patterns get very established of who you think he is, who he thinks you are, and the way in which you interact. Or more difficult, meeting your ex-husband or your ex-wife, and be present then and there.
And be in the body. So you're meeting human beings without past. Not that you cannot remember certain things they did, but not to bring the past as an active operating principle into the interaction.
Meeting everyone without past, just in this moment through the power of this moment, which is the power of presence, which is who you are. And not meeting the other person as a walking personal history.
And that is an enormously liberating thing to do when you can meet even your mother and father, with whom quite a few people... Some people have a wonderful relationship with their mother and father, which is beautiful.
Some grew up in a relatively conscious family, and many in this world did not grow up in a conscious one. Their father and mother were manifesting varying degrees of unconsciousness, and resentment built up over the years.
So between adult children and parents, often there are these grievances, resentments, complaints: "He doesn't understand me. I get criticized all the time. He doesn't even want to understand me, my father, my mother."
And the same reactions happen every time you visit them. And then you have a fight, and then you leave, and next time it happens again.
And then one day you meet them. You arrive at the doorstep, and you look at them and feel the inner body at the same time.
And then you come in and you sit down, and you still look at them, still feeling the inner body, because now it's vital that you're anchored. Now it's vital that you're anchored in the Now.
And then you get the old thing. Your father says: "Are you still involved in that spiritual, airy-fairy nonsense? Still haven't got a job, have you? I told you years ago you should this and that..."
And then you have to be very present, and just sit there and simply say: "Well, yes, I'm still doing that. Yeah, yeah."
But then he, if it's your father, or she, if it's your mother, after a while will feel a slight disorientation because you are not feeling the old patterns anymore. You're not reacting, and his or her ego will feel there's something missing here.
And so it will be hard for them to keep playing out that script if the other one isn't playing anymore, isn't reacting anymore, simply stating: "This is how it is."
And you don't even expect anything anymore. Because expectations that he or she should behave in a particular way to make me happy is to do with being identified with certain thoughts. "That's how things should be. He should understand me so that I can be happy."
The whole thing is an illusionary edifice. You won't be happy even when he understands. It won't make any real difference to you.
Now he understands — peace. So now what? What has changed? Nothing. "He doesn't understand me" — so the same, nothing.
So you become free of that which you thought you needed when you were identified with thought. In presence, you don't really need anything psychologically speaking. You don't need psychological this or that.
And there you are. And then you can see the patterns in your mother or father crumbling. And for the first time, perhaps, he or she will ask you a genuine question: "What are you really into? What is that?" This has happened; people have told me these miracles happen.
And if they don't, that's fine too. Doesn't really matter. So with presence comes an acceptance, a compassionate acceptance of what is, which very often means what is is the human being in front of you.
Be compassionate, giving them space to be. Because presence is... you have found your inner space or spaciousness. Formless consciousness. Peace."
- Eckhart Tolle
