An Oasis of Peace

The one-to-one-bliss relationship

by Patrick Quanten MD

Peace is associated with calmness, quietness, silence, serenity and tranquility. It evokes pictures of wind still meadows and lakes without a ripple on the water. A breath of air that is brushing past your face almost unnoticeably. A virgin white undisturbed blanket of freshly fallen snow emanates the kind of life without a ripple, a smooth glide home, that our fantasy is addicted to. We all chase the one relationship that is going to transform our life into that kind of everlasting peace. Unfortunately, personal experience and the statistics show a totally different picture. Reality tells us that we are far removed from our dream. Why is that, especially when we all know what it is we are looking for?

A relationship between two people has three separate elements: the two individuals and the ‘space’ in between them. The relationship develops in the space as a result of the two individuals coming together, sharing space together. It is their coming together that creates the relationship, which we want to be a haven of peace. So, it depends on the characteristics of both individuals and the way they come together, which is determining the quality of their relationship.

Who do we need to be to be the perfect guy or the perfect woman? Magazines are full of advice on what men and women like and dislike and how to ensure a full and successful married life. We are all trying to conform to a set standard. Make-over programmes transform people into almost unrecognizable images of themselves, and people oblige by feeling better about themselves. But who are they really? And how long can one keep up pretences?

Honesty lasts the longest. If you are yourself, you will never have trouble in explaining how you feel because people around you know you and your feelings. The honesty bit does not merely apply to being honest towards the outside world, but the most difficult part of being honest is the part that is directed towards the Self. Can you truly allow yourself to be who you are and to express yourself as you are?

Most of us have grown up under a stack of rules that taught us how to behave, what was right and proper, and what was acceptable behaviour. This has shaped our life to the extend that we follow what the brain puts out without questioning it. When we sometimes do question it, we get pulled back in line very quickly by our ‘consciousness’. Most of us are on a permanent guilt trip about hurting someone or being selfish when we need something and the little inner voice will be shut up straightaway. Our heart is never allowed a say in our life. And it really is our heart that knows what we want and what we need. Call it instinct, but that is what keeps you alive, not your computer!

So, we need to learn how to recognize again who we really are. We need to learn to live life the way we need it to be. Not easy when life around us has little cubbyholes for everything. We are supposed to live in these damned things; and we do. The fact that life, as nature intended, does not fit into regular patterns and conforming boxes seems not to bother us anymore. However, deep inside us, where the real you resides, tension mounts. It is here where little incidences in the outside world trigger massive reactions of anger, fear, jealousy. A tremendously wild imagination takes over the rationale of life and throws us into a spiral of make-belief and supposition. We spend more time in our minds resolving problems that haven’t even arisen yet than we do living life as it is in the here and now. And that is not ‘being honest’. That is not being truthful to yourself. That is the quickest way to losing yourself in society’s dreamworld.

We need to learn again that our emotions are our own. We create them. No one else makes you feel hurt, angry or makes you suffer. If we get angry, it is because we decide to get angry; Or, if you prefer, your unconscious mind decides to get angry. Naturally you have a reason to get angry about. Only, not everyone sees it that way, and some may even say that ‘you are getting angry over nothing’. In other words, your ‘reasons’ are nothing but ‘excuses’ to someone else. If you decide to feel pain, you will feel pain. Otherwise you don’t. You own your pain; you own all of your feelings. Recognising that is being truthful with yourself.

All our sensations are produced by ourselves. We create them; we are responsible for them. The outside trigger is only the trigger we choose to respond to; the response is entirely ours. And someone else will have a different response to the same trigger, which shows that the reaction we have is not caused by the trigger. It is, therefore, caused by us. If we truly want to be honest with ourselves, then we should no longer blame anyone else for our feelings. If you are feeling rotten, it is because you have ‘chosen’ to feel that way. If you don’t like it, you can make a different choice, irrespective of what is happening outside of you. We respond to the outside world, but the specific response we are displaying is ours.

Stop blaming the other for the way your life is going! And this is an essential ingredient for the bliss relationship we are searching for.

We also need to learn to love ourselves. Our spiritual guides seem to have failed to make us take notice of the full statement in the bible, love thy neighbour. This bit we have been fed since birth, but what about the end of the sentence? It reads, ……as you love thyself. In other words, we are supposed to first love ourselves, and once we are doing a good job, we can expand that love towards others. Maybe it is because people are such bad self-lovers that their relationships seem to be grossly devoid of love as well. In order to be able to love someone else we need to ensure that we are capable of truly and honestly loving ourselves, looking after ourselves, taking care of ourselves. It is when we are able to and have passed the test of time of taking care of ourselves, then and only then will we be in a position to love others. This is partially because only then we will be truly able to understand another person’s needs and the true weight and necessity of those needs.

So, there you have it; each individual coming to the edge of this sought after Oasis of Peace must be a full person in their own right, standing on their own two feet, and knowing themselves very well. They must be committed to read their own life, actions and feelings without fear and prejudice. These are the real qualities that are required. This does not say anything about the shape or façade of these people; it tells you everything you need to know about their soul, about who they are on the inside. That is your security in life. That gives you the stability you can rely on. Their word is only spoken in truth, always.

