Video Information: 25.07.21, Camp from Home, Greater Noida, Uttar Pradesh
Context:
~ How to maintain a good relationship?
~ What is the right time to be in a relationship?
~ What is a relationship?
~ How to make a relationship healthy?
~ When and how does a relationship turn into a toxic relationship?
~ How to choose a life partner?
~ What is real love?
~ Is live-in relationships a sign of degradation of our culture?
Music Credits: Milind Date
~~~~~
#acharyaprashant #toxicrelationships #culture
Context:
~ How to maintain a good relationship?
~ What is the right time to be in a relationship?
~ What is a relationship?
~ How to make a relationship healthy?
~ When and how does a relationship turn into a toxic relationship?
~ How to choose a life partner?
~ What is real love?
~ Is live-in relationships a sign of degradation of our culture?
Music Credits: Milind Date
~~~~~
#acharyaprashant #toxicrelationships #culture
Category
📚
LearningTranscript
00:00The question is from Sonali. I got married after 6 years of relationship and it's been
00:231.5 years of married life now. Due to contrasting personalities, my husband and I fight a lot.
00:41In April we had a really big conflict and police got involved and now we are living
00:50separately and both of us are traumatized. I do not know whether the situation will lead
01:06to divorce. I don't want to go to the court. I don't know what to do. I cry myself to
01:16sleep every night. He doesn't talk to me. I love him a lot. I want him back. How to
01:27deal with this situation? Sonali, you want an answer and you want an answer within the
01:43framework you have narrated to me. That framework involves attraction, conflict, repulsion,
02:01reconciliation, breaking up, patching up, patching up, breaking up and spending the
02:22life this way, having something amiss in the relationship at all points to keep you engaged.
02:39There was a time when your mind was full of romantic thoughts. Now your mind is full
02:55of anxious thoughts. In either case, the relationship is keeping your mind quite occupied and that
03:06to with the other person at the center of all thoughts, all preoccupation. That's the
03:16framework of the common life in relationships. That's the framework within which so-called
03:29lovers operate. That's the framework within which married couples operate. There is also
03:37the framework within which divorced individuals operate. That framework includes everything.
03:44Coming together, drifting apart, going to the court to solemnize your marriage, going to the
03:55court to dissolve your marriage, calling up the parents of the other one to beg for his or her
04:14hand, calling up the parents of the other one to threaten them with a clenched fist. What remains
04:33common is that you dial the same numbers albeit for contrasting purposes. Sometimes he is the
04:48prince charming on the white horse, the handsome knight in the shining armor and sometimes he is
05:08the monster personified who must be accused of misogyny and harassment of all kinds and must be
05:24dragged by the collar to the police station and then to the court. One thing does not change, what?
05:37Your mind is full of that one person. When he's at home, you want to fight with him. When he's
05:55not at home, you worry where he's gone. You also feel apprehensive he might be seeing someone else.
06:06Applies to both genders more or less. So that's the framework, pretty comfortable. All that we
06:18need to do is while away time. That's our biggest problem. Somehow this problem called life which is
06:29time has to be tackled and we do not know the right solution. So we go for these kinds of juvenile ways.
06:48If you don't have anything proper to do with life, then just smoke it away. In this, in that, some kind of
07:08addiction we need and there is hardly an addiction bigger than the body of an individual. I specifically
07:20said the body because there is actually not much more really to the relationship or is there.
07:32Alright, we love to wear all kinds of pretenses. But the woman goes after the man, the man goes
07:46after the woman. These days sometimes a woman goes after a woman, a man goes after a man. Whatever be
07:54the case it's a body chasing another body or it's a body missing another body. Getting it. It's a top
08:11class addiction, really fantastic. And you can remain caught in this or that, you can remain
08:22stuck in the usual cycle and the years will keep rolling past you. You will not realize when you
08:33move from 15 to 30, from 30 to 50 and from 50 to your deathbed. And what were you doing all this
08:43while? You are busy with that person of the opposite gender. Seriously, is he that worthy or is she that
08:55worthy? Is that person really so important? What merits do you see in that person? Seriously, I did
09:03not read out the whole description you sent me. But here you are saying he is an escapist. Your
09:09very words Sonali, he is an escapist and he shies away from difficult situations. This is the kind
09:16of person you are talking of. What great merit do you see in him then? And I'm pretty sure if he is
09:24asked to describe you, he won't be too kind either. If that's the assessment the two of you have of
09:35each other, shouldn't you firstly ask what's really the need to worry and wonder and think
09:44so much about the other? After all, such is your affection towards each other that you really had
09:55to bring the police in between. You don't call the police on God, do you? Well, we might as well,
10:07we never know but theoretically at least, you call the police on a robber, you call the police on a
10:16rapist. That's your assessment of the other person. The other person might certainly be better than
10:31your assessment of him. I don't deny. You will argue, well, the police was called in in a moment
10:38of heat and there was really no need and we were just carried away by our emotions and anger.
