On this day two years ago, I wrote the post, Relationship – Part One (There is also a Part Two). At that time, judging by reader response, it was my most popular post. But not due to comments. I received over thirty emails on this two-part series, which at the time, was a reader response milestone. Up to that point, I had only received an email here and there, usually on the esoteric side of non-dual nonsense.
Thinking of it now, most of the correspondence I receive today are questions on this topic of relating, in one way or another, even if not pointing toward a direct physical relationship with another human being. Relating goes deeper than mere social relationships.
Probably, most of you have not read this two-part post, especially the newer subscribers. Have a look, and feel free to leave any comments here or there. But if you do comment on the material, we’ll have to take it from the beginning, as we should in all things. Let’s not rely on old words to see ourselves now.
If posed with the same question today, the words would probably reveal themselves in a more concise manner. I was rather wordy back in 2007. Take a breath, man! Take a breath!
6 Comments
I read both posts as well as this one, obviously. I thought they were all beautiful posts, Taukin. Your thoughts on marriage mirror mine. I have been with my husband for about seven years. We do not argue either and whenever I hear people say that relationships are work, I truly find that strange.
When I was newly married, there were some things that my husband did that I thought were strange. A few days later I realized that by loving my husband, I had to love everything and that included the things that I thought were strange. For it was a judgment and not unconditional love. So I focused on unconditional love and in all honesty, I truly do not see those so called strange things anymore. I love him as he is and he loves me as I am.
Often when people work on relationships it is because they want someone to be what they think they should be. I am not my husbands keeper. We share the journey together and we grow in our own way. We support one another without control.
Actually, marriage is when two souls come together to share the journey. One does not complete the other for that would be like saying you are imperfect. We are already perfect but we just have lost sight of that. To think that another person completes you is very sad and yet that is what many people think is romance or marriage.
Nadia,
Haha, YES. Working on the relationship, means changing to suit my needs. “Let’s work on us, as long as you see it MY way.”
It is so silly and selfish.
Humans can do themselves a good turn by trying alone-ness for awhile. In this case I mean, being alone, without a partner, for a period of time.
It is too easy to become addicted to this ‘partner hopping’ that goes on everywhere in this world. It is always dropping one, picking up another, non-stop. There is never any time to be faced with what one is.
And it is not ‘alone-ness with the hope of finding the right person,’ but an alone-ness to find out why you believe another person can complete you.
But it is easier to just keep hopping, I suppose.
Some reflections:
1. I also find it strange to when people say that relationships need “hard work”. And I find it really helpful to look into my “relationship” with myself because I strongly feel that how I relate to myself would be how I will relate to other people.
2. Alone-ness is scary to a lot of people, it seems, as this is the moment one gets deeply acquainted with one’s shadow, shade, and shine. It’s an awe-some moment, frightening and reassuring. Oftentimes it’s mistaken for isolation, which of course is not. When one is alone, one doesn’t run away from the world. One can never run away from the world as there’s no “there” to go.
3. The value of someone’s company, I feel, can be deeply appreciated, if we equally value someone’s alone-ness. Being in a relationship oftentimes are about occupying and invading spaces other than own rather than solitudes meeting each other in solitude.
Thanks, Sass.
And it is wonderful to know that no one else can complete us, in the way we usually think. But it is unfortunate that humans have difficulty in seeing this.
‘Relationship’ is always about what I need to have, want to have, and so on. “I need someone else to complete me,” as an example. Then when we get the partner, we lament at what we don’t have and should have. “He doesn’t listen to me!” or “She doesn’t care about what I like to do,” etc.
Those kind of interactions have nothing to do with relationship, as we are speaking here. But it is interesting because relationship includes all things, even those interactions.
It is all so wonderful to behold…
“But it is interesting because relationship includes all things, even those interactions.”
Perhaps it’s because we enter a relationship with what we currently have and don’t have such as those expectations, desires, and all that. Perhaps other animals or living things also have this sense of incompleteness. Who knows whether a flower really feels complete by itself and need nothing else? After all, it is just us humans who provide this sense of these other beings as being “not like us”.
What I find interesting is, why is the longing even there. Certainly, this longing is what is present in a lot of people, I suppose. Well, it might be better to just speak for myself. Yeah, this longing is the one present here, longing perhaps for warmth, a human warmth other than my own. Could it be looking for someone to complete me? I don’t know. There’s joy in being with myself and there’s also joy in being with other people. I’m learning the value in being alone and the value of someone’s company. So why is the longing there? It is there, one can’t deny it. Does it need to be sublimated, eliminated, transformed, improved ? To long for non-longing? To “strive” for completeness by oneself?
Sass,
That is just it, right there.
Why is the longing there? transforms into simply, the longing. I can’t say ‘transform’ is quite the right word, but it is close enough for us here.
The longing strives for nothing. And of course, non-longing is the struggle, the striving, the effort-ing; it is the creation of the mind hoping to be free from longing.
You are right. One cannot deny any of this.