More on victim and perpetrator

I happened to be listening to Eckhart Tolle's "practicing the power of now", book on tape. He talks about the victim/perpetrator relationship. Both the victim and perpetrator are addicted to pain. Which means they want pain and feed on pain. Unconsciously of course. As Eckhart says, "To consciously want pain is insanity. So this addiction is unconscious." Those afflicted by the addiction to pain don't know it, because they are ruled by the pain body. The pain body feeds on more pain and wants to be right. An active pain body brings the victim closer to the perpetrator.

How to break free of this cycle?

If answers to most complex questions are deceptively simple, this is no exception. To stay present. To stay with this moment, enjoy it and realize deeply that the past and future are mere mind-projections. Pain body finds the light of consciousness quite indigestible, according to Eckhart. It cannot survive where there is clarity and strong presence. So it has to dissolve.

Realizing that there is no need to carry around the extra baggage of pain body in the form of a past history of everything that went wrong, or of a future where things could fail, is deeply liberating. It feels like I became 15 pounds lighter just making the mental shift.

So this brings forth a whole new focus on the victim-perpetrator model. I remember wondering a few posts before if being a victim is an option. Eckhart's teachings seem to suggest it is definitely an option, but there is a better and a pain-free (and pill-free) option available.