Why Does Love Hurt So Much?

Questioner: So I was going through your book (Truth Without Apology), chapter 80: Be Whole Before You Belong. “You must learn aloneness.” And then you have said: “Then even if you approach the other, even if you relate, it will be a relationship of health, a relationship in which you have something to give, a relationship of joy, not of dependence and desperation.”

So this gives me an idea that one must not have any expectations in a companionship. But at the same time, I’ve understood from your videos that the role of a companion is to reflect you and uplift you, and that there is something within us that feels the need to relate. So we better be discreet or careful and very selective about it, if we anyway need to have a companion. But being discreet or selective, does it not mean that there will be some expectations?

Acharya Prashant: No, the expectations are in the negative: the fellow you are relating to must not be an exploiter.

The role that you’re talking of is not really a role that is put on. The mirror does not perform the role of a reflector. The real companion is like a mirror.

Reflecting your reality back to yourself is not really a role that person performs; it’s the nature of the mirror.

There’s a difference between somebody’s role and somebody’s nature. The real companion is not performing a role, right? It's nature. And that’s a nature not limited to one person. If you are with someone who’s like a mirror, that person will be like a mirror to everybody, not a role he selectively performs in front of you as a partner or a friend, whatever. A mirror is a mirror. A mirror is a mirror to everybody.

But if you want to have someone who performs a role exclusively for you, then you’ll have a problem. And that’s what we want: “Yes, you should be good, but only to me. You should do great things, but only for me.” And if you are caught doing great things for her, then you have had it. Right? And that’s the problem. Now you are demanding a role rather than nature. Now you’re demanding a role rather than nature.

But the problem is, if somebody performs a role for you, he’s just putting it on, and no role can be performed consistently, unexceptionally, throughout life. Roles are roles. You get into a role, and then you get out of a role. Either you get tired, or you just find some other role more tempting. But what we want is people playing a particular role for us. No. The real companion deserves to be valued for who he is, not for what he selectively does. He deserves to be valued for who he is, not for what he selectively does for you in particular.

But then you’ll say, “Then what is special about the relationship? If he is a mirror to me and he is also a mirror to the neighbor, then there’s a great problem.” So you want to own and possess, right? So you want to limit the mirror.

The problem with the mirror is: even if you shatter it, it still remains a mirror. Every bit, every piece, every fragment still remains a mirror. Just that the relationship is gone. Now you have thrown it away and shattered it. You can do whatever you want to, but if the person is like a mirror, and that's nature, nature cannot change. Someone who has attained to his real self now cannot be plucked away or snatched away or torn away from that. Impossible. Are you getting it?

“Please be good to me.” That’s what we want from our friends, our partners, our relatives, right? “Please be good to me.” There is a great problem with this demand. If the fellow is actually good, the demand is useless. He can’t help being good; he will be good irrespective of your demand. So why are you demanding?

And if the fellow is not good and you say, “Please be good to me because I’m somebody to you,” then he’ll perform a role. You’ll find him being bad, very crudely speaking, very, very bad to the world, or at least relatively bad to the world, and good to you. This kind of a dichotomy we see everywhere, right?

The father can be the most corrupt person possible in the office but performs the role of a great father, a great sire to the kids. The fellow can be the most violent person possible, heading an animal slaughter factory, but to the wife he is a loving husband. We see that all around, right?

Now, that's why these things crack open; because the kind of behavior this person is displaying towards the kids or the wife is just a role, not his nature. And roles begin and roles end. Just as you put on your shirt and then take it off. Don’t you say, “One hat, then the next hat?” And then you wonder: how come the fellow has suddenly become disloyal or disinterested? Nothing has happened suddenly. He was in one character and now he has moved to another character.

It would have been far more wise of you to choose someone on his nature rather than his action. A role is an action, right? Something that you perform. But why don’t we do that? If choosing someone on his or her nature is so much better, why don’t we do that? We have already discussed the reason. Because someone who is truthful will be truthful not just to the wife or the kids or the father or the mother. That fellow will be truthful to everybody. And that will be unacceptable to the family.

