The More Alone You Are, the More Loving You Are || AP Neem Candies
Acharya Prashant: The more you are capable of aloneness, the more you are capable of love. It is a paradox, but go into it.
Meet as you meet a lover. Don’t take the other for granted. Don’t expect that the other would answer the doorbell. Don’t expect that the other would always be available when you knock. Instead, meet as lovers do, date each other. Then there is a freshness.
Relationships get spoilt when people cling to each other. Then there is just sweat, physical contact and stink. Then all that you want is a little separation, a little distance. If you really want heart to heart contact, let the bodies be a little separated. And by that I do not mean sexual abstinence, by that I mean that you do not really have to be in the same physical space, the shared physical space, all the time.
Nobody can bear to keep looking at the same face, again and again 24 hours a day. Give decent space to each other. Sometimes, disappear from each other’s life. Don’t keep clinging.“Tu jahaan jahaan chalega, mera saayaa saath hoga.” (Quoting a song: Wherever you go, my shadow will follow) To the extent that we have a double commode. That is the height of love. ‘How can I leave my poor spouse unattended? I am not going to leave her even after death, not even Yamraj can take her away from me. How can the washroom dare to do that not even Yamraj can do.’ Even the idea stinks. Does it not?
We all need space. Man’s inner nature is freedom. When I say, “Man”, I mean both man and woman; mankind. Just as you need free mental space, you also need free physical space. In fact, I find the idea of a shared bed quite vulgar. The double bed is an invitation to trouble. The double bed makes it mandatory that you will sleep next to the designated person. Now this can never be a mandate. There must only be single beds, and preferably in separate rooms. When you want to meet, then only you should meet as lovers do. Sometimes they decide to be in union. And only when sometimes you decide to be in physical union, then you are in perpetual Aatmik union.
When sex and physical nearness of all kind start dominating a relationship, then the juice dries down. Now the other is just a body for you. Body for the sake of having sex, body for the sake of upkeep. To treat somebody as a body does not necessarily mean that you are always looking sexually at the other. It also means that you are concerned with nothing else but the body of the other.
So, when the husband says that, ‘All that I have is lust towards you,’ of course, he is looking at the wife as the body. But equally, when the wife is bothered only about the physical health of the husband, she too is just looking at the husband as a body. Have you not seen mothers? All that they are bothered about is the health of the child. You ask them, is the child growing in wisdom? They would not know. All that they know is whether the child had his meals, is dressed properly, has been taking regular baths. They would know the weight of the child, they would never know the soul of the child.
Same with the husband. Internally, the husband is being strangulated, but externally, you want to keep him healthy and shining. You very well know that he must have all the vitamins and proteins in breakfast. But you do not know what nourishment the mind needs. That, too, is just the treatment of the other as merely a body. You worry a lot when the husband falls sick; physically sick. If he has fever. But you do not worry when you see that the husband has no inclination towards spirituality. You do not worry when the husband is corrupt and violent, just mechanical.
Stop seeing other as merely a body. Then you would not bother about the other’s physical presence so much. Then it will be alright for you to sleep on single beds. Then it will be alright for you to sometimes not cook meals for him or her. Then marriage will not be a problem. Marriage will not be a problem when your own life is not a problem to you. First of all, solve your own life.
Children, pick up from what they see. You are so bothered about your kids, and the kids are only getting afflicted by your botherations. Take care of yourself, and you have taken care of the kids. When the kids see a radiant mother, a radiant father, their darkness disappears. Be, first of all, concerned about discovering your own radiance. If you have nothing but darkness, all that your kids would get from you is darkness.
But strange is our situation. Preserving our darkness, we want to bring light to our kids. That is an impossibility that is never going to happen. That is why almost all parents have always failed. They want to bring that to the kids that they themselves do not have. That cannot happen.
To not look at that woman just as your wife or to not look at that man just as your husband, you will have to change your eye itself. If your eye remains the same, then your vision also remains the same. If you continue to look at the world as you used to look at it, then you will continue to look at your wife just as you used to look at her.
Therefore, wisdom is the only solution. Therefore, Krishna, and Ashtavakra, and Kabir, and Nanak are the only solutions. Nobody else is going to save you. Be married to God and then let God save your marriage. Accept God as your spouse and then God will take care of your earthly, carnal spouse as well. Remember your first husband, remember your only father, and then all will be taken care of.
Go for a vacation alone. And then when you go for a vacation, with your spouse, it would be lovely. Cook for your husband, but not as a duty, not as an obligation. Sometimes, refuse to cook. Oh, that you anyway do (Audience laughs) . Sometimes, in love, refuse to cook. Sometimes refuse to return home, not because you are drunk, but because you are sober. In your sanity, refuse to return home sometimes. Then when you return home, it would be beautiful. Only a free mind has the right and the capacity to love. If you are not free, where is love? Yes?
