I Hold Her, I Own Her, Yet I Feel Insecure
Questioner: Namaste Acharya Ji, I have a question related to relationships. So I've kind of always struggled with relationships also, and I'm sure this question is in the mind of a lot of people. So in modern relationships, we have seen we are constantly in touch with our partner, whether it's through texting messages or calls as well. Plus, we also get constant reassurance all the time. The problem is even after we are constantly in touch, we always feel insecure or we feel abandoned. So why does this dependency increase so much even when we are constantly in touch?
Acharya Prashant: Because man needs God. Because the ego can never be all right with itself. Because the ego, the sense of self, is not meant to be what it is. It is meant to be something higher, something better, bigger, and something more complete. That's what we are always searching for, completion, right?
If body and culture and conditioning tell you that the biggest thing, that ultimate thing, is to be found in the shape of a person, why will you not worship that person? Why? And when it comes to persons, this is where all the institutions unite. They unite to prove to the individual that the other can potentially be your God, that the other can potentially fulfill you. Look at the markets, how they want you to hitch up. The markets don't like you alone. No, you walk into a restaurant all by yourself, you might struggle to find a table. The waiter will say, "No, no, this one has six chairs. This is for the family." Even the four, "No, no, no, this is for couples." You can maybe sit on the ceiling fan. So the markets are constantly impressing on you that you need to be at least double.
In religion, right? This is one thing that you necessarily need to do if you are virtuous, especially if you're a woman. And it does not stop at getting double. If you don't beget a son, your soul, your jivātma, will keep rendering desperately till infinity. The judiciary, you go to them, "We want to get separated." "No, no, you take six months, you come back." "We want to get married." "Okay, come." And if you get separated, there is a price to pay, not just in the form of social opprobrium but also in the form of alimony and many other things. And you won't be called as actually married if the marriage is sexless. The marriage is supposed to be legally consummated only after you have had sex. A sexless marriage is not even considered a marriage legally.
Religion, society, the auntie next door, the movies, 90% of them are nothing but man chases woman, and then the two have sex after marriage. All these are institutions, right? Folklore. Let's say the story starts with, "Once upon a time, there was a great king." Come on, guess the next sentence. Come on. Come on.
Listener: Queen.
Acharya Prashant: "He had the most beautiful queen."
It's not that you are crazy after the boy or the man. All these institutions have surrounded you, the songs. What are all these songs about? Please tell me. Every single song is about "I got her," "I got him," or "he left me." That's what makes you feel all rainbowish. That's all.
In fact, one's own hormones probably play only a minor part in this process. It's not that you come to a certain age and it's because of your physical secretions that you get attracted to the other gender or somebody. No. All these institutions besiege you without your knowledge, without your permission. Are you getting it? And then you say, "I'm having relationship trouble."
For somebody to have some trouble, somebody must exist. We don't even exist. We are a mass of conditioning, like a lump of clay being shaped by unknown forces. What trouble can we have? What trouble is possible? Delhi NCR, it has become very difficult for single women to get places on rent, so they are cooking up partners. No, that's a violent use of the phrase these days, with what we are seeing happening in the country. That's not how we must use this, right? So, what does the landlord want? He wants you to be in a relationship, and that's why you enter the relationship. Sounds simplistic, but that's what is actually happening, right? And you can think of many more such institutions. Then you'll realize where it is coming from.
No species on the planet is continuously, forever horny as we are. No species on this planet is constantly thinking of relationships, only this one does. Why? Because other species don't have?
Questioner: Understanding.
Acharya Prashant: Institutions to constantly impress on them that they need to get married or pregnant. So they are better off. Saint Kabir, he put it very in his own way. He says, look at the dog, it runs after the female only in the season, only in the heat. Otherwise, the dog has nothing to do with the bitch. “Kami kutta teen roz antar rahe udaas,” udaas means indifferent. For three days it experiences the sexual urge, otherwise nothing. But man, ”Kami nar kutta sada chah rihtu barah maas.” Twelve months of the year, this species of ours is holding hands: “Please come, please come, please do this, please do that.” And then we invent stories, folklore, idioms, “God sent us down in pairs.” So we keep holding hands all the time.
It is very, very unnatural the way we behave. But this unnatural behavior has been institutionalized. You're seeing it all around yourself, so you think it is normal. It is not. It might be normal, but it is not natural. Two people constantly sleeping on the same bed, in the same room, what is going on? And if you are strictly middle class, then sharing the same commode, what's going on? Why? But you see this happening, and therefore when you don't find it in your life, you feel something is missing. That's all.
Otherwise, as a young person, there are a thousand better things to do than run after a man or a woman. What are all those great books for? What are the great movies for? And by great movies, I do not mean running-around-the-tree types. What are all these great places on the planet for? What are all the great causes on the planet for? For the purpose of human birth to devote seventy percent of your energy to one special someone? “My God, this fellow is my god, or my goddess, whatever.” Can that possibly be the purpose of this body, this human birth? Please tell me. Does it sound sensible?
What can possibly be so special about one ordinary individual that you are constantly carrying that one individual in your mind and on your lap? Please tell me, please. Your special someone, is he or she really special? And if not, then what are you doing? Where is some breathing space? But even traveling alone is taken as infidelity. “What, you're going to Thailand all by yourself?” Yes, all by myself, and to Thailand.
Happily, you would be walking down the street, contemplating something important, something deep, something significant, even something profound. And then, that grocery shop, the fellow would be playing the latest romantic hit, and you are finished. Gone, *“Sanyara tu to badla nahin hai, mausam zara sa…” finished. Tolstoy, Dostoevsky, gone. You are with “The idiot;” you are with “Crime and Punishment.” You are thinking of the meaning of life, and the institution interrupted. That radio set, that FM station, is an institution, and it's conceived to enslave you, and you won't even realize you have been colonized in a split second. Anna Karenina, gone; some worthless nepo kid has suddenly, without permission, entered your brain. Do you see how it happens?
