Recently I discovered some stories about dear ones standing by their principles, risking their careers almost as soon as it began, refusing to give in to the fears of ‘losing it all’. I am so, so proud.
It happened years ago though. Today I look around and it looks quite different. We do a lot of things in the ‘name’ of principles, but basically I think we’ve just found more intellectual reasons to justify hurting people.
Publicly defaming others is becoming more and more common, and the reviewing system, trolling, the all-too-addictive moral high-ground, etc., is normalizing it, isn’t it? But even if we haven’t done all that, we routinely hurt others when we believe we are right. Now, hurting others by mistake is different, but things start to change when you think you are right in hurting someone else. Or maybe that you are being ‘honest’ and not hurtful. That’s, well, just plain delusional.
Think you’ve never done it? Ever used sarcasm when angry? Or deliberately said something to hurt someone? Ever left a negative review with a ‘little’ exaggeration? Ever gossiped about someone’s personal issues? Said nasty things about someone you didn’t like, to other people?
Wars happen because people on both sides think they are right, and they think that their being on the ‘right’ side justifies a violation of ethics and principles. It may be a different situation if you are actively under attack – then offence might be the best defense, but that is rarely the case, isn’t it? If you believe that your being right justifies a violation of basic human decency, compassion and courtesy, how different are you, in principle, to the people who kill in the name of God?
The next time you say or do that mean thing, just stop for a second and ask yourself, is this the only way to put my point across? Am I using my pain as an excuse to hurt another person? Is offence the only option I have left? Can I maybe, be kind anyway?
‘Let go’ is probably one of the most useless phrases ever. Even more so in therapy. If people could let go, they would already have, they don’t need you to tell them that, they’re smart enough to already know.
Why is it painful to let go? Because what we hold on to, defines us. Often something that hurts us leaves us weaker or less capable of functioning than those around us. It makes us feel inferior, so we try to borrow superiority on the shoulders of our pain/ trauma. So we need that shitty experience to feel good about ourselves, even though that sounds paradoxical – that’s just how the mind works.
Unfortunately, this is where the law of attraction kicks in. It says, ah so trauma makes you feel better about yourself? Here, take some more. So this inability to let go sends a person down a horrible spiral of continuous painful experiences.
Another aspect is, whatever you resist, persists. The more you fight it, the more it stays. If you surrender to the pain and allow yourself to feel it in all its intensity, you’ll find that it dissolves and disappears.
How do we really learn to let go? By not trying to let go at all. It is not possible to let go, because you did feel what you feel and you are forever changed by that unpleasant experience, no matter how trivial. Allow it to hurt. Allow yourself to feel the pain. You know how when a person is drowning, if they stopped resisting they’d float to the surface? Same thing. When you surrender to the pain, it lifts you to the surface. So you can be in the middle of it, but you’ll still be floating on the surface and able to breathe.
Rational thinking is based on a simple premise – that you base your ideas on facts. With the media today deliberately messing with our minds in order to increase their click rates, most people seem to have lost the distinction between fact and fiction. And this is highly dangerous. Not only does it mean we get attached to our opinions, but also that our opinions could be complete distortions of the truth. As a spiritual seeker this is even more alarming, because the path requires that we learn to move beyond the illusion. But this journey tricks us into the exact opposite direction.
So, what’s going on? It is important to understand the mind before we begin. The mind seeks validation and it needs to feel good about itself. The mind also absolutely loves negative emotions because they are way more powerful than positive emotions. So understand this – if you have the slightest opportunity to hate or despise someone for the (seemingly) right reasons, it is an irresistible temptation for your mind. This is exactly what the media feeds on – it supplies you a list of things to hate. And what’s worse, this has today seeped into our daily conversations and attitude too. We love to hate, it makes us feel good. Once we realise this, we can make an attempt to bypass the natural inclination of the mind and take a rational approach.
Fact? Opinion?
Fact is something that is irrefutable. It is something that definitely happened, something that you can be certain of. Opinion is subjective, and will differ from person to person. Let’s take a few examples. You see someone beating someone up. One person is beating another, that is a fact. To say or think that one person was doing it very viciously, or that the victim was in a lot of pain, is an opinion. To imagine that the person doing the beating is a bad person and the person receiving it is a helpless victim is an opinion – it is very possible that the man is beating the other because he saw him trying to rob or molest someone else.