“See, if you really love us, then you should be truthful to us. And for our sake, you should exploit the world or keep the world aside at least.” We want loving people in our lives, but we get annoyed if they radiate the same love to the entire world. We don’t just get annoyed, see how, look at the breadth of the grin. He’s saying it’s a scandal. It’s not merely an offense; it’s a scandal. I mean, yes, you have to be loving, but towards me, not towards the entire cosmos, and especially not towards this neighbor. Getting it? That’s where the problem is.

You don’t have to expect. If you really dare to be with the right one, he or she will be great for you by his nature, not because of your expectations.

You bring a scorpion to your life; you keep expecting whatever you want to, it will sting. You bring the sun to your life; you may keep expecting whatever, but it will brighten up your life. The problem is: the sun brightens up not just your life, and that’s something we cannot tolerate. That’s something the little ego just cannot tolerate. So we say, “It’s fine to have a fraudster in my life. Let him display fake love. But even that fakeness should be just for me. I’m all right with fakeness as long as it’s an exclusive fakeness.” That’s the deal we make. And then we wonder why we have loveless lives, right?

Our nature is to be committed to the highest. So if you bring the right person to your life as a companion, he cannot be committed to the lowly things within you. Right? He cannot say, “I accept you as you are. Even if you are internally so dirty and so ugly, I’ll still say I love you.” He won’t do that. He’ll be a challenge, just as a mirror is a challenge. He’ll say, “I love you, so I want you to rise. I want you to rise. And let me be very clear: as you are in your state, I don’t really see anything valuable.” This we don’t want to hear, do we?

And if that fellow is really worth anything, he’ll relate to highness, beauty, excellence in all fields of life. He’ll be committed to that, and he’ll be choosing excellence wherever he is or she is.

So, let’s say you wait for him in the house to celebrate something silly like an anniversary, and he’s in the office committed to a project that is really important, infinitely more important than an anniversary. But this will put you off. You’ll be totally upset, right?

you don't see that he is actually paying a tribute to your relationship by saying, “I'm committed to the highest. So if I'm with you, that's good news because I can be with only the highest.” You'll instead be angry: “Today is our anniversary and instead you are busy with something in the office.” Don’t you see the fellow is not committed to you as a person; the fellow is committed to excellence, the fellow is committed to value, worth. And if on that day something of worth is calling in the office, he should be there and he should celebrate it.

Do you see where we go wrong?

We want to possess and we want to be possessed, and only something small can be possessed. Who can possess the sky? But you can possess a small piece of land. But you insist that you will possess, so what you get is a small piece of something, and that satisfies you. You say, “At least it is exclusively mine. Even if it's small, you know, I can't share the sky with everybody.” Then you can't love the moon, then you can't respect the sun, can you? Because nobody can own them. So we settle for little dust which we can keep in our pocket and zip it, totally mine.

I cannot overemphasize on this: goodness is not a role performed in a relationship; goodness is nature itself. If you are looking for somebody good, don't just see how that person is towards you. You'll have to see how that person is; and these are two very different things. For reasons of exchange of pleasure, anybody can display good behavior towards another person at a given place at a given time. Right? The shopkeeper wants to sell something to you, seen how nicely he behaves? So that's not an indicator of somebody's goodness.

A particular kind of behavior at a particular time, towards a particular person, does not indicate worth or intrinsic goodness.

No, but that's what pleases us. Right? “You know what really impresses me is that he's totally violent towards everybody; just keeps kicking and slapping, but the moment he comes to me, he becomes very sweet. That proves all the more how deeply he loves me.” No. That proves all the more how deeply you are in danger, because he is what he is throughout the day; towards you he is just performing a role, and this will stop.

Questioner: So when you say, “Be discreet and very careful about it,” what does it actually mean then?

Acharya Prashant: It means: don't be taken in by performances.

Questioner: By roles?

Acharya Prashant: By roles. Anybody can be good-looking in the moment of making the deal. Right? It's all right and not very difficult to act great on a date. It's a matter of one evening: paste a grin, act nicely, pull the chair for her, open the door for her. Don't be carried away by that.

Whether in business or in society or in politics or in religion; the elections are approaching, and the candidate comes to you and acts extremely polite and humble and friendly, more family than family, and you say, “Oh, I'm swayed. This is the perfect candidate. I'm going to cast my vote.” This is a performance, not his nature. But you will be careful about the other's nature only when, first of all, you worry about your own nature. If you are somebody who lives throughout performances, in personality rather than reality, then in the other also you will value performance and personality rather than reality. And then you will be duped and shocked, and only you will be responsible.

