Before Choosing a Partner, Understand This One Truth
Questioner: Namaskar, Acharya Ji. So, my question is regarding what you talked about love.
I am currently in transition, as I transition from viewing others as tools for utility to seeing them as distinct other people who are fellow travelers. So, as I make this transition, my question is: what specific parameters should I now look out for in a potential life partner, since the goal is no longer to fill my hollowness?
Acharya Prashant: Don’t look out for, look in. The thing is, if you don’t look in, you will always look out for. And there’s a great difference between looking and looking out for. Looking out for implies unexamined desire.
Why do you need a partner?
Yes, you may have a partner, but to have a partner is one thing, and to need it existentially is a totally different thing. Please get the difference.
There is no problem with being with someone. It’s all right. We are anyway always with people, right? There is no issue at all in being with one person or even five persons. That’s fine. The problem is the desperate center the need arises from. And when that center, that desperate, that unexamined center, is at the root of the relationship, the relationship will never be auspicious. Never.
Let your relationships come in a natural way. You are all right with yourself. It just so happens you come across somebody worth being with, and then there is a natural companionship, without conditions, without desperation, without bondages, without fences, without an agreement, without a contract.
Why? Because you are not scared that the other would run away, and you’re not desirous of what the other can give you. It is a kind of coincidental company in completion. I am all right, and you are all right, and we are together in our all-rightness. We are not together to barter, to exchange stuff, to scratch each other’s back. Right?
Nothing brings me towards you. Nothing brings you towards me. We both are moving towards a destination that is common for the entire mankind. But I like the way you move. I like your steadfastness. I like your honesty. I like the way you stay put on your roots. So it is nice to have your company, and I suppose I’m no less. That’s why you choose to be with me. But you are not my obsession, nor do I allow myself to be one for you. Now that’s the right kind of company.
Instead, what we see among youngsters is a terrible kind of desperation, obsession, the day they turn 15 or 25. Something very important is missing from life. How do you even know that? That has been fed into the algorithm, right?
First of all, the algorithm is imported, and then the inputs to the algorithm are also coming from external agencies. That has been fed into the algorithm that the day you cross puberty and turn hormonal, you should have somebody of the other gender or the same gender by your side, that’s a sine qua non for respectability or social acceptance or even existence. Right? No. That is stupid.
Yes, two people will get together, and especially two persons of opposite genders will come together. And there would be interactions at the emotional level, even at the physical level, which is all very fine. But how can that become the center of life? How can you say that my primary concern these days is how soon I will get a man or a woman?
But that’s the way things are with most youngsters, and that’s terrible. Why? Because this is your prime. This is when your energy peaks. This is when your intellect also actually peaks. Even the IQ starts dipping after a certain age. Right now, you are at the peak of everything. And what is this peak energy dissipating towards? Where is my fairy-tale partner? Where is that knight with that shining armor on the white horse? And where is that fairy in crimson colors?
Who told you all that? And it’s a question, not an allegation. Who told you all that? That’s a question you must ask. Who told you all that?
I’m not talking of Sanyas or Brahmacharya. No, no, no. I’m talking of taking a person just as a person, just another thing in this wide-open possibility called life. How can life be restricted to your hunt, which hunt, for that someone special?
But instead of exploring the various things in life, I’ll ask you: do you hold a racket of any kind? Tennis, squash, TT, badminton? No. Do you read any genre? No. Do you travel? No. Do you explore in any other ways? Are you into any art form? No.
What do you do all day? Please tell me, what do you do all day?
“I think of someone special, or I make very desperate attempts to reach there, or I just keep envying those who have that so-called partner in life.”
I’m asking, isn’t that a misutilization, a terrible wastage of your peak youth? Please tell me, what’s life for? And this someone special, won’t he be just like you? How long does it take for dreams to be shattered? You bring somebody into life; don’t you soon discover the fellow is very ordinary? Please tell me. Don’t you soon discover that?
And don’t you see what kind of feeble ROI you have earned? So much energy you put in thought and time and even money. People spend so much money just trying to look good or trying to attract somebody. What do you get out of that? What was the return on all that investment? Please tell me.
There is much more to life than hooking up with someone. Don’t limit your possibilities. Don’t give it such a narrow definition. Don’t say that to be young is to be mated. That is not the central question of life.
If there were somebody called the judge of life, this is not the question he would ask: Did you get a boyfriend in time? No, that’s not the question you would ever be asked. Were you able to have a successful relationship? No, that’s not a question you would be asked.
The question would be: Did you actually live deeply and widely?
What does depth mean? Were you insightful and wise enough? What does width mean? Did you explore many areas of living, many ways, many personalities, many actions, many places? Did you do all that?
“No, I didn’t do anything. I just stayed put in Pune and kept thinking of when I am going to get married.”
And that’s 80% of the stuff Gen Z asks these astro gurus.