Fact is what you can clearly see, and takes into account that you almost definitely don’t know everything, because we only know what our perspectives allow us – when you are talking about facts, you are open to the idea that the opinion you have formed based on what you saw/ witnessed/ experienced could be completely wrong.
Opinion is an idea formulated in your mind based on incomplete information. There is nothing wrong with having an opinion, it is the nature of the mind to opine. But to imagine that your opinion is accurate is nothing short of stupidity. And what’s worse, to imagine that others who don’t share your opinion are stupid, regressive or backward, there’s nothing more stupid, regressive and backward than this itself.
There’s a lot we can do to separate fact from fiction.
Think about the topics you feel strongly about, things you seem to have clashes with people about. Are you talking about fact or opinion? How much proof have you seen regarding your facts? Is it proof enough to convince you alone, or will it convince others too?
If you are attached to your ideas and it is difficult for you to hear opposing views or arguments without losing your cool, you are attached to your opinion, and it has nothing to do with facts.
When it comes to news about people you know, stop when you hear gossip and ask for proof – if you really do want to engage in the discussion at all. Who saw whom? What are the chances of this information being exaggerated or distorted? Are you commenting on exact incidents or are you commenting on imagined intentions and desires?
When it comes to news and national debates, remember that you only know what you’re fed. Unless you are directly involved, you have absolutely no idea about the truth, and it is very possible that what you are fighting for might in reality be completely against your core principles.
I find it fascinating how now a days people have an opinion about everything without having any credentials whatsoever. And somehow they are comfortable with this – it doesn’t unsettle them at all, and they can argue with someone who does have credentials and data, without any qualms. When you have an opinion about something, it is important to ask yourself, ‘who am I to have this opinion, do I have any credentials or a solid foundation to base this opinion upon?’ and even if the answer is yes, it is important to remember that it is still ultimately, just an opinion – it is based on incomplete data and may be wrong.For example you might have cured jaundice by eating cinnamon (just a totally random example, please don’t ask jaundiced people to eat cinnamon!) Now this is great, and you might tell a doctor that you ate cinnamon and your jaundice healed – that is a fact, a relative fact. If you say that cinnamon cures jaundice, then that is an opinion. Even your fact could be wrong, maybe the doctor investigates and realises that it wasn’t jaundice in the first place, or maybe you ate the right medicine by mistake at some other point and that is what actually led to the cure, not the cinnamon at all – so it is still a relative fact and may not be entirely accurate.
So your experience is largely fact – it is a relative truth. But to imagine that everyone else experiences the same thing in the same way is not only an opinion, it is also delusional. We live in a world with close to eight billion people. Everyone has a different set of experiences, different perspectives, different cultures, upbringing, circumstances, IQ, EQ and temperament. No two people are going to agree on everything. If we cannot learn to respect and honor the differences among each other, we’re not going to get very far in terms of co-existence. And that is a (relative) fact, isn’t it?
We teach our girls and women to not take any shit, but we’re not yet teaching them not to give any, and this is a problem. When exposed to abuse for a long time, abuse becomes normalised. Which means we abuse the ones we love without realising what we’re doing. So if you want to co-exist peacefully with kind, loving people, here are a few ideas that might help.
1) If you don’t want to be told what to do and how to live your life, DO NOT tell others how to live theirs. Which means not telling your family members (or anyone else) what they should or should not be doing, who they should or should not be meeting, etc.
2) If you are starving for love but getting abuse instead, learn to respond with love instead of temper tantrums. No self-respecting, self-loving person will put up with someone who says words or does things aimed hurting them, so if you say or do things to hurt people you love, when angry, you’re only going to attract abusive partners and more drama. If you can’t control your temper, get therapy please, it helps.
3) Be the man that you need (or woman, if you’re a man). If you are in a need-based relationship, it is bound to be rife with insecurities, control tactics and abuse, because needs can always be met by other means and you are afraid you can be replaced. And to be in a love based relationship, you need to love yourself immensely first, so let that be your next project.