And then you think, yes, your own feeling. No, that's not your own feeling. You are being made to feel that way, and the institutions purposefully put up a huge show of it. Look at the huge pandals. Look at the pre-wedding photo shoots, all happening in the open, and all the single ones looking wistfully and drooling. That too is an institution, specifically manufactured, tailor-made to dominate you. And all of this totally excludes love.
There can be no love in something institutionalized. There can be no love in something forbidden. There can be no love in something that's become the practice, and therefore our lives, our relationships, are so loveless.
Next time you look at your Mr. Special, ask: what's special about this specimen, for that matter? What's special about this one?
I'm not asking you to be contemptuous of the other. I'm asking you to spare the other. When you take someone as your god, that's violence. Nobody can fulfill your desires, not even God. How can that mere mortal play God for you? And that's why there is so much stress in relationships, always, because you are made to pay a price without getting fulfillment of desire in exchange. The price would certainly be paid, but the returns would not be had. Therefore, there is frustration, and a lot of bickering and complaints, and we turn them into jokes, right? Husband-wife jokes. Ever thought why? Why is there so much push and pull? That's because the very foundation is loveless. It's an institutionalized foundation.
But we see this one clear example of institutionalization, metros: girls and boys in class 5, 6, 7, they are complaining of depression because they don't have a soulmate. “My buddy has been going around with his girl and, you know, I have just nobody. I'm depressed, mama, take me to the psychiatrist.” Class 5. Now, that was not happening even till three decades back. Has biology changed? Not really. The institution has changed. What was mandated to happen in class 10 is now mandated to happen in class 6, so it starts happening in class 6. Tomorrow, if it is mandated to happen in class 2, it will start happening even in class 2.
Your feelings are not your feelings. Your feelings are the radio's feelings. Your feelings are the screen's feelings. Your feelings are uncles' and aunties' feelings, and the priest's feelings. That's where your feelings come from. So don't support your feelings too much, examine them. Don't be swept away. The flow is not even hormonal; the flow is institutional. I know it's disappointing, but then, just for a few more minutes, fine.
Questioner: Acharya ji, just to add to it, it's kind of an honest reflection only. The first book that I read of yours was Prem sikhna padta hai. So it was very surprising, or I can say a very different situation, to read the title of the book itself, because we were taught that we know love. But the moment I read your book, that's when I discovered I don't know it, and I'm still discovering, I'm still learning from the book and from your teachings. So thank you so much, Acharya ji.
Acharya Prashant: Welcome.
Questioner: Namaste, Acharya ji. So I have a direct follow-up. You said that it's important to examine what your feelings are. So I have tried this, traveling alone and staying . It was a desert over there, and I traveled there. I stayed there alone, all by myself, and mostly people were there in pairs. And they were looking at me like, “Who's this weirdo? What is he doing here alone?” And at that moment, superficially I could say to them that what is there in this, it's all fine, but even I was, I don't know if it is conditioning or it was from within, that there should be someone to share your happiness with or something like, what am I doing alone here? That is what was there. So is it conditioning or… my question is…
Acharya Prashant: I understand. There must be someone, let's say, to share happiness with, right? So why must that someone have a uterus? That you impose as an inviolable condition. Right? Why can't that someone be an elderly man of 80? Ever thought of that? Whenever you say, “But there must be someone in life to share joys and sorrows with,” why must that someone have testicles or a uterus? So it's not about someone. You're using language to conceal something. Why can't that someone be a friend of your own gender? Or why can't that someone be somebody faceless, anonymous? Why does someone have to have a body available to you? Please tell me.
Let's say that someone is available even as a woman sitting in South Africa to you that won't suffice, right? Because just the existence of someone won't suffice. That someone must be available to be touched and ultimately penetrated. So that's the intention. Why say that there is a feeling to share things with someone? Share your gold with someone. Why share only those mushy feelings? Why not? Share half your salary with someone, that too anonymously. If sharing is the concern, if the entire aim is to just share, come on, share.
The real intention is, all this is verbal romantic camouflage: “Someone special, someone to share this.” Other things? What else? “God sent us down.” “Soulmate.”
What else?
Listener: “Marriage is made in heaven.”
Acharya Prashant: Made in heaven. All these things.
Questioner: I would like to add something. If we travel with a group of friends, let's say just male friends, then this feeling of loneliness and all, it's not there. So is it mandatory to have someone? And they say that with male friends you can't be…
Acharya Prashant: If you even need male friends, that indicates the same kind of artificial void. It's the same thing. In fact, most of these youngsters, the males who travel together are traveling together as males only because they don't have females. The day one of them happens to strike gold, he disappears immediately, and that makes the remaining four or five even more desperate. It's the same thing.
Being at peace with yourself is something this planet needs desperately today. I'm not asking you to avoid the community. I'm not asking you to avoid companionship. But if that companionship is coming from an unknown void, it is destructive.
No friend, no boyfriend, no girlfriend can fulfill it. You'll keep throwing more and more into the void, and the void is bottomless. You'll say, “I have five male friends, five girlfriends, five cars, five jobs,” whatever five is possible, and you'll find you are still hollow within. From that hollowness, nothing is sacred.
Company can be a great thing, provided you are not using the other to treat your loneliness. When you are with the other but would be equally joyful even without the other, then being with the other has a certain cleanliness to it, a certain innocence to it. Otherwise, there is just violence.
Questioner: Thanks.
