How Relationships Become Just a Convenience?
Questioner: Namaste Acharya Ji. Words like situationship have become common in today's relationships. In this, people are close to each other but without any commitment. This sometimes seems very attractive, but such relationships have no depth or any stability. Can such a relationship satisfy a person? Please help me understand.
Acharya Prashant: You think a situationship—what is not situational? You see, there are two kinds of relationships. One that is situational and is accepted as situational. For example, the fellow on the seat next to you on a bus, there you are able to neatly accept that the relationship is just situational. "I am 36A, and he is 36B, so he is sitting next to me." That's fine.
And then there are situational relationships that are taken as volitional. So there are SS relationships—where the relationship is situational and seen as situational. 36A, 36B. And then there are SV relationships—where it is situational but is named, labeled, or tagged as volitional.
Volitional means by choice. "By choice, I decided. My discretion, my wisdom." For example, a love affair. "I—I chose him or her." Every damn relationship is just a product of situations. Nothing else. Nothing else at all.
A great patriot—he died for the flag! You were born two inches to this side of the border, and had your parents taken another eager turn, you would have been an equal patriot but devoted to the other flag. But you would not accept that. You would say, "No, no, no! My heart beats for my particular flag!" So, it is a situational thing. So what? Nothing more than that.
Everything is situational. There is nothing beyond situations. And wonderfully, when you see that everything is situational, then you move to a point that is beyond situations. Things will always be situational. You can move beyond situations. Even if you try your best, whatever you have is a gift or product of situations. Full stop. Don't quarrel or argue with that. You will not win.
Your body itself, in the first place, is situational. And we have so many jokes around that, no? The condom factory received 2,000 pics of babies. Wonderful pics—lovely babies. And they were shown to the GM. And the GM asked, "What are these?" They said, "Customer complaints!"
Those babies will never know that they are just situational, customer complaints. Somebody slept on the job. The condoms were defective. From there came the babies. And the baby will say, "Look at me! I’m such a fine product of God! I was dispatched straight from the heavens!"
Sir, there was some leakage somewhere. Nothing more than that. That's your entire existence. Or your father was extra drunk that night—he forgot to pull out in time. That's all. And you call yourself some kind of divine miracle, embossed in dignity? Hello? Each of us is like that.
It's all situational. Your gender. The color of your skin. Your ethnicity. Your beliefs. In fact, studies are more and more saying that it's not just about survival of the fittest. There is also the element of randomness factored in. Evolution is not altogether logical. There is also a probabilistic element into it.
This could have happened. That could have happened. Both had a certain probability—a non-zero probability. And somehow, this happened. Even if the probability of this was lower. But it happened. Now, this—you cannot even call survival of the fittest, or the survival of the greatest probability. Because when you look at a lot of species in terms of evolution, they are not very fit. And compared to certain other related species—species related to those species that were relatively fitter—they have gone extinct. And these ones, they still survive. How is it happening? So, surely, there is a certain randomness involved in it.
It's all situational. You never know why it is happening. Indian philosophy calls it mere sanyog. Sanyog. nadi-naav sanyog . All kinds of sanyog—it is not knowable.
Prakriti is an endless network of cause and effect. You look at an effect—you can never pinpoint what the cause is. Because the causes themselves are infinite. And it is not a straight chain of causes. It is at least a two-dimensional network of causes. Not a straight chain—this causes that. Everything is affecting something else.
They say that when a butterfly flaps its wings in America, it is possible that a volcano can erupt in Japan. That's the principle of the Tipping Point. Things could have reached such a final state that the final straw on the camel's back suffices. And you feel as if one particular straw has led to the avalanche. No.
The thing had reached a particular point, and you never knew what would be the precipitating factor. It's all situational. You never knew when the precipitation would come. It's situational.
Are you getting it?
The wise person accepts everything as random and stands with folded hands in front of Prakriti. He does not identify. He does not take himself to be the cause. It's happening in a stream. I cannot be the cause of that. When I myself am an effect of something, how can I be the primary cause? And there is no primary cause. It's all a flow. Everything is just situational.
That does not mean that you lose respect for everything and drop it. That does not mean that, sitting here, you start texting someone, "You know, I just came to discover we are in a situationship rather than a relationship, so I think we should move on." That's not what we are saying.
We are saying—even your body is situational. How can you break up then? Can you break up with your body? Just realize that there are things, and there are only things, and things have their own flow. And when you realize this, then you stand at a point above all things. And that is liberation.
There is no sense in categorizing situationship versus relationship. There is nothing called as relationship. Everything is situationship. Just saying relationship is sufficient—relationship itself is a synonym of situationship. So fine, make peace with that. Yes, it is situational. Obviously.