4) Being abusive does not make you despicable, pathetic scum. It just makes you a wounded person desperate enough to seek love by trying to hurtfully extract it out of someone. The only way out is by loving yourself no matter what, and taking it one step at a time. Like I said, seek help if you realise you’re being abusive. It really helps.
5) If you’ve experienced a lot of abuse, try journaling daily. Write not so much about your day but about your feelings, and feel free to cry. Embrace your pain and accept it as a part of you. Incidents can make you or break you, and you can let this pain transform into flexibility and strength when you accept it as a part of you instead of trying to fight it off and pasting a smile on your face instead.
6) Write also about your flaws. And learn to look at your flaws without judgment. As long as you judge your flaws without embracing them, you can never transcend or transform them. You have flaws. And you know what, you deserve to be loved nevertheless, so love yourself anyway. It will make it easier for you to love and accept others with their flaws too.
7) Work with your inner child. You don’t get into abusive patterns unless it is coming from your childhood. If you think your childhood was beautiful, it is far more likely to be abusive, believe it or not. My inner child healing journey helps you transform a lot of that pain into power, so sign up if it feels right for you. Click here to sign up at a 50% discount for a limited time only.
I remember on my first day with my art teacher, he said one thing that stayed with me. As we spoke of copying vs. originality, he said “There’s a difference between a painter and an artist. Merely having technical knowledge does not make you an artist. That’s just a painter”. My head first protested because well, painters are those who paint walls, not those who make beautiful designs on canvases. But I did get the point.
And now, mingling closely with artists, I see so much more clearly what he meant. Again, I get my terminology slightly wrong here, because technically artisans are people who work in a skilled trade, making things with their hands. But you’ll get the point, won’t you?
I see so many artists who compartmentalize. And I guess this will be natural for most people without any spiritual background, because art without spirituality is dangerous. The mind is like a tank of water, mud safely settled at the bottom, the upper surface appearing calm and clear, giving the illusion that there is no trash. Art shakes things up, brings the dirt right up to the surface. And without a spiritual foundation, one has no idea how this needs to be handled. So we limit art to the canvas, or to the instrument, dance floor, or to the stage. And this compartmentalization works initially, and then starts to tear the system apart. Is it any wonder then, that India has a history of great artists, none of whom were mentally unstable, eccentric or suicidal, whereas Western artists have always been either or all? I don’t know of any Indian art form that didn’t establish a firm spiritual foundation first, and that is what made the difference.
What is an artist, really?
Someone who looks at something ordinary, something everyone looks at all the time, and sees something no one’s ever seen before. A fresh perspective, a new direction, a different approach.
Someone who is fearless in creating- or someone who is capable of setting any fears aside, in order to create.
Someone who is willing to see the truth as it is, and is willing to bear the brunt of expressing that truth. And more than anything else, someone who can do this in a creative, loving and beautiful way – in a way that the message will be accepted.
Our creative outlets give us this space – a space where we can be free of judgment – especially judgment of ourselves, a space where we can learn to set aside our fears of discovering and expressing the truth. But when it comes to taking this approach to our personal lives, we falter.
Almost all artists I know have trouble really fitting in with the society, because a part of them follows the heart – enough to not feel a sense of belonging in a mostly-zombied-out world. And this is a difficult thing, because it is human to want to belong. The bane of an artist is the fact that they will probably never belong. They try, to belong among other artists, but that doesn’t work out, because they’re all compartmentalizing too, and we all compartmentalize in different ways, which causes conflict and friction. The eventual consequence is a feeling of resentment, indignation and self-righteousness towards others, even more so towards ‘ordinary’ people. If you find yourself becoming cynical and angry (a masculine approach to unsolvable problems) or depressed and dejected (a feminine approach) over time, you know it is because you’re not taking art outside your studio or your stage.
Is there a way out? Yes there is. Every artist will tell you that art is their bliss. But we come back to the question we began with – are you an artist, or an artisan? Are you just learning a technique, are you just capable of creating when you pick up a tool? Or do you let yourself carry your wide-eyed, child-like wonder everywhere you go, and bring your vulnerability to everyone you meet? That’s the secret here.