10:45So, we dialed 100 and the police came in and we didn't allow it to escalate and it was all
10:52cooled down. That's fine. But still, please tell me, is this the best you can do with your life?
11:03Is that person really worthy of being a center to your universe? But look at your description,
11:17you are saying, I cry myself to sleep every day. Obviously, all the time you are thinking of him.
11:22He too must be worried, might be. You say he is traumatized. Why do you need to remain
11:37caged in this framework? Why? The worst thing is you are asking for a solution within this
11:52framework. Won't help. All the solutions that you are potentially going to try are all within this
12:05framework. You say you are in Delhi, the fellow is in Mumbai, you will probably fly down to Mumbai
12:12and we know the rest of it. That oft-repeated, banal, filmy story. You go, you knock at his
12:30door and one of the 3-4 possible things happen and we already know in advance what those 3-4
12:39possibilities are. No fifth possibility ever exists. Had it existed, our movies would have
12:48already shown it. After all, the possibilities themselves are created by the movies. We are
12:56not internally allowed to go beyond the movies, are we? There are so many things that would just
13:09not cross our minds, that would just not even occur to us as thoughts, ideas. Had the movies
13:17not so strongly, so lucratively suggested them to us. Can we for a moment talk of something else,
13:38please? And how do you know the talking of something else is any less engaging than talking
13:50of your relationship? How do you know that you as a woman exist just for the sake of relationships,
13:58please? I do not feel very inclined towards answering your query your way, because your
14:11way is futile. If I accept your way, I am not helping you. Why are you thinking of this person
14:27the entire day? You were once a girl, you would have read mathematics, history, science, geography,
14:41languages. Didn't you find inspiring figures there? Didn't those books arouse fantastic ideas
14:57in you? What happened to all of that? How is it so that as an adult mature woman, all you do is
15:09think of a man, please? What happened? Today if I ask you who is Pythagoras or who is Pascal,
15:22your face would draw a blank. Today if I ask you, what are the most important issues before
15:40independent India, you would say, well I have never given it a thought. Why aren't you thinking
15:47about these things, please? Because the movies never taught you to think about these things and
15:53when I say movies, I mean popular culture.
16:23Do you understand why the ocean waves go into that? That's much more exciting and engaging than
16:40continuously thinking of an average Joe, a common mediocre man and when I say that I don't mean to
16:48insult the two of you or either of you. It's a fact of life. The majority of mankind is mediocre.
17:01I mean you take any distribution in nature, 80 to 90% of people lie on either side of the median.
17:13Who are they? They are the average folk. Most of us are average folk. Why do you want to keep
17:28thinking of a common average person? Nameless, faceless, one in the crowd, one with the crowd.
17:47I'm sure when you were younger, you thought of excellence, didn't you? No? You would have had
18:04dreams. In your dreams, all that you were thinking of was men and relationships and romantic adventures
18:22and male features. Is that so? I don't believe that, Sonali. I'm sure you are much better than that.
18:37You would have thought of penetrating the skies. You would have thought of roaming the world. You
18:49would have thought of knowing what mankind is, where we come from, what our future is. You would
18:58have been concerned with politics. You would have been concerned with international relations,
19:05with the great events that mankind has seen, with the challenges that we all face today. No?
19:19What happened to all of that? What happened to your love for your favorite author? One day you
19:34might have picked up a table tennis bat or a lawn tennis racket. Where is that racket? You used to
19:50love chess once upon a time. Where are all the pawns? Why have you just pawned away yourself
20:01to a relationship? Tell me, please. It beats me how one person can cling so desperately to another
20:28person and that to someone who's practically gone. I'm not being insensitive. I'm not being
20:40heartless. I understand what you mean by humanness. I understand human emotions. I know memories. I
20:51know the pain and the bite of the moments you have cherished. I also know that life is enormous
21:09and it doesn't wait for one person. It must not. That one must have a worthy goal in life,
21:21a beautiful project to be absorbed in. But I see where you're coming from. Most people have none
21:36of that. No goal, no project, nothing worth doing. Then what is it that they have? Relationships.
