कबीर ऐसा यहु संसार है, जैसा सैंबल फूल

It appears to me that the root cause of inauthenticity is the caging of truth. Trust is like light. It can not be confined to a cage. That's why whenever there is an effort to cage the truth, we end up living with inauthenticities. We define certain behaviour as unacceptable in society, and there is a lot of taboo around it; therefore, people hide it. We set similar boundaries in relationships, especially in marriage, and therefore people often surreptitiously cross these boundaries. We set boundaries around our children: they will not use mobile phones or laptops, and will not have girlfriends or boyfriends. Then they do it without telling us, and we feel there is a lack of integrity.

If society makes admitting the truth so difficult, people will definitely try to find workable solutions. People will be inauthentic. They will say something they actually don't do or don't believe. That is the reason why we have crises in parenting and relationships all around us. People will openly take dowry and try to cover it up in the guise of an "agreed settlement". People will be engaged in personal ambitions and try to hide them behind the facade of organisational welfare. People will try to be powerful and hide it under the guise of public welfare. People will try to use their partners in relationships and call it a perfect relationship. 

I feel that's why the best relationships are always friendships. Because there is no fixed boundary of a relationship. We may see the relationship between Ram and Hanuman, Ram and Sugriva, Krishna and Arjuna, Krishna and Draupadi, Sri Aurobindo and the Mother, and so on. The relationships that have the highest degree of integrity are founded on friendship. The moment we artificially define the boundary of a relationship, as generally happens in the case of marriage, it becomes devoid of integrity. Maintaining that boundary becomes the primary objective, and the truth takes a back seat. That's why all these relationships are just around workability. Somehow, the family should stay together, whatever the case may be. 

When truth is the guiding force, not workability, we will understand where a particular behaviour comes from. We will be open in a relationship. If a child does not want to follow the career path suggested by their parents, it may be for three reasons. First, that child is being driven by instincts. He is becoming lazy or restless in his pursuit of quick results. Second, he has been fed incorrect information and, due to a lack of exposure, has formed a false belief. Third, he actually loves something and wants to pursue that. If we have not caged the truth and have not defined strict boundaries of the parent-child relationship, and the child is not always required to obey the parents' directions, we will just listen to the child and examine their thought process. We will immediately know whether it is the first, second, or third case, or if there is some other matter. That will help the child also be authentic. I don't think that any child would like to be authentic. He is just afraid of the parents' reactions, and if the parents allow the comfort of being non-judgmental, why would the poor child carry the whole burden on his shoulders?

There are very few relationships other than friendship that provide this comfort. Mostly because the rest of the relationships are either too shallow to provide the comfort to the other person to open up. Or they are founded on fear. Two fearful people come together to provide each other with a sense of safety. If any of them tries to cross the boundary, the other feels vulnerable. Parents feel vulnerable when their children stop obeying them. Spouses feel vulnerable when their partners prioritise something other than family. The truth is caged. The workability of family and relationships is more important than the truth. That's why society is full of lack of integrity and there are pretensions all around us.