It is these people that have the potential to create the Oasis.

When we stand on the edge of the Oasis, we stand there in honesty as we are. Our past actions and experiences all have helped to get us exactly to where we are at that moment. Shame and regret are inappropriate. It does not matter what lies in your past anymore; it is gone. All you carry from that is the resulting knowledge. What matters is who you are now, and what you focus on for the future; where do you want your life to go from here.

Around us, we often view people being attracted to each other with great force. They fall in love with the speed of a hurricane and with the dept of the Niagara Waterfalls. The power of attraction is of such magnitude that these people believe to be ‘soul-mates’. They sink into each other and almost disappear as an individual. And very often we notice that these fusions not last very long. Within no time there is another ‘soul-mate’ on the horizon, but this time, of course, it is for real. Forever has become a very short time.

When there is great speed in attraction, we may sink deeply into each other, giving us the feeling of an intimacy never experienced before, but soon we may discover that we have ended up too deeply into each other throats. The repulsion force gathers momentum as we are disturbing the individual’s field by invading it. The deeper one goes, the greater the aversion power becomes. A simple law of physics. More often than not we also find that the exact characteristics that attract us to a person are the ones that we become repulsed by. He is so charming, free and uninhibited; he doesn’t care about the rules of the world. – He drives me mad; he never clears up or pays the bills, and he leaves his washing everywhere all over the floor. Same elements viewed and experienced differently!

Moving into someone else’s field slowly, making as few ripples as possible will leave his/her life almost undisturbed. This way, people can remain themselves totally and yet have the privilege of enjoying someone else’s presence. The more we can allow people to continue within their own pattern of life, the more successful the integration is. (As an image one can think about the police infiltrating a criminal gang.) Of course there will be some disturbance, and in a way that is also what the person wants, otherwise there would not have been an interest to look for a life-partner. The disturbance, however, should not happen in the essential parts of the person’s field. This means that the parts that are absolutely essential to the person’s life, the bits that he/she truly needs in order o maintain balance, should remain untouched. To establish this, the person must know, and truthfully acknowledge, what it is that is part of the base of his/her life. This must be openly expressed. The other person must accept this information without any question and without any effort to ‘change’ the person. And these remarks, of course, work both ways; both individuals must remain true to their own life and not deviate towards the other, not to please, not to alleviate pain, not to compensate.

It is only under these severe circumstances whereby two human fields are being invaded without causing ripples and commotion within the inner core of either life that stillness can be found on the common ground in between them. It is under these circumstances that two people can be together in total honesty and openness. Their mutual presence will enhance both lives by enriching the experiences that are not so fully absorbed by either, experiences that they neither can nor have chosen to fully engage in alone. At the same time, neither life is being disrupted by other ideas or thoughts, not focused on the essentials of each individual life. Either is allowed to develop what they need to in order to grow more happiness, and neither will need to consider being responsible for the other’s happiness. It is being taken care of by the person’s self.

This does not necessarily exclude actually being together or living together. What it does mean is that when they are going to be together for most of the time, it would help a lot if the daily concerns of living in this society like housing, jobs, household, in short organizing the day to day stuff, would not have great priority in either lives. If life is focused on the development and growth of each individual, and the material circumstances in which this can take place are of far less, almost insignificant, proportion. It is then, and then only, that they can easily enhance each other, feed and support each other’s needs and weaknesses. They can grow together; it’s what is called ‘a win-win situation’. Their common field allows food and nourishment for both without interference; the other parts of their lives are supported by the other person, enhanced by him/her, enriched in all its aspects, but not essential for the individual’s survival. Their togetherness is about bringing to fruitition the potential of each individual. It is not about dependency for their survival. The fruit on the tree is a combination of the potential of the flowers and the pollination that the insects bring to the tree. The survival of the tree is not dependent on the life and behaviour of the insects.

So, being individuals with a certain development and knowledge about the true nature of life, they could slowly slip into each other’s world, getting deeper and deeper, and allow the changes to take place. Observe the space between them. If it is quiet all the time, if there are no ripples amongst them, if they never have a fight, never fall out with each other and no one has to run and hide, they have made a successful integration.

Now they are in a position to continue to grow together. Allowing each other to feed of the other without reaching for and sucking dry the essentials of each other’s lives, they can look after themselves and feed the other. They need to learn to move together, to grow together, in order to ensure that their movements do not disturb the flat surface of the lake. There must not be any ripples between them, at any time. If they ever occur, it is essential that both concentrate only on the ripples, and their personal part in it, until the ripples have completely vanished. It is little waves upon little waves that eventually will resonate into a wild sea and result in the breaking up of whatever was connected in it.

The space between them remains under all circumstances undisturbed. It is a sea of peace and tranquility.

This is how one creates the Oasis of Peace.

September 2008