Why Good Relationships Go Bad

by Eckhart Tolle

an excerpt from
The Power of Now: A Guide to Spiritual Enlightenment

Unless and until you access the consciousness frequency of presence, all relationships, and particularly intimate relationships, are deeply flawed and ultimately dysfunctional. They may seem perfect for a while, such as when you are "in love," but invariably that apparent perfection gets disrupted as arguments, conflicts, dissatisfaction, and emotional or even physical violence occur with increasing frequency. It seems that most "love relationships" become love/hate relationships before long. Love can then turn into savage attack, feelings of hostility, or complete withdrawal of affection at the flick of a switch. This is considered normal. The relationship then oscillates for a while, a few months or a few years, between the polarities of "love" and hate, and it gives you as much pleasure as it gives you pain. It is not uncommon for couples to become addicted to those cycles. Their drama makes them feel alive. When a balance between the positive/negative polarities is lost and the negative, destructive cycles occur with increasing frequency and intensity, which tends to happen sooner or later, then it will not be long before the relationship finally collapses.

It may appear that if you could only eliminate the negative or destructive cycles, then all would be well and the relationship would flower beautifully - but alas, this is not possible. The polarities are mutually dependent. You cannot have one without the other. The positive already contains within itself the as yet unmanifested negative. Both are in fact different aspects of the same dysfunction. I am speaking here of what is commonly called romantic relationships - not of true love, which has no opposite because it arises from beyond the mind. Love as a continuous state is as yet very rare - as rare as conscious human beings. Brief and elusive glimpses of love, however, are possible whenever there is a gap in the stream of mind.

The negative side of a relationship is, of course, more easily recognizable as dysfunctional than the positive one. And it is also easier to recognize the source of negativity in your partner than to see it in yourself. It can manifest in many forms: possessiveness, jealousy, control, withdrawal and unspoken resentment, the need to be right, insensitivity and self-absorption, emotional demands and manipulation, the urge to argue, criticize, judge, blame, or attack, anger, unconscious revenge for past pain inflicted by a parent, rage and physical violence.

On the positive side, you are "in love" with your partner. This is at first a very satisfying state. You feel intensely alive. Your existence has suddenly become meaningful because someone needs you, wants you, and makes you feel special, and you do the same for him or her. When you are together, you feel whole. The feeling can become so intense that the rest of the world fades into insignificance.

However, you may also have noticed that there is a neediness and a clinging quality to that intensity. You become addicted to the other person. He or she acts on you like a drug. You are on a high when the drug is available, but even the possibility or the thought that he or she might no longer be there for you can lead to jealousy, possessiveness, attempts at manipulation through emotional blackmail, blaming and accusing, fear of loss. If the other person does leave you, this can give rise to the most intense hostility or the most profound grief and despair. In an instant, loving tenderness can turn into a savage attack or dreadful grief. Where is the love now? Can love change into its opposite in an instant? Was it love in the first place, or just an addictive grasping and clinging?

. . . If in your relationships you experience both "love" and the opposite of love - attack, emotional violence, and so on - then it is likely that you are confusing ego attachment and addictive clinging with love. You cannot love your partner one moment and attack him or her the next. True love has no opposite. If your "love" has as opposite, then it is not love but a strong ego-need for a more complete and deeper sense of self, a need that the other person temporarily meets. It is the ego's substitute for salvation, and for a short time it almost does feel like salvation.

But there comes a point when your partner behaves in ways that fail to meet your needs, or rather those of your ego. The feelings of fear, pain, and lack that are an intrinsic part of egoic consciousness but had been covered up by the "love relationship" now resurface. Just as with every other addiction, you are on a high when the drug is available, but invariably there comes a time when the drug no longer works for you. When those painful feelings reappear, you feel them even more strongly than before, and what is more, you now perceive your partner as the cause of those feelings. This means that you project them outward and attack the other with all the savage violence that is part of your pain. This attack may awaken the partner's own pain, and he or she may counter your attack. At this point, the ego is still unconsciously hoping that its attack or its attempts at manipulation will be sufficient punishment to induce your partner to change their behavior . . .

The reason why the romantic love relationship is such an intense and universally sought-after experience is that it seems to offer liberation from a deep-seated state of fear, need, lack, and incompleteness that is part of the human condition in its unredeemed and unenlightened state . . .

The Koan of Relationship

THE BEST KOAN THERE IS - IS LOVE, is relationship. That's how it is being used here. A relationship is a puzzle with no clue to it. Howsoever you try to manage it, you will never be able to manage it. Nobody has ever been able to manage it. It is made in such a way that it simply remains puzzling. The more you try to demystify it, the more mysterious it becomes. The more you try to understand it, the more elusive it is.