21:44Their internal bulletin board has news on just one topic. What's the topic? Relationships.
22:03And the more existentially jobless you are, the more you will be a sucker for relationships.
22:14He looked at me. I have to prepare breakfast for Chomu. He did not look at me. Where has he gone?
22:36What will happen to us? All you care for is your friends. But what about us, Sona? Have you never
22:52thought about our future? Please. I'm not mocking you. I'm trying to wake you up.
23:22You gave me three reasons why you didn't visit him in the other city. It's quite interesting
23:35that those reasons didn't include the Covid second wave. It does not exist for you. Nothing
23:47outside the limited domain of Babu and Sona exists for you. The world might be falling apart. It
24:00doesn't matter. All that matters to me is these days I'm not with my Babu. Where is Covid in all
24:11this? Where is climate change in all this? Tell me, please. And if you are geopolitically inclined,
24:26China is making fresh advances in the eastern sector as well as in Ladakh. Are you thinking
24:40about it? When you were a girl, with pride you used to sing Jana Gana Mana Dinai. Vande Mataram
24:52was a war cry for you. Was it not? Yes, Sonali. Where is all of that? Nothing. All gone. Doklam
25:07does not matter. Galwan does not matter. Only Babu and Sona matter. You probably don't
25:17even bother to read the newspapers. Do you? Because newspapers, they don't carry a picture
25:25of my sweetheart. Why do I look at them? Tell me who are the recent Nobel Prize winners?
25:35You won't know. Because you don't bother. Because all you bother about is the man-woman
25:42business. Is that all to life? Are you watching the Tokyo Games, Sonali? They are broadcasting
26:03the highlights every night. How is it that you have no time to watch the highlights of the
26:11biggest sporting extravaganza and instead you say you cry every night to sleep? Instead of crying,
26:18why don't you watch the medal winners? Australia thrashed India 7-1 today, you know, in hockey,
26:28men's hockey. Why? Because probably the players were missing their Sona a lot due to COVID
26:40restrictions. The players have not been allowed to carry a lot of people and entourage. I might
26:52be factually wrong. I just want to make a point, get the point. I am not mocking our national
27:00hockey team. I wish them good luck in their next match. I suppose they are playing Spain now.
27:16Did you bother to inquire what happened to Vikas Krishnan? He was so well prepared. Why did he
27:21lose in the first round? No, because it doesn't matter to you. What matters? I whatsapped my
27:34babu. When will the blue colour come? The tick. Why is it remaining so heartlessly grey?
27:44So US has pulled out of Afghanistan. What's your opinion on it, Sonali? Please tell me.
28:06What do you think are the ramifications for India? Please tell me, Sonali. Please.
28:10I don't think about these things, sir. No, I don't. Now, Uzbekistan, Pakistan,
28:27Afghanistan and US are forming a quad. You'd probably know only one quad. Japan,
28:37Australia, India, US. There is a second one in making and it's a pretty dangerous one.
28:41What do you think of it, Sonali? Please tell me. I don't think of it at all. As a woman,
28:52all I'm supposed to think of is, but what is our future, babu? Our future, I mean our,
29:04the two of us, please. The rest of the world can go to hell. All that matters is me and my babu.
29:18The pain will remain. We are born with this body and this body has an inherent tendency to stick.
29:45We do get attached. I'm not asking you to be inhuman or superhuman, Sonali. Please,
29:53I do sympathize with you and because I do, therefore, I'm taking the liberty of appearing
29:58a bit harsh. I know what you're going through. I've gone through it. But one has to still keep
30:08her mind firm. One has to know the relative priorities of various things. Yes, it will hurt.
30:20It will pinch very badly. I truly empathize with this. But fight it out and you must know what is
30:34important. Life is not a trivial matter. Life is not such a cheap thing that you can blow it away
30:44two pence. Value your life. Take care of yourself. Involve yourself in higher pursuits. This man,
31:03woman game, every living creature is playing in prakriti. Don't you know? The cow and the bull,
31:13a lot of bull. At the bodily level, every woman is a cow and every man is a
31:33bull. Is this what you are born for? Just to keep playing this game endlessly? Go beyond this game.