Questioner: Yeah. So we know a lot of wrong reasons to be with a companion; like societal pressure or having a child or financial dependency. But what are the right reasons to be in a relationship?

Acharya Prashant: Actually, you can't say, “I have a reason to enter a relationship.” The right relationship is essentially reasonless. If you have a reason, then you have a self-interest, and that would mean exploitation. I have a reason to approach the chicken and that reason would imply the death of the chicken. No? And then I'll say, “Oh, I really love chicken.” Our love is deadly, is it not? Because we always have a reason. Who's the one carrying the reason? The ego. Right? And if the ego has a reason to go towards something or somebody, it's not good for that thing, that person, not at all.

So real relationships would always be reasonless, meaning incidental. Incidental: they just happen, if they have to. You don't plan them out, you don't target them; “This year I must get married, and that too with this, this, this and this condition.” That's how they talk in the villages often: the marriage season is now approaching, and this marriage season I'll ensure Surekha is gone. I mean, come on, three more sisters are waiting. What's more, the youngest brother is getting very restless, I suspect he is seeing somebody from some other caste. So before he jumps into something disrespectable, I should rather marry her off and clear the way for the next ones.” What kind of companionship can you expect in such conditions, with such an attitude?

If it happens, it happens; and then you don't know, because beauty can't be planned. You can't have an image of Truth. You then are concerned more about yourself: “Let me live rightly and let me walk the right path. If in the process of walking the path I get a fellow traveler, fine.” We'll be related not really to each other, but firstly to the common destination, the same road, the same direction, similar destinations. So companionship becomes natural, which doesn't mean that the two of us are latching on to each other. Actually, our primary commitment is towards the shared destination.

Incidentally, we are with each other, and when you are just incidentally with each other, then the relationship is most beautiful, because you are with each other but not looking at each other. You're looking in the same direction. When you look at each other constantly, you eat the other up. What else can you do? Constantly looking at someone. Gone, finished. For an hour or two, the other fellow can appreciate the beauty of your eyes; after that, he'll want to run away. But you have held him captive with your mere eyesight. “Wherever you go, I'm tracing you.” Are you getting this?

Questioner: But the book also says that true love is never incidental.

Acharya Prashant: I'll edit it.

Questioner: So don't we have to be conscious about it? Like when we say we have to be very careful who we let in our lives.

Acharya Prashant: See, right now how does it matter to me whether you are asking the question or he's asking a question or he's asking? My primary commitment is to the Truth, irrespective of who holds the mic I have to be truthful. And in being truthful I have a great relationship with you right now, which doesn't mean I'm committed to you; I'm committed to the Truth. That's what I'm talking about.

Think of the British period. We have had several cases, freedom fighters. Think of Bengal, think of Surya Sen. Freedom fighters, right? Both are committed to freedom, and they enter a relationship, that has happened. And that is so beautiful. And then they chose to die not for each other but for freedom. That's the relationship worth having. That's where beauty is.

Yes, we are together because I respect what you respect. And it's not you that I respect. You respect the sky, so do I. That's the reason the two of us are together. Not because we want to breed kids, not because you are a man, I'm a woman, and there has to be a biological attraction. No, none of that. Yes, there is a body and we cannot deny it. Fine. If a man and a woman are together, they'll have a physical relationship also at some point, that's fine. But that's not the primary thing. Primarily, we are together because we are looking in the same direction. Are you getting it?

Rest assured the second edition will be out soon, and we'll edit out those lines. See, I'm always a little shaky about these things. I write something or I say something and then I say, “Are you sure it will be received rightly?” That's why the videos have to be edited. Any line that can be taken to mean something else, on the side of safety, is trimmed out. So that also takes away from the punch of the statement. But what to do? We are always looking for something that can be interpreted in a favorable way.

Questioner: Acharya Ji Namaskar. So, Acharya Ji, I got your point and I have been following the point, and it's really helping me in enhancing my companionship. Initially I entered without choosing the right person; like casually it happened by parents’ choice. It used to happen in India; you can see that still it's happening, like two partners do not choose each other, they are chosen by their parents.