It is a greater koan than any koan that Zen masters give to their disciples, because their koans are meditative - one is alone. When I give you the koan of relationship it is far more complicated, because you are two - differently made, differently conditioned, polar opposites to each other, pulling in different directions, manipulating each other, trying to possess, dominate... there are a thousand and one problems.

While meditating, the only problem is how to be silent, how not to be caught in thoughts. In relationship there are a thousand and one problems. If you are silent, there is a problem. Just sit silently by the side of your wife and you will see - she will immediately jump upon you: "Why are you silent? What do you mean?" Or speak, and you will be in trouble - whatsoever you say, you are always misunderstood.

No relationship can ever come to a point where it is not a problem. Or if sometimes you see a relationship coming to a point where it is no more a problem, that simply means it is not a relationship any more. The relationship has disappeared - the fighters are tired, they have started accepting things as they are. They are bored; they don't want to fight anymore. They have accepted it, they don't want to improve upon it.
Or, in the past, people tried to create a kind of harmony forcibly. That's why, down the ages, women were repressed - that was one way of sorting things out. Just force the woman to follow the man, then there is no problem. But it is not a relationship either. When the woman is no more an independent person the problem disappears. But the woman has also disappeared. Then she is just a thing to be used; then there is no joy, and the man starts looking for some other woman.

If you ever come across a happy marriage, don't trust it on the surface. Just go a little deeper and you will be surprised. I have heard about one happy marriage...

A hillbilly farmer decided it was time to get married, so he saddled his mule and set off for the city to find a wife. In time, he met a woman and they were married. So they both climbed up on the mule and started back for the farm. After a while, the mule balked and refused to move. The farmer got down, found a big stick, and beat the mule until it again began to move.
"That's once," the farmer said.
A few miles later, the mule balked again, and the entire scene was repeated. After the beating, when the mule was moving again, the farmer said, "That's twice."
A few miles later, the mule balked for a third time. The farmer got down, got his wife down, and then took out a pistol and shot the mule in the eye, killing it instantly.
"That was a stupid thing to do!" the wife shouted. "That was a valuable animal and just because he annoyed you, you killed him! That was stupid, criminal..." and she went on like this for some time. As she stopped for breath, the farmer said, "That's once."

And it is said, after that they lived forever in married happiness!

That is one way of solving things, that's how it has been done in the past. In the future, the reverse is going to be tried - the husband has to follow the wife. But it is the same thing.

A relationship is a koan. And unless you have solved a more fundamental thing about yourself, you cannot solve it. The problem of love can be solved only when the problem of meditation has been solved, not before it. Because it is really two non-meditative persons who are creating the problem. Two persons who are in confusion, who don't know who they are - naturally they multiply each other's confusion, they magnify it.
Unless meditation is achieved, love remains a misery. Once you have learnt how to live alone, once you have learnt how to enjoy your simple existence, for no reason at all, then there is a possibility of solving the second, more complicated problem of two persons being together. Only two meditators can live in love - and then love will not be a koan. But then it will not be a relationship either, in the sense that you understand it. It will be simply a state of love, not a state of relationship.

So, Madhuri, I understand your trouble. But I tell people to go into these troubles because these troubles will make you aware of the fundamental problem, that you, deep inside your being, are a riddle. And the other simply is a mirror. It is difficult to know your own troubles directly, it is very easy to know them in a relationship. A mirror becomes available: you can see your face in the mirror, and the other can see his face in your mirror. And both are angry, because both see ugly faces. And naturally both shout at each other, because their natural logic is, "It is YOU, this mirror, which is making me look so ugly. Otherwise I am such a beautiful person."

That's the problem that lovers go on trying to solve, and cannot solve. What they are saying again and again is this: "I am such a beautiful person, but you make me look so ugly."
Nobody is making you look ugly - you ARE ugly. Sorry, but that's how it is. Be thankful to the other, be grateful to the other, because he helps you to see your face. Don't be angry.
And go deeper into yourself, go deeper into meditation. But what happens is that whenever a person is in love he forgets all about meditation. I go on looking at you - whenever I see a few persons missing, I know what has happened to them. Love has happened to them. Now they don't think that they are needed here. They will come only when love creates much trouble and it becomes impossible for them to solve it. Then they will come and ask, "Osho, what to do?"

When you are in love, don't forget meditation. Love is not going to solve anything. Love is only going to show you who you are, where you are. And it is good that love makes you alert - alert of the whole confusion and the chaos within you. Now is the time to meditate! If love and meditation go together, you will have both the wings, you will have a balance.
And the vice-versa also happens. Whenever a person starts moving deep in meditation, he starts avoiding love, because he thinks if he goes into love his meditation will be disturbed. That too is wrong. Meditation will not be disturbed, meditation will be helped. Why will it be helped? Because love will go on showing you where there are still problems, where they are. Without love, you will become unconscious of your problems. But becoming unconscious does not mean that you have solved them. If there is no mirror, that does not mean that you don't have any face.