31:50Go beyond your imagined and restrictive inner framework. Relationships are great when they
32:05help elevate your consciousness and that's the only purpose of relationships in life. If
32:14relationships are not fulfilling that purpose, then relationships are just a big waste, a great
32:22drag. And I repeat, there is no better way, more effective way to waste life than to make a
32:44relationship the center of your existence. Since eternity, it is a way tried, tested, proven,
32:59supremely successful. Want to waste your life? You don't have to do anything spectacular. Just
33:16pick up some random person and make him or her the center of your life. And now, for sure, at
33:30least this birth is wasted. I'm not anti-relationship or something. I'm an advocate of great and right
33:45relationships. And this is not a right relationship you are describing here. These are not the
33:54symptoms. How does one get into a right relationship? Not by searching for the right
34:05person. Please, right relationships would be definitely accidental. Involve yourself in a
34:21worthy project and then the one who helps you accomplish that project is worthy of being
34:37related to. Move with all your might towards a great destination and then if you come across a
34:53sincere co-traveler, then that person is worthy of being related to. Remember, you walk towards a
35:11great destination. You are not wandering around in search of a person. You're getting it? You're not
35:23saying, oh, I have a vacancy in my heart and I'm looking for a sweetheart to fill it up. You're not
35:35looking for a person. You're sold out to a purpose and in pursuit of that purpose, accidentally, you
35:52meet, you come across the right person and that's how beautiful relationships are born. What purpose
36:01do you have in life, Sonali? And if you raise the relationship sans a purpose, you should have
36:12already known the relationship is not going to give you any joy. I'm sorry if I hurt you in
36:29some way. You will most probably say I did, but try to get the core, the gist of what I want to
36:42communicate. Keep the hurt aside for a while. Yes, questions? I would be mighty surprised if
37:05some faces here have no questions on this topic. I was not talking to Sonali the person, I was
37:13talking to Sonali the concept and it's a very shared and a very common concept. Several of
37:26us are sold out to that concept. So please speak up. Doesn't matter what your color is,
37:35maroon or green or whatever. All of you are Sonalis in whichever gender. So speak up.
37:45Acharyaji, this problem of being attached in relationships, people have tried, attached,
37:59this problem of attachment in relationships. So there are various ways in which, this is
38:06something which people recognize and then they try to remedy it in various ways. Some things
38:14that are there, especially in the West, people have concepts of like open relationships,
38:20where they say that we will be, stay together at a bodily level, but we will not be attached.
38:26At a certain level, it seems to work in some sense, that we have a relationship at a very
38:40bodily level, but we will not be attached at an emotional level and then they try to
38:45remedy it in that way. You cannot have template based relationships. Relationships are not
38:53commercial agreements, where you define the boundaries very clearly and also the timelines
39:02and such things. Relationship has to be an exercise in greatness. As a great individual,
39:24you want to relate in a great way to another great individual. Now why do you then want to
39:39oblige or constrain the other? Are you insecure? Are you afraid? Do you want to exploit the other?
39:51Why do you want to give the relationship a form, a name, a legal or religious structure?
40:04Why do you want to be certain in advance that the relationship will include bodily
40:18pleasure or that it will not include bodily attachment? If you are coming from a point
40:28of greatness, then let the relationship take its due course. If there has to be physical
40:38intimacy, it will come, but let it come without you making any compromise on your greatness.
40:50Wonderful. You can have kids. You can even raise an entire family. What's the condition?
41:08Don't deviate from your greatness. That should be your first priority. Adhering to that priority,
41:25remaining steadfastly committed to that priority, governed by that priority.
41:37If you can have physical intimacy, wonderful. Greatness does not preclude anything in particular.
41:55All that greatness precludes is smallness, not sex. What is it that greatness is allergic to?
42:11Smallness, not sex. In general, in spirituality, sex has been looked down upon because most people
42:31make sexual intimacy an exercise in smallness. Therefore, the sages and the scriptures have
42:46been so eloquent against sex. Actually, it is not sex they are so much against. It is the smallness
42:56that accompanies sex, which is the culprit. And 99.9% of the times, when we touch the other,
43:13it's an animal touch. It is a touch coming from a small place within us and it is a touch that
43:25seeks to reduce the touched one to a small entity. Therefore, sex is detested and decried.
43:42Be great and have a great relationship and then come what may. What of abstinence and
44:02what of intimacy? We don't bother. Nothing is compulsory and nothing is prohibited.