The train got late. It was raining. The workers in the electricity department were on strike. It was midnight. The train got late, so I came out. She came out. I asked her, "Where are you going?" She said something. I said, "Right, let's share a ride." And from that ensued an entire dynasty—Jhunnu one, Jhunnu two, Jhunnu three, Jhunnu four—just as you have in dynasties.
Did you plan out that strike in the electricity department? Had it not been so dark, she wouldn't have agreed to share the ride. Did you conspire with the railways to delay the train? The train was supposed to reach at 7:00 p.m. Had it reached at 7:00 p.m., she wouldn't have needed to share the ride with you. Do you wield some special influence with the rain god? Had it not started raining, she would again not have agreed to share the ride with you.
But then you share the ride, and there are potholes. Did you dig them? One particular pothole—she jumps up and falls in your lap. Everything is situational. But then you say, "You know, my great love for you!" What love for you? Electricity department, potholes, municipality, electricity, railways, roads, and that drunkard- the auto-wala. That particular night, he had a tiff with his wife and was driving like this. Repeatedly, she kept falling on you. And then you say, "You know, our great love affair!"
You are not the doer at all. There are just so many causes. Just so many causes. Even the hormones inside the body vary on a daily, weekly, monthly basis. Not just inside the woman—also inside the man. Surely, it was just a matter of probability that the two of you were at the peak of your hormonal cycle. So both of you got excited. Had the bodily cycles also not matched, there would have been no confluence. But then you say, "My great love affair!" There is nothing great in it.
Board examinations—you go to some other center, right? Your name is Keshav, her name is Kamini. She’s sitting in front of you. You are forced to smell her all the time. One month of board examinations. Just because your name in the roster comes after her name, what can you do? Had somebody, in his mindlessness, not named you Keshav, think of the real Keshav, had been named something else, would you have ever been in physical proximity with Kamini?
Now, Ka and Ke is sitting behind Ka and smelling. And she happened to use the shampoo gifted to her by her ex-boyfriend. Just that Ke does not know that Ka is using the shampoo that the ex-boyfriend stole from his ex-girlfriend to give to Kamini. She’s now happily using that shampoo. And this fellow is getting totally hot. And from there, something happens. It is insulting to accept this, no? But that’s the way it is.
You are about to tick something in your entrance exam paper. Last minute, some random fly comes and lands on your nose. You get busy with the fly. Instead of marking option D, you mark option C. So your rank falls by 10. Instead of getting electrical, you get mechanical. I mean department, dirty minds. (everyone laughs.) That’s what happens.
For the loss of two marks, it is very probable that your rank falls by 100. Because you get Mechanical department, you enter an altogether different career stream. Why did that happen? That random fly came and sat on your nose. Instead of working in a power grid, you are working somewhere else. Think—how much of your career is decided just by the rank that you get in a particular examination? And that rank is decided by so many random factors.
It’s all very situational. Though it hurts us to accept that. When you see that it’s all situational, then you don’t feel it important to be attached to anything. Because anything came to you just by chance, therefore, what obligation do I have to stay committed to it? You cannot remain committed to things of chance, can you?
"Son, you are a mechanical engineer. You must work only in the mechanical industry!" What mechanical engineer? That fly! Had there been an entire swarm of them, maybe I could have become a computer engineer! Mark this. Mark this and get rid of them. And randomly, it happens that all the answers are right. So you get an even better rank. And you become a computer engineer. What commitment? Commitment to Randomness?
The problem with us is—we take random things as essential. And because you take random things as essential, therefore you have no respect for what is actually essential. Your body is not essential. Your thoughts are not essential. They are all coming from random influences outside of you. The tastes that you have in clothing, in food—that is not essential. That is dictated by social factors.
There’s no need to give it too much respect. There is no need to treat it as sacred. Because it is not sacred. Only the unchangeable is sacred. Only the uncaused is sacred. Random things are not to be taken as sacred. What is random must be taken lightly. You don’t need to throw it away. You just need to take it like a joke.
"Yes, it is there—fine. I’m not going to cast off my body—I’ll just take it like a joke." "I do have food choices, but I’ll not initiate World War 3 to defend my taste buds!" "I’ll be cool about all that—fine, I understand. You were born in Mexico—you have a particular taste in food. You are coming from Arabia—you have a particular sartorial choice that looks odd to me. But still, I know—it’s a random thing."
Then you do not fight over things of chance. One fellow prays and worships in a particular way—did he invent that? It’s coming to him by chance. Another fellow prays and worships in a different way. The moment they see that both of these things are just situational, they’ll stop fighting. Neither you invented that, nor did I. What do we have to do with these things that have just randomly come to us?