Love and meditation should go hand in hand. That is one of the most essential messages that I would like to share with you: Love and meditation should go hand in hand. Love and meditate, meditate and love - and slowly slowly you will see a new harmony arising in you. Only that harmony will make you contented.  OSHO

Without Love
Enlightenment is pale and incomplete
Anyone who has said otherwise has either never been enlightened,
or never been in love
Without the passionate sharing of enlightened vision, enlightened, touch, enlightened conversation, enlightened affection- Enlightenment is wasted.
Enlightenment is overflowing by nature
it generously shares itself
it circulates with all that is

Passion is within all existence
rain is passionate for free falling
earth is passionate for sky
monks are passionate for deities
Tantrics are passionate for their consorts
life is passionate for death
existence is passionate for itself

When it is expressed in love
Enlightenment seeps outside the self and pours out into all directions
self is melted away finally since love is enlightenments completion
and this passionate flow of the juice of life
oozes out like hot lava,
it drifts out like gentle clouds,
it spins out with the precision and sharpness of a thousand daggers,
initiating everyone who smells its sweet aroma, receives it searing spike,
or bathes in its sacred waters.

If I had to two choose between the two
enlightenment or love
I would not be such a fool
there is no such choice to make
Since love is the inner nature of enlightenment
and enlightenment is the inner nature of love.

It is our nature to long for love, as love is our nature. Most Westerners desire romantic love above everything. The ideal of "the one," of endless passion, of fulfillment, of having all ones needs met, being understood and truly seen, having companionship, having support, having cooperation, having entertainment and the mutual pleasuring of one another are all parts of this vision. There are many aspects of this vision that are profoundly conditioned by our society, by our family and life experiences. There are many aspects of this vision that arise from a primal desire for enlightenment which also happens to be about understanding, fulfillment, truly seeing, having one's needs met, and in it's own way, it is about the one; becoming the one in order to be able to be the one for others. This desire for romantic love, whatever it is composed of, can be a profound motivating force for the path.

Upon encountering an opportunity for love, anyone can see that to be in love one must master their emotions, their mind and thoughts, their communication, their relationship with needs and desire, and one must clarify ones perception. These are all the things one must do also to be enlightened. These are all the fruits of meditation. The two are actually inseparable. Love is an expression of the awakened being-ness.

Most people, because they have not mastered their emotions, mind, thoughts, and communication, nor their relationship with needs and desires, nor their perceptions, have very confused relationships. There is so much unnecessary suffering in relationship. But this suffering has causes and when the causes are removed and new causes are created then suffering abates and love abounds. Anyone who truly desires to love, and receive love will have to, because the nature of love, become more enlightened. This is how many people come to the path. This is how many people discover its richness.

Love is naturally a non-dual state. It has joy and pain, self and other and all dualities blurring together, in contradiction, juxtaposition; in a fantastic flurry of two becoming one. But since most people's vision is so clouded with dualistic view, they relate to love in dualistic style and therefore cut out its very life force. Then everyone is surprised, hurt, and disappointed by what has happened and they "fall" out of love.

People fall out of love because they do not understand love. They do not understand love because they do not understand mind, emotions, self; they are ignorant of the nature of existence itself. It is possible to stay in love. It is possible to maintain love and cultivate enduring love, but it takes work. It takes a special kind of work, the "inner work," as we say, the inner work of spiritual growth.

We have a strange relationship with "work," we are love/hate about it in our culture which is so obsessed with producing, consuming and achieving. However work can actually be a great delight, in fact all sentient beings work. Squirrels work all day gathering food, and investigating smells and sustaining their life. Banana slugs work all day on pilgrimage to the next meal, socializing with plants, leaves and other insects. Work is an expression of the creativity and artistry of existence. Existence is in motion. It is alive, creative, evolving itself, dissolving itself. Love requires work. Relationships require work. But the fruit of such work is exquisite, the fruit of that work is the ego-less-ness and insight that animates love itself.

Awakened beings take responsibility for the inner work, the work of relationships and the work of caring for one another. They take this responsibility with delight because they know, from experience, that it is the thing that matters most in life.

The view of love in our culture is the same as the view of mind and emotions, there is an unconscious belief that they are just supposed to happen on their own. They just are what they are. We just "feel" certain ways and are sentenced by that. We just "can't" get over certain thoughts and are tormented by that. We "fall" in love and then "fall" out and the whole thing is just some mystery that is biologically determined or determined by some out of control fate of what was "meant" to be. While it is true that things do have their own qualities, timing, and self-manifested occurrences, this is actually only one half of the truth. When we look a little deeper with awareness, we realize that reality is greatly responsive, fluid and interdependent with our views, intentions, actions and inactions. The work that must happen in relationship is the work of clearing up ones views, purifying ones intentions and perfecting ones actions and inactions in order to cultivate love.