Let your art take over your life. Allow yourself to listen just as deeply, observe just as wholly, and absorb just as effectively, in every moment, every conversation, every relationship in your life. Allow yourself to be brutally honest with yourself, and allow yourself to show your true self to others – in a beautiful, creative way that is easy to accept, while still being true to the message. More than anything, be open to letting life break you, and have faith that you will learn to rebuild yourself, putting the pieces back together in the completely different way. Sounds difficult? Since when did difficulty ever scare artists? Not only is it possible, it is also worth the effort. If a few hours of your art form can bring you such bliss, have you ever wondered what a lifetime of it can do?
I never thought I’d write an article on love. It is a topic too vast, and in my opinion a realm where the learning never stops. Nobody can ever claim to completely understand or ‘master’ love, as I see it. So I always thought that writing on it would be a pompous, self-deluding exercise. But here I am anyway, in response to a distraught friend who asked me ‘What is Love?’ at the end of a relationship. It is a question I have asked myself too, so I don’t claim to know the answer. But a little clarity has been there, which is what I attempt to share here.
Emotional abuse is so normalized these days, that most abuse is misconstrued as love. What’s worse, when one tries to call it out, one is often accused of rejecting the other’s love. But the differences are stark and clear, if you’re trying to look for them. So this isn’t meant to be a guide on how to love – that takes years of self-work and healing – but a guide for those trying to figure out if a particular relationship is loving or abusive. Check by studying yourself, not the other person, because love is about giving more than receiving.
You Want to Surrender, Not Control
Control and manipulation are signs of the absence of love and heart energy in a relationship. It means that the person is coming from a space of fear and lack – and someone functioning from that space is not in a position to love.
In abuse, the other person is held responsible for one’s feelings. Osho said that when in love, during conflict the person thinks that there must be something wrong with them. The moment one thinks that there is something wrong with the other person, it is a sign that there is no love anymore. And this is my experience too. Love is acceptance of who you are, as you are, while at the same time calling out your delusions or mistakes – but it does not accuse you or put you down.
You Want to Give
In love, you give for no reason other than it makes you happy and the other isn’t expected to be grateful or to acknowledge how much you do. The statement “I did so much for you, and this is what I get in return” is a clear sign of a lack of love. That was business. There was an investment, and now you’re upset because you didn’t get appropriate returns on your investment. You could be in a relationship for years, and you’d never feel like the relationship was a dead investment – even if it ends badly – because you were never investing in the first place. When doing things for the other makes you happy, then there is no baggage attached to that giving.
What Can I Do for You?
It is always during a conflict of interest when the true colors of love come out. In a loving relationship you will find that both the people are trying to ask ‘what are you going through, and how can I make this right?’. In an abusive relationship, both are defending their positions and accusing the other of not doing enough. Or worse, telling the other person how they need to change.
You Seek a Win-Win
You know how all those stories circulate, about women listing out all the mistakes their husbands have made over the last decade, in every fight? Well that’s normalized abuse for you. It is a sign of an abusive relationship where one demands and the other eventually gives up on trying to comply, or keeps trying, failing, and feeling inadequate. Love seeks resolution so that there can be a win-win – where both partners can be comfortable with a solution. When it’s ‘my way or the highway’, take it for granted that that is not love being manifested there.
Another consequence of seeking a win-win is that it makes it easier to be more forgiving of the other’s mistakes, and also makes you kinder when you’re both hurting.
You Don’t Want to Hurt the Other
Anyone reading this statement is likely to go, ‘Oh I never want to hurt another person’ – and if you just thought that, you’re not only wrong, but you also need to work more deeply with your level of self-awareness. There is a tendency to want to hurt the other person when you don’t get what you want from them, and even more if they are hurting you. Sensitive people are usually more aware of this in others and can feel either deeply traumatized or infuriated when they sense this.
Observe yourself carefully. If you feel like hurting the other person when you feel wronged – either by saying something nasty or mean, or by doing something – even hurting yourself – to bring about pain and/ or guilt in the other, you are not only not coming from love but also being highly manipulative and abusive.
An Apology is Easy. And Meaningful
I think apologies need a separate article on their own, I’ve seen so many people completely screw this up. But you’ll find that when there is love, this comes naturally. When you realize that you’ve hurt the other person, you tend to automatically feel sorry to have put the other person through pain or distress, and you promise yourself that you won’t repeat it. And then you don’t.
