Is it necessary to be in a relationship? || Acharya Prashant, with NIT-Warangal (2022)
Questioner (Q): Good evening, sir. I am pursuing my BTech in civil engineering from NIT-Warangal. Sir, my first question is that our friends are currently in relationships while we are not. But at the same time, we have to focus on our studies as well, but inside us, there is the feeling which says, “You should be there in a relationship,” so sir, is it really necessary to be in a relationship? And if not, then what is this feeling inside us?
Acharya Prashant (AP): See, the feeling inside is just the feeling every creature of flesh and blood has in its youth. It’s just a physical thing. Mother nature wants you to have a partner from the opposite sex and sooner or later reproduce, that’s the feeling. There is nothing more to that.
There is nothing mystical about that. It’s not coming from some unknown source, it’s a very obvious thing — you watch the animals, you come to know. Don’t you see? You didn’t have these feelings just five or seven years back, and that’s pretty recent.
Just five years back, you would have been thirteen or fifteen and this kind of feeling would not have been there or wouldn’t have been as intense at least. And now you are eighteen or twenty or something and maybe twenty-two and the feeling is stronger. It is the age of the body; it is the stage of that, nothing more than that.
Q: Sir, not in that sense. We see our friends moving with their partners, shopping with them. Is the feeling jealousy or a need to share our thoughts with someone?
AP: You can share your thoughts with your male friends as well. What’s the point in asking for a girl? See, first of all, let’s put the sham behind us as they say, “Cut the crap!” It’s not about sharing your emotions or thoughts or something. It’s just about sex. We want to give it a more respectable face by talking of these things. Where do you go, and do with her? “No, we just sit down and talk and we share our lives.” That’s for the first few days to make things look respectable and moral. And then there is just the banging on the bed, nothing more than that.
I don’t know why there must be some confusion on that. Is it not obviously clear what that feeling is all about? See, I am not denigrating it. I am not asking you to be a celibate or something. I am just answering clearly on what that desire is. That desire has no depth, that desire does not come from any other point. Understand, when you watch movies, they make it appear esoteric. They want to also bring in some spiritual angle — “God sends down people in pairs. There is somebody perfect waiting for you somewhere in the world.” Things like that. So you feel, “Oh, my life is incomplete and the special someone is hiding somewhere and that special someone will make me complete.” And this kind of storm of thoughts, simply obfuscates the obvious fact — it is an animal thing and nothing more than that.
All the romance and the fairy-tailish delusion you build around sex are just there to conceal our animalism. Nothing more than that, and by that, I repeat, I am not asking you to absolutely abstain from the other gender or even sex. But before you get into something, is it not important that you know what that thing is very clearly? This is that thing nothing more than that.
Q: Sir, suppose we assume that what you are saying is all right.
AP: No, you don’t have to suppose.
Q: I didn’t know this was the feeling which is inside me. So, let us assume this is the feeling.
AP: No, why do you want to assume? Why don’t you want to know? This is the opportunity to learn, not to assume.
Q: You just told me about the physical aspects of those feelings, there may be other options as well, maybe contradicting or is it the only reason?
AP: No, you want me to say, “There do exist two or three other reasons” so that you can say that your reasons come from that other set. Don’t you see within? No self-awareness? When I say it is just an animal thing, it sounds so gross, so unworthy, so disrespectable, that you want to say, “Well, attraction towards a girl can come from the other centre as well. So, let’s explore the other centres.”
Maybe there is a zero point zero one per cent probability that it may come from some other place. But do you belong to zero point zero one percentile in anything in life? Then how will it happen that only in this matter you will belong to a special, exclusive and elite club to which, let’s say, Krishna and Radha belonged and you want to discount the ninety-nine point nine nine per cent probability? That is something you want to discount! And you want to hang on to hope, the zero point zero one per cent hope. “No, No, No, I am not chasing her just for sex. It is for the sake of my enlightenment that I want to take her to bed.” Seriously?
Q: Thank you, sir
AP: So, disappointed are you? Even your voice has become feeble.
Q: No sir, I am shocked.
AP: See, I put a disclaimer in advance. I am not saying all this to wean you away from girls. I am just saying that you must know that when you are going after a girl, this is what you are doing. And now go after the girl with all your energy, it’s okay. But don’t be self-deluded, at least. At your age, it will be pretty much impossible to not chase a girl. You will do that, just as all animals do. I am saying, you must know what you are doing when you do that. And it’s not that just man chase women, even women chase men and they are again doing what all animals do. Probably it is unavoidable, irresistible. Probably, this is the name of the game. Probably, all of us have to get into it at some point.
It’s okay if that’s how our bodies are built and if that’s how it is mandated in our DNA’s. Then let’s do it! Because we hardly have a choice there. But you do have a choice when it comes to knowing. Know what you are doing. Why do you want to convince yourself that you are marrying, let’s say, for the sake of the world? And there are people who say, “I am marrying because if I do not marry, the population will collapse. Elon Musk has told us. And Elon, anyways, happens to be my best friend. We went to the same detention centre.”
Q: Thank you, sir.
AP: You are escaping. You are not learning.
Q: I exactly understood your point, maybe that is the reason.
AP: See, this happens with people who raise this topic with me. For a few weeks, at least, girls will not appear attractive. After that, you will lose all memory of this unfortunate incident. You will try to forget this like a bad dream and get on with your usual life.