That lightness is the gift of spirituality. Nothing makes you heavy, because nothing is too important. You can joke about anything now and you need not take anything too seriously. Everything is situational. How to take it too seriously?
One day, just randomly, you came to me. One day, just randomly, you went away—either because you thought to go away or because death took you away. That's fine. One day, you came to me. One day, you went away. That's fine.
Now, even your own death does not matter too much to you. I did not come on my own account. I did not come on my own volition, did I? Just as I came by chance, I will disappear by chance. Anybody here who decided on his appearance? Then why are you so concerned about your death? Randomly, you came. Randomly, you go. Fine. Are you getting it?
It's all situational. Don't take it seriously. Nistraigunyo bhav Arjuna. Now, do you see the meaning? Don't take it seriously. Do you see the ramifications? You stop respecting a lot of authority. You know the fellow is there mostly because situations put him there. Another time, another age, another situation, the fellow wouldn't have been there—not at all. How do I respect him? There is nothing that he achieved. There is nothing there of his own.
That which is your own is called the ultimate truth in Vedanta, ‘Atma’- Mine. Prakriti is that which is not yours, really. There can be a great statue of the highest deity, and some speck of dust can come flying randomly in the wind and get placed on the forehead of the deity. Is it not possible? It happens all the time. You go and wipe the deity's forehead, and there will be dust there. Do you start respecting the dust?
Just randomly, it happened that you got into a high place. I will not consider you some kind of authority. It's a matter of chance, and chance is chance. Nothing sacred. Nothing to be worshipped. Similarly, most people who are at high places—they're like the speck of dust resting on the forehead of the deity. Not to be taken seriously.
You also see the vice versa. Just because somebody appears to be at the low end of life, the ebb, that does not mean the fellow is unworthy. Another time, another place, favourable situations—he would have been somewhere else. So, the wise man does not evaluate a person by his social standing. What does he look for? He looks for the essential.
Does this person value the essential? If that person values the essential, then he is valuable. I will not value you for your designation, your power, your pelf, your reputation—because all of these are situational. What will I value in you? The essential. If you respect the essential, then I respect you. Otherwise, you might be the president of the world—I don't care. I don't care. Chance has put you there. Otherwise, you are nobody.
They say if you give enough monkeys enough computers, one of them will come up with all the works of Shakespeare. It's just about having enough numbers—billions of monkeys, billions of systems—and they'll randomly start keying in. And just by chance, you will find, because there are going to be so many chances, that one of them will be a favorable chance. You'll say, "This one is Shakespeare!" We are not going to respect randomness.
I always say—measure a man by the odds he is rising against. The name of the odds is Prakriti. The measure of a man is the quality of his engagement with Prakriti—not where his situations have taken him, but what he has done with his situations, his relationship with his situations. And that is more difficult to assess. Therefore, we often falter in our assessment of people.
We want to see where they have reached. We do not see how they are relating with their conditions. That's what you must look at. But to look at that in others, you must first be able to look at that in yourself. How am I relating to my situations?
If you take situations too seriously, you are, as they say, "ignoramuses"—one of them, just a common ignorant fellow. Your bank balance shows one billion, and you are so full of yourself. And suddenly, it shows nothing, and you are punctured—fully deflated. Situations are ruling you. Most people are like that.
Don't be like that. Classically, it is called Samata—irrespective of the situation, I am myself. Samata. A lot of this peaceful experience that you have is also just situational. So, don't take it seriously. You are not so peaceful, and that will show up as soon as these two doors open. And this is my way, and this is your way.
As long as this little hall, this little Sabhagaar will continue to have two rooms, there will be separation. Two doors—there will be separation. Because we are one while we are here. Then, I go my way, and you go your way. The very existence of the two here is a demonstration of twoness. You have chosen to have a separate life.
So, don't take this peace too seriously, because even your choice is situational. You have not even chosen to have a separate life. It's just that—that's the way the winds are blowing. Rukh hawao ka jidhar hain, udhar ke ham hain.**
So, peaceful situationally. Or you are absolutely great: Situationally. Just add this to everything. "I love you." Situationally. "You're a bastard." Situationally. "I can give my life for you." Situationally.
And then, nothing hurts you. Because you know it was anyway situational. Then, you don't bank on the promises, because you know that all promises are situational. There only for fools—who hope that the promises will be kept.
No promises can ever be kept, because all promises are situational. That's why the wise ones don’t bank on promises. They bank on love. And as I’m fond of saying—in love, there can be no promises.