“Sorry, but…. ” is not an apology. There may sometimes be an explanation to help the other understand why you acted a certain way and clear the ‘why did you do this to me?’ question in their minds. But there’s a big difference between an explanation and an excuse. An explanation says this is what happened, and I’m really sorry I acted this way and it caused you pain, and an excuse says I’m sorry, but this is why I acted this way, I couldn’t have helped but act like this (and often – if you had acted differently, my words/ actions would not have been hurtful).
There are no rules
We have a tendency to attach rules to love. If it’s true love, it’ll last forever, if it is true love, we’ll never fight, or we’ll never sleep without resolving a fight, true love means never giving up no matter how painful it gets, and so on and so forth. You know what, none of these are true. Nothing is. Love is not bound by a bunch of belief systems. If you’re trying to analyse whether someone else has experienced love, you’re wasting your time and need to find something better to do. If it is your own relationships you’re trying to assess by these standards, let go. Do the best you can, and leave the rest to God. The heart opens bit by bit when the time comes, and you will find yourself more loving as time passes, if you are sincerely working on yourself.
And lastly,
Here’s a video I fell in love with. Botton talks about how love is not ‘natural’ and needs to be learned and taught. Being in a relationship is about patiently teaching the other how to help you feel loved. And patiently and sincerely learning how to make the other feel loved. It is one of the most beautiful videos I’ve ever come across on relationships and I hope you enjoy it too.
Years ago when I was completely frustrated in a setting very different from my home, I had complained to my mother that I can’t cope with this environment. It is too negative, and these shallow people seem to have nothing better than gossip, cricket, govt and traffic to talk about. I couldn’t cope. I hated where I was.
And instead of helping me, she said this was my problem. ‘You can either be the victim, or you can be the change’ she said. I was irritated for a day. And then my life changed direction completely.
YOU are the source.
You don’t have to depend on stones, angels or anything else for changes in your life.
YOU choose how you respond to the shit life throws at you –
YOU choose whether you let it drown you or whether you use that as a stepping stone to grow and rise.
YOU choose whether you invest all your energies in trying to change the environment by (mis)using energy healing, stones and what not, or whether you let circumstances change, shape and polish you into the best version of you.
This is how you create your destiny, not by facilitating change outside, but by opening up to transformations within.
When the world around you changes from nurturing to shit, it is a sign that it is time for you to start giving instead of receiving. It is an unpleasant lesson in most cases, a reluctant transition. But you’re growing from a sapling needing care to a tree which bears fruit. It is time to nurture the world. Are you ready?
How do you do this?
Believe it or not, you don’t have to have a plan. It really begins by processing the fact that this is your problem to deal with, and you have to deal with it assuming no external change. We’re always cribbing that the external circumstances are not right. There isn’t enough money, there aren’t enough jobs, the people aren’t right or supportive, or they’re downright abusive and demeaning, the food isn’t good, the culture isn’t right, the list is endless. And you can either sit with this mess and let it take your life and joy away from you, OR you can ask yourself, can I find a way to be happy even if I have to survive in this mess?
Who do I need to be so that I can make the most of my life the way it stands right now?
We all talk about stopping to smell the flowers, but it is something very, very few of us actually integrate into our lives. Are you taking the time out to enjoy the little things? Or has life just become a race from one finishing line to another, one problem to another? When you start taking the time out to be happy – little moments during the day here and there, your system starts to lean towards a happiness-oriented approach.
Next, you have to integrate your power. New age spirituality seems to me like a bunch of belief systems designed to take your power away. Buy this crystal, pray to this angel, do this workshop and you’ll get everything you want and finally be happy. FUN FACT: You cannot buy happiness with money. No, you really cannot. You can buy some pleasure, sure. But that’s just going to be a life of endless chasing. You buy happiness through offering your identity. Through letting go of the attachment to your ideas and your personality. We’re all about ‘this is my identity, I’ve gotta preserve it’ – No! That’s exactly what is holding you back, let it go.
