The True Purpose of Relationships
Your relationship is not there to make you happy. It is not there to
satisfy your needs. It is not there to help you escape your loneliness.
Its purpose is not for you to procreate, although you might.
It is not there to provide you with a tax break, although you should take that.
It is certainly not there for you to exploit, by exerting power and
control over the other. It is not there to hold together the so-called
moral fiber of society. It is not there because God mandates it.
It is not there for divine male and divine female to merge through you and your partner.
It is there as the mirror in which to see yourself clearly.
That’s it.
Story: The Princess Gets Whacked
Let me tell you a story. In a land far away a beautiful princess was
about to get married to her dream man. She had been told he was the perfect man.
Full of love, compassion, strength and intelligence — and of course handsome as hell.
She was so happy. The wedding day came and went, the whole kingdom celebrated and all was well.
The morning after an equally wonderful wedding night, the princess brought her new husband tea and biscuits in bed.
He smiled, ate, drank, told her how deeply he loved her and then slapped her flush across the cheek.
He was strong and the princess was knocked to the floor by the force of the blow.
She was dazed, in pain but mostly just in shock. What was more surprising was the shock on the husband’s face.
He was even more bewildered.
The husband convinced the princess that he was just as taken aback by what happened
and was genuinely sorry. His kind eyes and sincere tone clearly indicated to her that he was telling the truth
so she forgave him and they moved on. Some years passed and soon both forgot the ugly event,
until one day just as suddenly it happened again.... Whack! Then, soon after it reared its ugly head again....
Whack! Now it was too much for both to take and so they decided to seek counsel.
Being royalty, all the best medics were summoned and consulted.
Various theories were postulated and several cures were tried.
Calming oils, exotic herbs, exorcisms, but every so often...
Whack! It would happen again.
Desperate, they finally went to see a mysterious sage who lived high up in the mountains
and was reputed as the wisest medic in the land,but one who
would rarely accept an audience.
After a long, hard journey they finally arrived at the sage’s cave.
He was sitting on a rock outside in deep meditation so they waited patiently.
Several hours later the sage opened his eyes and noticed the couple
and much to their relief
agreed to speak to them. He led them inside and then heard about the problem.
At the end of the narration he asked to see the husband’s hands
and closely inspected his palms.
Once done with the husband he surprisingly asked to see the princess’s hand
and carefully began
to check her pulse. Finally he looked up smiling and said,
“I will tell you what is happening here, but in exchange you must
not refuse me what I ask.”
Anxious to have this mystery finally solved they both agreed.
“Well, my dearness”, the sage still smiling and looking at the husband said,
“You sir are a great, healer. Your hands contain great power
and you my dear princess have a terrible disease that keeps re-occurring
every so often.
By slapping you he has been curing you of this
affliction time and again. If it had not been for those slaps, you would have
long perished by now.”
What relief they both felt. Overwhelmed
by what they heard they fell to the feet of the sage and tearfully thanked him.
As for the payment, well the husband wound up and laid one directly on the sage....
Whack!
What is the point of this story? Relationship produces pain for you so that
you may awaken
to what needs to be worked on within yourself.
In the case of the princess she was lucky as the pain was benefiting her
without her knowledge,
but in most of our cases we need to
utilize the suffering caused by the relationship to inspect closely
the disease of our attachments.
The pain, upset, discomfort caused in the relationship helps to reveal the attachments
we have and the inner working of our minds.
It could be as simple as feeling bad
for not being complimented on a new dress or as complex as
getting upset with your partner
for giving away too much to charity.
All the upsets, big and small, simple and complex have
their roots in our attachments.
The attachments could be to security, money, power,
prestige, name, fame, religion,
children, family, country, comfort, food, etc. It does not matter,
our relationships, specially the
intimate ones, will poignantly reveal them to us.
As long as we have these attachments, and they are strong within us,
we live in fear and misery.
Afraid of not getting that which we want,
afraid of loosing it if we have it and fearful of those on whom we
depend on for their fulfillment.
Any relationship upon which you depend
for your personal gratification and security will eventually lead you to the
mess of anger, control, possessiveness, jealousy, fear and
hatred. This is relatively easy to see if we watch relationships in action.
So measuring the strength of one’s relationship by the level of
attachment is quite silly. In fact, life will not allow such relationships
to endure and by producing
a few storms she will eventually tear it
down and force a new one to be built.
On the other hand, when two self- sufficient people meet,
adore each other and enjoy each other’s
company we have the makings of something special.
Seeing the trouble that attachment brings and realizing
that love and fear cannot coexist,
what can be done? Change your attitude towards
relationship pain. See it for what it really is, an opportunity for insight.
Insight into the working of pleasure and its child - desire, or pain and its child - fear.
The way of insight is through delicate observation.
When any upset occurs watch closely how you react to it.
Watch closely how the storm of thoughts starts to take control.
“I can’t believe he did this again, he does it every time,
I have told him so many times before,
he knows how important this is for me,
he is so selfish and inconsiderate, I bet he would not treat his mother like this,
why doesn’t he change, I am never going to speak to him
again, ... I am so right!” On and on thought takes over and
one is caught in the chaos.
This is childish and won’t help at all, and the worst
part is that a golden opportunity is being wasted.
An opportunity to observe the self in action and perceive
the root cause of the attachment.
Have you ever tried to observe the actual feeling,
the physical reality of what is taking place without interfering and
without getting carried away
into all the mental threads? By doing so, you
will allow the fact of what is happening, anger, jealousy, fear, etc.
to reveal itself to you in
its complete detail. This is to understand by direct
perception and allow insight to blossom.
This is the only approach that will root out and weaken attachment.
Any other reaction on your part
to suppress the feeling, or run away from it, or replace it with good feelings,
or psychoanalyze it, etc, will simply leave the underlying
causes intact only to have the outburst happen again when the time is ripe.
The princess had cancer, which was cured by life through her husband;
life tries in the same way to cure the disease of attachment that we
are afflicted with using our relationships.
Observing carefully our internal reality,
which is reflected in our relationships, is the beginning of
meditation. And meditation alone brings freedom and self sufficiency.
Relationship provides the most useful opportunities for applying
ourselves in this way,
so be ready, prepared and poised the next time you get Whacked!
CAclubindia