Suppose something like that happens, I have seen a few couples very closely that one person is on the higher level and one partner is on the lower level. So the person who is on the higher level, she just drains her energy to uplift her partner or his partner. So how can she save herself? Because ultimately I see that after 20 or 25 years she's just torn out. She just says, “I have given everything to a person, but this person hasn't changed; but I thought that this is my duty to uplift my partner.” But she just fails, and I have seen a few couples very closely that are in a very bad condition. Now, what to do?

So what suggestion can you give that partner who is on the higher level and she has given so much energy to uplift her partner? I just wanted to know that.

Acharya Prashant: Do we really know our duties? Where did she pick that from, “This is my duty to keep exerting myself on my partner for 25 years?” Where does this come from? How does she know that this is her duty? How exactly? Who told her? And if you ask her, she'll have no specific answer. She'll say, “But you know, this is the way it is in the society, and in the tradition, and my mom told me, and the TV serials told me, and the culture told me.

Questioner: Culture told me. Yes.

Acharya Prashant: So that's the thing.

Questioner: And I am Sita and he's Ram. I want to make him Ram.” Just like that.

Acharya Prashant: none of that. See, please understand, this might sound a little odd; if someone, if you're in a relationship and that fellow forgets you for the sake of something worthwhile, don't regret that. Celebrate that.

Questioner: Yes, of course.

Acharya Prashant: celebrate that. Don't be worried that you are no longer occupying his mind-space. If you are worried, that tells of your insecurity. And this insecurity becomes violence: “I must constantly be present in your thoughts.” You must be prepared to vacate all the space for something that really matters. Equally, you too must have in your space something that really matters.

If you have a person in front of you who is committed to nonsense, why are you committed to that person? That person is committed to nonsense and you say, “For 25 years I have been committed to this person.” Do you see what you're saying? You're saying, “I'm committed to nonsense.” In an indirect way. Why?

Your responsibility is towards who you are. You are not a husband or a wife or a brother or a friend or a sister or a father or something. You're a human being. Your fundamental responsibility is to attain your highest potential. Born alone, you'll die alone. In fact, we live alone as well.

“You are sent off to jail, do others accompany you?” That was the question Valmiki asked. And this one question was enough, right? He went to his wife and he said, “I'm doing all these vile things: robbing people, killing them. And most of the money that I bring is used for this family, not for me alone. So when I'll get the punishment for all these sins, my deeds, will you all accompany me?”

In a moment of rare honesty, the wife said no. And Valmiki became Rishi Walmiki, he was called Ratnakar before that. He said, “I have understood. It's between me and me alone. Nobody else can walk it for me or even walk along with me.” Are you getting it?

So that's your fundamental responsibility towards the self, and that's not the lowly kind of selfishness. That's deep wisdom; that's the highest spirituality to attain to the highest self.

And in that process, if you get a companion, wonderful. But it's not for the sake of companion that you walk the road, or do you?

Questioner: No.

Acharya Prashant: You book a flight or a train ticket. If you get a worthy companion, wonderful. Otherwise, what matters is that the destination is right and the train doesn't get late. That's all that matters, right? If you get a companion, that's fine. If you don't get a companion, even that is fine. You're open to both.

“Am I open to a relationship?” Yes. “Am I hungry for a relationship?” No. If there is something worthwhile in the next seat, let's try the conversation. And if there is nobody there, I'll get busy with a book. I'm not dying to chat with him or her. This compulsive need to be around somebody, to stick to somebody, to cling. I repeat, it is a betrayal of life itself. You are being dishonest to yourself and violent to others.

Most of it arises from an ignorance of the self and the resultant purposelessness. So if you have randomly boarded a train, you have nowhere to go, right? Getting generally bored. So for the sake of entertainment, general time-pass, you say, “Fine, there is this train, must be going somewhere, let me hop on.” Then obviously, your entire purpose will be to hunt: “These are my fellow passengers. Hello ji. Hi ji. So ji, how many babies ji?” This fellow is jobless, purposeless. Nothing to do in life. So all that he is doing is trying to form relationships.