Love is like a garden and we must be good gardeners if we want to it be in full bloom. We must pull out the weeds. We must be conscious of which seeds we are watering, if we do not want spiky cactus, and want soft colorful roses instead, then we must use our emotions, words and actions to water, sun and cultivate those roses. Most people, having ignorance of the need to do the work of loving, and ignorance of how to do enjoy that work, or even how to do that work, are very poor gardeners. They are unconscious of the causes they are creating and then surprised by the effects. They are unconscious of the mastery it takes to receive, cultivate and flow with grace.

In some spiritual paths Love is seen as a barrier to spiritual work. This is because different spiritual paths have different methods for enlightenment. In one very popular method of our time, the sutric or renunciate method, love is seen as a barrier to enlightenment because that method is focused on removing all potential distractions in order to learn to meditate in the most accessible, direct, simplified manner. It is easy to be one-pointed when there is nothing else in your life but your meditation alone in some cave in some mountain far away from culture. The fruit of this method is to be in the concentrated state, the meditative, one pointed state. However in the Tantric work, the path begins in that state.

The Tantric path begins in the one-pointed, meditative state. The one point is the desire to grow. This one pointed intention then is taken into all aspects of life and all of life is related to from this view. It is a view that parts the red seas of ones life. It is a view that separates the wheat from the chaff. It is the view that extracts the essence from every situation. Accompanied with training in the inner yogas and training in the teachings, this view is so powerful that everything can be turned into the means for realization. Love, relationships, and romantic connections then become a very powerful opportunity for growth. When they are related to with the Tantric view and the motivation to grow, Love reveals itself as possibly the most accelerated path to awakening. This isn't actually true for everyone, though everyone wishes it were true. Because love is so powerful and affects people so greatly, it can actually be a great obstacle to growth and obstacle to spiritual path. It is a path of fire, because you can get confused and fall off balance and be burned. To take love as a path to enlightenment takes great discipline, a lot of work, extreme clarity and most especially all the supports of a spiritual path.

The Tantric path cannot be taken in pieces; it is a system, wherein all the parts have a gestalt effect. It happens in the same way that when we isolate properties of a plant and extract them to make allopathic medicines, we get ‘side effects" because it no longer has its own nature-given counter balancing properties. When we attempt to practice only part of the Tantric work, by identifying the love as a part of spiritual growth, without practicing the rest of the path, by mastering mind and emotions, then you get ordinary love rather than enlightened love. To know love as a path to enlightenment would require that one understands the foundation for such a path, which is the whole of the Tantric view, path and fruit. In this way, one's whole life evolves, one's whole being evolves and therefore ones style of loving does too. In this way one addresses the whole of one's mind, emotions, pictures, perceptions, and reality habits, all the components of relating and relationship.

The Tantric Siddhas whose relationships are the inspiration to lovers everywhere, held their desire to grow above everything the result was an extraordinary kind of living, very alive and beyond their pictures. Their loving relationships tested, refined and showcased their enlightenment in a way nothing else could. Padmasambhava and Yeshe Tsogyal, Machig and Topa Bhadra, and there were many others. The love affairs of divine beings are famous because of their endurance, purity and power to hold the vision of their love beyond all obstacles. Radha and Krisha, Shiva and Kali and there were many others. Lovers of love, lovers of truth and beacons to us all they remind us that the path of love and the path of enlightenment were never separate. They remind us that a life beyond duality and all neurosis is a life of ultimate connection and also the ultimate dissolution.

"To love fully requires enlightenment. Anyone can fall in love, but few people can stay in love. To stay in love requires the ability to maintain intensity, and relaxation within intensity. It requires control of one's mind so that mind doesn't get lost in reality habits and karmic dramas that kill love. It requires understanding the nature of mind so that you are not tripped up by all the thoughts your conditioning may present to you. It requires an ability to remain kind and compassionate, to let-go and forgive, to change constantly. It requires dropping aversions and letting go of agendas. For love to display fully, self, who you think you are, must be dropped. It requires the newness that comes from being self-less, the freshness and spontaneity, otherwise love gets stale. For love to last you must be able to withstand the purification that love puts you through as all your unresolved emotions and tensions arise. If you are not skilled those emotions and tensions will be the occasion to create more karma, more confusion, more seperation. If you are skilled, that which is arising will be food for love's fire and the opportunity for profound evolution. You see, love is really the path to enlightenment. It is only that few people have ever really known how to walk it, so they have missed out on love and they have missed out on enlightenment."
- Kali Ma