The Consciousness Frequency of Presence in Relationships
By Alisa Battaglia -Schiff

 

I have been thinking a lot about the nature of relationships and the consciousness frequency of presence that is necessary to create enlightened partnerships. I believe that such relationships can exist only when we abide in presence, to be who we are without depending on anything outside of ourselves except our innermost essence, otherwise at the root, relationships are deeply flawed and ultimately dysfunctional.

Commonly, romantic relationships go through destructive cycles of both pleasure and pain as they oscillate between the polarities of love and hate. At first there are intense feelings that cause us to feel alive and whole. Our existence becomes meaningful because we feel needed, wanted and special. With these intense feelings coursing through our veins the world fades into insignificance. We feel ever-so-special, but fail to see that there is a quality of neediness and clinging to that intensity of feeling. The person we love is like a drug and we become addicted to them because we use his/her love to cover our pain. Every addiction whether it’s a person, drugs, alcohol, food, gambling, sex, and so on begins and ends with pain. They are distractions to our refusal to face and move through our own pain. We blame the relationship when our pain resurfaces. And when we don’t get our fill or fear someone will leave us, we become jealous, possessive, manipulative, blaming and accusing. In short we use emotional black mail to keep the deep seated fear, state of lack, and unfulfillment that is characteristic of the human condition in its unenlightened state, at bay. It is then that we begin to experience love and its polarity. How quickly we move from love to a confusing ego attachment and addictive clinging that manifests as attack, emotional violence, insensitivity, self absorption, hostility and grief. These destructive cycles are frequent and intense in their occurrence until the relationship finally collapses. Relationships, however, are not to blame as they do not cause pain and unhappiness, they only bring out the pain and unhappiness that is already within us, as every addiction will do. This is why people are always seeking to escape the present by dwelling in the past or projecting into the future. Focusing our attention on the NOW is how to get in touch and feel our pain and fear so that we may finally move through it.

Holding this thought, we might ask ourselves if our love is codependent or an externally derived sense of self addicted to cycles of drama that makes us feel alive?

For instance, authentic love does not shift in a mere instant--it has no polarity because love is oneness and beyond the veil of form and separation. Love is a state of being that is deep within us, it is not exclusive or selective, which is the love of ego...rather love is feeling the presence of the One life deep within us and within all sentient life. It can be felt in varying degrees in terms of clarity and intensity in its reflection back to us. It is the same bond that connects us with other people and the various kingdoms in nature only with a difference in intensity.

After we have reached the addictive bottom-line and played the drama called “love” we come to realize that dependence on anything external (person) or to have an externally derived sense of self is to suffer from a perceived state of lack and insufficiency; wanting and needing; grasping and clinging; compulsive thinking and negativity; and is locked into the past and future as a psychological need. These attachment patterns of the ego-mind state are born of polarity that is driven by psychological time. Time is the greatest obstacle of Truth, as time is psychological (past/future) rather than spiritual which is out of time—ergo the abode of presence. Authentic love as a continuous state has no opposite because it arises beyond the mind out of time.

So, what or whom do we think we are loving? Well, since love is a state of being and not outside ourselves we can never lose it, nor can it leave us. So again, there is no dependency or reliance on someone else or any external form. The underlying reality is that when we are out from being buried underneath the mind and its old patterns, love flourishes and communication is possible. “True communication is communion—the realization of oneness, which is love.” When we are rooted in Being by remaining present as observer, the watcher of our thoughts and behavior, the pain body of the ego complex that is ever suffering, dominated by problems and conflict, repetitious patterns of mind and roles played, cannot take us over and destroy love.

The key to enlightened relationships is to intensify being present by taking our attention deeper into the Now—to bring our unconscious inner state to the light.
It is that simple. The light of our presence must be strong enough to overcome the pain-body as our identity, “to know self as the Being underneath the thinker, the stillness underneath the mental noise, the love and joy underneath the pain.” To bring the consciousness frequency of presence into the pain allows us to accept what is and transmute it, freeing the mind from new pain. The mind then loses its compulsive quality to judge self and others and to resist what is. With complete acceptance of self comes a complete acceptance of our partner without a need to judge or change them. Our relationship becomes a spiritual practice, our Sadhana, in observing unconscious patterns in both ourselves and our partner and holding in loving embrace, our knowing that we won’t react. This powerful enough to eradicate the codependency of being drawn into someone else’s unconscious patterns or enabling them to continue. When we can do this we create a space for transformation for authentic love, joy, grace and peace to enter our hearts.

Alisa Battaglia-Schiff ©2009