Radiate your nature. I repeat, it is the sun not related to every speck of dust in the solar system? But the sun is not trying. That's nature. Be who you are. And in that, there would be great relationships, even without your knowledge, even without your effort. You don't have to wait; you don't have to plan; you don't have to keep looking over your shoulder: “Is there somebody following me? Nobody. I'm still so lonely.” Do you see how great potentials get destroyed just because your intention, your energy, starts flowing in the direction of hunting for company?

It's a very cruel game that prakriti and our bodies play. When you are at the peak of your energy and your intellectual progress, that's also the time of your peak reproductive action. Such a cruel thing to happen. So the energy, the powers that could have gone towards building a life, go towards hunting a partner, especially in rural and semi-urban areas, this is still happening in India. The girl has completed her graduation and has been sitting at home for three years. Doing what? Nothing. Just waiting to be married off. Look at the wastage of human potential. Look at the wastage.

And that's not only in India particularly, everywhere in the world it's very common for women to give up the higher things in life for the sake of the company. For the sake of the company. What kind of company is it, that is conditional on you quitting what is high? Surely it's not auspicious for you.

Questioner: Like up to this point of my life, I used to believe: treat people how they treat you. Like if someone hates you for no reason, just give them a reason to hate you and just move on. That was what I thought up to now. But now, when I think that there is a true nature of a person, and there are people playing roles. Like I meet 20 people in my whole day, and for some I am like God, I help them and I'm a good friend of them, but for some I am like an enemy, they just hate me. So even I'm not sure about my own nature. How can I predict someone's nature?

Acharya Prashant: You have to start from where you are. To start with yourself. How come you don't know your nature? Your nature is to not remain confounded, that's why you have the mic at this moment, right? You had a doubt. You didn't like it, so you stood up and asked. That's nature. Realization, knowledge, that's her nature. Bodh, that's her nature, right?

Questioner: But I do have the capacity to change my nature.

Acharya Prashant: No, you have the capacity to hide your nature. You have the capacity to suppress. It can't be changed. It can be suppressed. It can be obfuscated.

Questioner: How do we differentiate, like which is the true nature, and which one I am suppressing, and which one I am just showing to the people?

Acharya Prashant: Check for fear and temptation. If something is being done under the influence of fear or greed, it's a suppression of your nature. Right now, by asking this question, there is nothing that you really get apart from clarity. So there can be no greed really. You won’t be paid for asking this.

And once you know that realization is your nature, you also know that’s not just your nature, that's the inevitable destiny of every single human being. That's what pulls us. That's what calls us. That’s what is love: to surrender yourself to that, to the highest possible, to the skies.

And then that’s what you evaluate people on. You see, please understand, once you see what is best for yourself, once you see what we are born for, each one of us, that’s what you respect then in everybody. A wise man, a seer, a thinker, even if he kicks you, you must still be with him. You won’t say, “He’s not being good to me, so I won’t be good to him.” No. He kicks you, you should still be with him.

At the same time, a dog licks you, you won’t lick him back, or would you? You won’t say, “He’s being good to me, so I’ll be good to him. The dog licked me and now I’m licking the dog.

Questioner: But I’ll feed him. It is good to me. It’s loyal to me.

Acharya Prashant: Why? Why will you feed him?

Questioner: It’s my pet.

Acharya Prashant: What if he has rabies? Why?

Questioner: Just in case, it’s my pet.

Acharya Prashant: Your pet, right?

Questioner: Yes, my pet.

Acharaya Prashant: We don’t do that to strays very often but to pets. I have nothing against dogs, I love dogs. It was to make a point that I used this example. Please understand, what you’re saying is: “The dog is being good to me, so I’ll feed him.” What you don’t see implicit in your assertion is that even if the wisest man is not good to you, you will not respect him.

Please understand: because the person is wise, even his disrespect towards you would be good for you. If the fellow really has his heart in the right place, even if he kicks you, it would be good for you.

All actions hold the quality of the actor. If the actor is wise, even a violent-looking action will be good for you. Equally, if the fellow is an animal at heart, even his good-looking actions will be dangerous for you. And that’s where we don’t draw the line. We say, “But you know, he’s acting nicely.” Acting is acting. Look at the actor, the one performing the action. If he's not well, even the acts of kindness that he performs will prove dangerous. And even the punishment that you get from a wise person will prove life-saving.

