In simple terms, it can be said that there are two kinds of relationships: those that are ego-oriented and those that are unconditional and love-oriented. The first is usually referred to as romantic love or an intimate relationship and may seem perfect as long as people feel in "love". But this "love" or the positive, ego-generated emotions, can change rapidly into its opposite; love turns into hate and vice versa. What ego perceives as love is a possessiveness and addiction that may easily turn to hate when the other partner does not fulfill the ego's expectations. This kind of relationship oscillates between the polarities of love and hate by providing both pleasure and pain. It also gives rise to many conflicts, including dissatisfaction, and emotional or even physical abuse. These love/hate relationships, however, have a divine purpose; they are the path to unconditional, love-oriented relationship. How is it that they lead to unconditional love?
What is referred to as ego is the outermost layer of mind or mental conditioning which is rooted in and fed by the unconscious. A person may need to experience one or several love/hate relationships, depending on his or her ego strength or the strength of his or her unconscious patterns of emotional blockages.
There are two popular adages: "Like attracts like" and "Opposites attract". The first is valid when people lack strong undisclosed weaknesses or unconscious emotional blockages; the second is true when people have undisclosed unconscious patterns. People create their reality, both consciously and unconsciously. They resonate psycho-kinetically, both consciously and unconsciously, with others. The difference between the two is that people are conscious of their own positive attributes, but unconscious of those traits they deny possessing themselves.
This is because people's inherent, negative personality traits are suppressed and transferred to the unconscious. In other words, we become all the things that we don't like in others, but we also are what we like in others. Therefore, people unconsciously attract others who show those negative traits. People are taught from childhood that having those "bad" traits results in rejection and withdrawal of the love of parents and others. Whatever people do or try to do is the result of cravings for love and attempts to be loved. By suppressing the traits that society judges to be "bad", people feel loved. These attempts can be both conscious and unconscious. The irony is that many people end up suffering because they unconsciously attempt to achieve love through pain. Moreover, judging others or the partner reflects an unconscious fear of rejection or not being loved. People judge or dislike in others or in a partner their own unconscious, negative traits. In fact, however, partners are simply mirrors for each other. The mirror reflects the "good" and the "bad" personality traits people project onto their partners. So, pointing out somebody else's mistakes, faults and failures may give people the opportunity to detect within themselves those weaknesses or unconscious blockages. On the other hand, people who are judged or criticized feel sorry for themselves and become very angry because they are resisting becoming conscious. The ego, being fed in the unconscious, never accepts mistakes, failures, faults, responsibilities; it always projects those to others. Nothing anyone says could trigger negative emotions or abusiveness in people who did not store such weaknesses in their unconscious.
Why does God permit people to encounter in life others they do not like? There is a divine purpose in such a scheme. People's friends and enemies play important roles in clearing emotional blockages or weaknesses. People resonate with opposites because they have repressed their own similar traits. They must understand that inside they are just like the opposites they attract. They crave only one pole of a universal duality. In fact, they possess both poles of this duality themselves, but they resist one of them. The irony is that what people resist persists and becomes their reality. Partners or others offer the opposite side of that duality. That is how love/hate relationships function. They swing from one extreme to the other, from love to hate, without being able to maintain the balance necessary to a durable relationship. The duality is ego's fiction; we believe that some things are "good" and some things are "bad" and, therefore, to be loved, people must embody only the "good" things. But this is quite literally ego fiction, which is separateness-oriented, and unable to see the wholeness of things. Partners must accept both their own "good" and "bad" traits and those of others. A relationship is a two-way exchange from which both partners can benefit from the "good" and "bad" traits of each other.
Another scenario is that in which people encounter others who possess all those qualities they would like to have or, more realistically, simply have not yet found in themselves. They desire to take from others or the partner whatever they are lacking. Many romantic relationships begin in this way. Ego always feels unfulfilled and unconsciously tries to find the absent qualities in others or the partner. As soon as people, and their egos, find those qualities inside and the partner stops being the mirror that reflects his or her expectations, the "love" turns into hate and the relationship begins to disintegrate. Unless the relationship transmutes into an unconditional, love-oriented one, it will inevitably fail.
As mentioned earlier, what people call bad relationships have a divine purpose. They are only the path toward true or unconditional love, because conditional "love" arises from fear, not love. Bad relationships help people bring their unconscious emotional patterns and weaknesses into the light of consciousness; they also help people shift from the extremes of duality, where they are trapped, to the center, where people are the watchers and creators of their own realities. In the center, people can see every element of the world as one part of a whole.
Liberation and finding true love may require one, two or more relationships. The number of relationships depends on what is inherent to each person. What must be understood is that there is no punishment, but only learning; all life is a learning process. The laws of the universe are working for all of us. Spiritual truth requires people to let their lives flow, to accept more and resist less of what the universe offers to them, whether it is a good relationship or a bad one. Relationships have a divine purpose, to lead people along the path toward evolution, enlightenment and true love.
True love means to love people without any expectations or attachments, simply for what they are, not for what they should be.
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