If you chant affirmations or pray, pray for the support and guidance to help you become everything you need to become, and open up to new possibilities. Open up to the idea that there indeed is a way of being happy in the present, pathetic circumstances and that you’re going to find it. The rest actually flows pretty naturally. People have asked me many times what they should be doing in certain circumstances – and I’ve almost always replied that if they’re clear about their motivations – if they’re taking this action while being open to internal change – and if they’re tuned in to their heart, the path is always clear. If there is a conflict, it is usually because your belief systems or ulterior motives are interfering.
Lastly, you cannot really be the change unless you have a strong foundation first. A strong daily spiritual practice is essential, whether it is meditation, energy healing or something else. I would’ve said yoga too if that involved deep self-reflection, but today yoga seems more like acrobatics to me. Somehow people who can wrap their ankles around their necks are suddenly more spiritual. Anyway. We’ll leave that for another day.
I’ve always considered myself a feminist. But much of the movement in the name of feminism disturbs me deeply. It’s like today we celebrate when a woman ‘becomes a man’. Not that a woman should be forced to remain at home and care for her children, no. But it is like that just isn’t satisfying enough anymore. There was an interesting discussion in this context on my group recently, and I post it here because I thought it got interesting.
Ashwita women getting into air force.. fighter jets.. and all this concept of feminism…Isn’t current feminism trying to make women more masculine?
Is war masculine?
Yes feminism is pretty much dead. We’ve glorified and rewarded only masculine qualities and demeaned feminine qualities for decades. So it’s awesome for a woman to go out there and make money – we think she’s awesome, but when a man stays home to take care of the kids he’s somehow a lesser human being. The stars, the achievers, the providers have been glorified, the nourishers, the caretakers, the teachers have been trashed. A cricket star is bathed with money, a nursery teacher responsible for the future generation barely makes two ends meet. So you can see what we’ve prioritised as a society. In your own mind, if you were meeting a star and a nursery teacher, who would you be more interested in? That’s the problem.
And then of course the same gets applied within ourselves too, we prioritise our masculine qualities and downplay our feminine qualities. This works for women because they can get both. You see so frequently these days ‘be the man that you need’. Men suffer too here because then either they lose touch with their feminine altogether and become brutes or they move to the other end, becoming ‘the women that they need’. Now a days I see more kind and nourishing men than the women I meet.
War and aggression are masculine acts yes. Manipulation and brain washing are feminine.
(Someone else) I had a similar doubt. Each soul has different purpose. Should tasks be characterized just based on gender? Or one should put effort to look into soul of the partner/family member and support for its upliftment by doing for that soul (be it man being kind and nourishing)?
What makes you think that gender would limit the soul and take it away from its purpose? If the soul had a different purpose, it would have been born as a different gender.
The soul itself is colourless, odourless, limitless, property – less. It is only the mind that imagines a purpose, ideals, values, etc. If the focus of our life is simply to maximise each moment, we are already living out the real purpose of our life – which is for the soul to experience what it is like to be you.
My mom once said in this context. Go to a shop and look at plain cloth. You can use it for anything. But once it is stitched into a pant and shirt, then the pant goes on the lower body and the shirt on the upper body. Neither is superior or inferior.
Today in the name of freedom, pants want to be worn on the chest and shirts on the hips. To anyone looking at this objectively, it is nothing but ridiculous. We’ve turned everything into a chase these days, including experiences. Women want to become men, men want to become women and experience waxing and threading, the monthly cycles, labour pains, etc. Its insane. You’ll run out of your lifetime simply experiencing what it is like to be you, that’s how intense it is, but no, you’d rather abandon that and focus on trying to experience what it is like to be everybody else! (not you, I mean this generally)
(In response to ‘What makes you think that gender would limit the soul and take it away from its purpose?’) Frequently nowadays, people categorize the tasks, no males have to do this task, female have to do this task. So I thought, that does constant nudging can eventually take soul away from its purpose.
Yeah so who categorizes it? Like putting clothes in a washing machine is not a male or female task, it is a role assigned by the mind. Giving birth to a baby, breast-feeding, these are clearly female tasks. Chopping wood, clearly a male task. Opening a tight jar, clearly a male task 😁 the mind is screwed up for sure, that’s why our society is where it is today. If you’re confused, ask yourself this simple question – who would do this if I was alone? If you could do it, then it is your role too. If it wouldn’t have been possible, then it is clearly the role of the other.