Questioner: So how do I come to know that he is actually wise and he is not wise?

Acharya Prahant: Already answered that, by knowing yourself. You must know where your bondages are. You must know how ignorance envelops us all. And then you will realize who is not so ignorant. You will realize who is challenging ignorance and bondages. It has to start within.

Questioner: Hello sir, I wanted to ask, this would be applicable for any relationship or any companionship, but then again should we apply the same thing for every person we associate with? Be it a family member, be it a friend, or be it anyone we would spend our time with?

Acharya Prashant: Any adult, any conscious adult. This does not apply to those who are mentally infirm or kids.

Questioner: Otherwise we will have to follow this with…

Acharya Prashant: Every single person, with the exception of kids or the mentally unstable. Only these two are exempt.

Questioner: Sure. Secondly, I would also want to highlight one of the aspects she spoke on. If one person is at a higher place and another person is a little lower than the first one, here the lower gets benefited and is also improving so that they both are in the same direction. But then again, how about the higher person? That person also has to look at somebody higher so that he can be anchored, or is it only the relationship between the two?

Acharya Prashant: Good. One arm, you must allow it to raise yourself. Hold the one who sits higher than where you are. And with the other arm, hold someone…

Questioner: Who can be pulled in.

Acharya Prashant: Who has to be pulled up.

Questioner: Sure sir. Thank you so much.

Questioner: These days modern psychologists emphasize a lot on emotional availability and EQ and efforts. I feel that these things should be effortless, because we have to focus on the main thing in our life, right?

Acharya Prashant: You see, please understand, psychology is about keeping you functional and stable. It does not mention at which level. You go to a psychologist; he will never care for your liberation from your inner bondages. The psychologist will say, “You are all right if you are behaving all right. If you are behaving in a socially acceptable way, then you are all right.” Which means you could be at a lower level of consciousness, but still, if you are behaving in a stable, consistent, predictable, acceptable way, then you are all right. It is not about elevation of your internal level. It is not about getting to the right center within. No.

Questioner: So when they say “efforts?”

Acharya Prashant: Yes, obviously, put efforts, this, that. The entire thing is: be stable at whichever level you are. And in most relationships that suffices, does it not?

“My husband is an idiot, but doesn’t cause trouble, stable, stable idiot.” But wisdom is often maverick. We would rather have a stable idiot as our partner than a maverick sage. And when you go to a psychologist, the psychologist would say the idiot is all right because he is stable. But the sage, there is certainly some problem there. He is behaving in socially unacceptable ways, unpredictable ways. “There is some problem with this man.”

So many great thinkers and philosophers, if their case studies are presented to psychologists, they’ll say, “This one is sick; bring him to the clinic. In fact, take him to some rehab.”

I have all the respect for the field of psychology, just that psychology doesn’t care for liberation. That's all.

Questioner: So when they say you have to put effort in a relationship, how important is it?

Acharya Prashant: So as to equalize things, to flatten the ground.

Questioner: But ideally we don’t need to put efforts, right? It should be effortless.

Acharya Prashant: If you have to put in effort, they must arise from love. Out of love you care for the other, but then also not too much, selectively, towards the other. In love obviously there is a lot of effort, but those who have known have said it is an effortless effort. You may get tired from the outside, but it doesn’t tire you down from the inside. So within it all happens very spontaneously, therefore effortlessly. It is not a contrived kind of effort. It just happens. It just happens because it has to happen. Just like the flow of a river, there is so much happening, but no one is making the effort for it.

Questioner: And how important is emotional availability?

Acharya Prashant: What do you mean by that? Emotional availability; what is that? Which means somebody comes to sob, and your shoulder must be available.

Questioner: Maybe being available.

Acharya Prahsant:They get the shoulder, be emotionally available. Or somebody comes to dump his garbage, and you must vacate your inner area for that, right? The kind of filth that cannot be disclosed to anybody, that should not be disclosed to anybody because it carries no value at all. But because you are my partner, 4 hours of your time I will eat up just to unload my garbage; not unload, dump. And if you refuse to listen or your phone battery dies down, then you will be called insensitive. “I am being emotionally open to you and you couldn't even keep a spare phone ready. Every day, 4 hours in the night, emotional connectivity is happening every night without exception.”

