What is the meaning of a relationship? We have a wide variety of relationships around us. Parents, siblings, friends, cousins, colleagues, subordinates, bosses, neighbours, grandparents, and so on. We enjoy some of these relationships, while not the rest. Why? What fills a relationship with joy? The purpose of relationships is very intrinsically linked to the purpose of life. Why have we come to this world? To take birth, have fear of death, failure, and loss, make efforts to gather money and powers to allay our fears, and die? That looks so stupid. That can't be the purpose of life. Even a person with very average intelligence would say that it can't be the purpose of life. However, most of us continue to do the same thing. In silent moments, when we are not in a hurry to get ready for the office or meet deadlines, when the mind is not full of thoughts and worries, we sometimes have a strange realisation that something is wrong with the way we are living. Something deeper and more subtle attracts our attention. However, soon, some other thought takes over, and we get busy with the routine again.
If somebody dares to be with that silence, at least for some time, he is bound to discover that routine is just a trap. That is not the purpose of life. We overglorify our responsibilities due to our childhood insecurities, fears and a deep sense of being a "doer". We develop greed and ambitions in this material world because we have never experienced the divine. Just one ray of light can make us aware of the darkness inside a closed room. One glimpse of life can make us aware of the trap of routine, greed, ambitions, and fears we are caught in. Once we get a glimpse of life, we try to know the same. The same old brain tries to understand the divine intellectually. It tries to read books, attend satsanga, have discussions, and try to understand the meaning of the divine. As if the arrogant mind has found a task to achieve. Another outcome. Another goal post. Many of us get caught in that trap and try to gather more and more information by reading books written by different authors so that they may claim to be "knowledgeable" in intellectual debates and discussions.
However, the real journey begins when we make the first step to see the reality as it is. We open up to possibilities. Open our windows and doors to let light in. It's a very uncomfortable time. When that light enters our home, the dirt and the chaos inside our home become very clearly visible to us. The same ego that was a prized possession to us looks like a great burden to get rid of. We become desperate to get rid of the dirt. However, the ego has many traps. It will create new curtains in the form of arrogance of certain experiences, being superior to others, being a doer to bring a difference in the lives of people around. Again, thick curtains bring darkness to the home. Ego, under the influence of past habit patterns, will make all the efforts under the Sun not to let that light enter the home. It is because the light and ego can't co-exist. Yet, once a person has experienced that light, sooner or later, whenever there is a crisis, he will recall that experience and will reconnect to that light.
Once we open the windows and doors and take off the curtains, we are able to see clearly. We see clearly what life is. We understand that life is all about action. It is what we should do in this moment. Millions of bosons and fermions take birth and die in a second inside the atom. So many plants and trees keep making food and producing oxygen. So many vultures are cleaning the environment every moment. So many stars in this galaxy and many other galaxies are burning every moment and producing immense energy. So many planets are orbiting and revolving. So many stars are dying and taking birth. For what? They are just participating in that grand play of nature. We are also participating in that grand play. At the core, each one of these, as well as us, is the same consciousness. As if consciousness is using so many different masks to play so many different roles in a play.
Coming back to relationships, what is the centre of relationships? To pull down the curtains and make the partner's home full of darkness, or to help him connect to the light? How can the purpose of a relationship be in conflict with the purpose of life? For a person who has never experienced that ray of light and is sitting ignorantly in a fool's paradise inside his dark room, a relationship may mean enjoying together that dark paradise. However, if someone has experienced a ray of light in that dark room and has seen the dirt and dust inside, he would like to have relationships that help him clean that dust and dirt and also open his windows and take away curtains so that he may connect to that light. These relationships are not like you scratch my back and I scratch yours. Once that light enters the room, we will not have a selective vision. We can't restrict it to what we want to see. Similarly, true relationships do not offer what we want. Rather, they pave the path for our spiritual growth. A good friend will not tell what we want to listen rather he will speak what is needed for our growth. A true teacher will not make us comfortable. Rather, his words will shake us and make us uncomfortable so that we don't waste any further time with that darkness and realise the urgency.
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