Finding fullness in your relationships


Swami Sukhabodhananda  

What should one seek in a relationship?

A ‘wanting’ person continues to be wanting in and through a relationship. As long as the relationship is primarily based NOT on “giving” but “wanting”, one will find relationships to be incomplete.

A person’s wants appear to be never ending. One’s want, even though fulfilled, appears in another form. If you read history – the life of King Henry VIII of England – you will find he had so many relationships and his yearning for a son drove him to utter misery. After being married, he falls in deep love with Anne. Earlier, the king had a relationship with Anne’s sister, and now he wants to be in relationship with Anne. Anne wanted the king to marry her so that her child would be heir to the kingdom. The king did not agree, but she was firm. Anne was unwilling to give herself to the king. In the desperate attempt to win her over, the King had to push the powerful church aside and made her Queen of England.

Did the king’s happiness last? Anne gave birth to a girl. The king was again miserable. He went to the extent of fabricating a story that the queen had affairs with many people including her own brother, and ultimately succeeded in having her beheaded. All his love disappeared when she did not give birth to a son. Another illusion that the king had is that only a son will save England. History showed Anne’s daughter, Elizabeth, was one of the greatest rulers of England!

So study and observe the life of King Henry VIII to understand how the mind operates. Though the king was madly in love with Anne, he was upset with her because she did not allow him to marry another woman for the sake of having a son. Finally, the king beheaded her by trumping up false charges against her. Whatever happened to the love he felt for Anne?

What is the cause of all these ups and downs in the relationship?

We seek relationships for fulfillment and this fulfillment we seek through love. But such pursuits should be “out of love” and “for love”. We have to set love free from our misunderstandings of love. Is love the same as desire? Please think. Desire is nothing but “want” and how can want be love? Is love pleasure? Pleasure goes back to wanting mode again. Is love ambition? Is love power? When you see the foolishness – that love is not desire, ambition, power, pleasure – and when you negate all that, something different will open up in one’s being. This is what I am saying, “keep your love awake.” Be alert. Love is not all these. Love is pure sensitivity; Being sensitive with the magic of the whole.

One becomes sensitive when one is not caught in the pranks of the ego. When one is egoistic, one is caught in what one wants and is not sensitive to the other. Thus, you create conflict with the other. With conflict, there is no sense of belonging. Only when you are sensitive then alone you can connect with the other.

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Courtesy: Times of India: The Speaking Tree:  08 Aug 2018