And what is that about? “You know when I was 2 years old then I had this trauma, and now my boss, she is such a bitch. And I hate that singer. Please think of my emotions. I'm just a little fat. And yet when I was 12, I was told by that particular aunt, and I'm still carrying that. Please listen to all this.”

Questioner: It’s the work of that individual to work on their own emotions, right? We don’t have to.

Acharya Prashant: This is cruel. This is outright cruel. Do you see this?

Questioner: And the psychologists make it sound like it is a very basic thing to expect, emotional availability. I don’t feel it is basic.

Acharya Prashant: It is one thing to act as a mirror. It is one thing to be available to clarify. It is another thing to act as a waste basket for the other. These are two very different things. Do we draw the line?

You come to me with your clutter and your confusion and I help you clear it, that is one thing. The other thing is: you have become habituated to dumping your rubbish on me. Why? Because there is nobody in the universe who would listen to it, so I am the only unfortunate one because I happen to be your partner. So you bring all your nonsense and throw it on my face and say, “You know, this is why we are emotionally related.”

These are two very different things. In one you are a genuine seeker asking for clarity. In the other you are violent. You are cruel. You don’t need clarity. In fact, you want to drag the other down to your own level.

What if the other is a writer or a scientist, genuinely with good work to do, and you want hours of his time for this kind of emotional hobnobbing? And if he doesn’t allot you that time, you weep buckets and accuse him of infidelity. Surely you are seeing someone else!

So familiar, right? Even I know.

And we know what we are doing. After wasting 4 hours of somebody’s time, we say, “I don’t want to waste more of your time.” So you already knew, right? You already knew you were wasting my time all along. Now, having wasted my time, you also want to have the moral upper hand, so you are saying, “No, I don’t want to waste any more of your time. It’s already been 4 hours and I know you are anyway not interested in listening to what I’m saying.”

Having robbed him of his four hours, now you are accusing that he is anyway not interested. “Some disconnecting, and if you really love me, you’ll call me back.” Run away. Block, DND, whatever you can do. At least don’t inflict this treatment on somebody, right?

And don’t be so desirous, don’t be so needy that you tolerate when this happens to you. For two hours he is telling you about his office politics. Nonsense. What do you have to do with his office politics? What elevation, what enlightenment is there in sharing the details of office politics? “You know that pune, he is all the time ogling at the boss’s secretary.”

What a great revelation. The listener is now enlightened for sure.

And you are sharing your recipe, “You then put some methi in this and then…” Why? “No, but these little things, that’s what is love, is it not?”

No sir. nālpe sukham. There can be no joy in pettiness. Only in the infinite, only in the boundaryless, only in that which is unbounded, free totally, there is joy. Yo vai bhūmā tat sukham.

Why are you dragging the other down to your petty affairs? First of all, you should give up your own petty affairs. If you have to share, share greatness. If you have to share, share beauty and excellence.

Share the stories of your daring struggles. Have something that can inspire the other. But we don't have any of that. So what do we share? “Today again I saw the pun going after that woman.” What kind of rubbish?

But it's entertaining, right?

Questioner: So, just to close this topic, the ultimate goal should be to overcome the need for companionship.

Acharya Prashant: Just to close this topic, I’ll open another question. Is this not a company? Is this not sufficient? What more do you want?

Questioner: No, no. Actually I got my answer to this question yesterday. But because this is a conversation going on…”

Acharya Prashant: When you are with a book, when you are in your lab, when you are working with anything you can be rightfully immersed in, how is that not sufficient?

I am not talking of austerity or celibacy or brahmacharya here. None of those things. I’m talking about your first love. Your first love has to be with this, with anything that’s exalted, with anything that’s of the skies. That has to be your first love, first relationship. And from that first love, if other relationships emerge, please welcome them. We are not talking of remaining solitary all life. No. You anyway cannot remain solitary. We are surrounded all the time. Do you get this?

We are not talking in the traditional way of forbidding relationships. We are not doing that. What we are saying is: if you relate to the other from a false center, the relationship becomes a curse. And from the right center, your first relationship is with rightness itself. When that is your first relationship, all your other relationships fall in place, acquire that flavor, that aroma. That’s all.

Questioner: I definitely resonate with this. Thank you.

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