The Triangle of Relationships

Ram Dass shares his classic image of the triangle of relationships, and how the two dances as one.

The image I always had when performing a wedding was the image of a triangle.

One in which there are the two partners, and a third force. This third force is that which emerges out of the interaction of these two partners. It is the shared awareness that lies behind the two of them. They are in this yoga of a relationship and have come together as one, in order to find the shared awareness that exists behind them, allowing them to then dance as two so that the twoness brings them into one and the oneness dances as two. That is the kind of vibrating relationship between the one and the two, so that people are both separate and yet they are not separate.

Listen to Ram Dass explore more about the triangle of relationships on Here and Now Ep. 17

But often, we come into a relationship very much identified with our needs at some level or other. “I need security, I need refuge, I need friendship.” We come together because we fulfill each other’s needs at some level and the problem is that when you identify with that, those needs, you always stay at the level where the other person is “her” or “him” that is satisfying that need…

… and it really only gets extraordinarily beautiful when it becomes “us” and then goes behind the “us” and becomes “one.”

I think in relationships, you create an environment with your own work on yourself, which you offer to another human being to use to grow in the way they need to grow. Parents are environments for their children, lovers are an environment for their partners.

You keep working – you become the soil – moist and soft and receptive so the person can grow the way they need to grow, because how do you know how they should grow?

– Ram Dass