If it is part of your life choices to marry and co-exist with another person (or even co-exist in another setting) then it isn’t about gender roles. It is about finding a balance and making things work more beautifully with that person. If we want to remain attached to your ideas of gender, then you need to be alone – and even then you might have to change them – a woman might have to pay the bills and fix the light-bulbs and a man might have to cook for himself and clean for himself. If you want to effectively function as a unit in harmony with another person, then you have to set your mental ideas aside and see how you can blend in and maximize the potential of that equation.
What about forgiving ourselves? How do we forgive ourselves for the decision we made?
Forgiving ourselves becomes an issue if we think that external situations control our capacity to be happy. If one choice could have made you happier and one less happier, then you are better off with the ‘wrong’ choice, because that wrong choice will help you learn much more effectively that choices – and external circumstances don’t have anything with your capacity for joy. When you realise this, forgiveness becomes redundant.
The second aspect is, if you are focused on a spiritual pathway, you are changing and growing everyday. So the person who made that wrong decision is not even who you are anymore, so who are you holding the grudge against?
I needed to hear this. But what if the decision is something not replaceable? Of course, all decisions are not replaceable, but for example, if we lose one job, we can get another job, or if we lose one lover, we can get another one. But what if the decision we made is something that we can never replace, then the it comes with regret. Yes it is true that we need to realise that external circumstances do not make us less happy… (ultimately), but how do we deal with such regret? Just see it as a “lesson”?
Then you ‘integrate it’ into your life. Ultimately we never chase things, we only chase how those things make us feel. So ask yourself what feeling you were chasing and remind yourself that you can feel that way without an external trigger
Hello Ashwita. Is marriage truly necessary. Concepts like – better half, one’s partner completing oneself and the Hindu concept of Marriage being one of the samskaras. Are they to be followed or is it OK and perhaps good in a certain way to not marry.
I have also heard a spiritual teacher say something like – some people come to this world to fulfill a bigger purpose and they aren’t meant to have a family.
Please share what according to you is the right perspective on this.
Things like ‘better half’, ‘completing oneself’ etc come from a space of deep unfulfillment and rarely bring sustainable joy. Ultimately, it is simple, vinasha kaale vipreet buddhi – when your time is bad, you’ll take all the wrong decisions, shun people who can guide you in the right direction and support you, and turn to those who will mislead you.
You ask ‘is marriage necessary’, and I ask ‘for what’?
As an antidote for loneliness, marriage is useful for about 2 years if you find the right partner, after which you will find yourself back at where you started. Ultimately you are lonely because you have abandoned yourself. The presence and the distraction of a partner can mask this for a couple of years. If you have a child after 2 years, you can mask it for longer, but you are only masking. Of course, if you marry the wrong partner you will simply be miserable and lonely for many years, so the point is defeated.
Many people think that life will become easier after marriage as there will be someone to share responsibilities. More often than not this is rarely the case. If anything, marriage doubles your responsibilities. If you want a man so that you’ll have someone who will.. I don’t know, pay the bills, drive you around, or if you want a woman who will maybe cook for you, do your laundry, take care of your parents – please, just learn to do all this yourself. Be the man/ woman you want to marry first, because if you don’t, any situation where your partner is incapable of fulfilling these needs will tear your marriage apart.
If you want a partner to raise children with, it may not be a bad idea, provided you find someone who will last with you peacefully until they’re old enough. Quite a hard task these days, but it may be worth trying. A child being raised in a toxic household is probably not a good idea, and single parents might just do a better job, so again it is debatable from this perspective.
If you want to ensure you will not end up alone in your old age, then it is pointless because chances are high your spouse will die 10-20 years before you do, your children will likely be abroad or far away and meet you once a year. If your spouse is alive, you will probably not be able to stand each other after a few decades of rubbing each other the wrong way – look at any couple that’s been together for 3+ decades and you’ll know what I mean. Very rare to find people who are genuinely happy spending time with each other and capable of talking to each other deeply after spending decades of growing apart and ignoring each other while they focus on kids and on making money. So in such a case it is better to simply marry when you start getting older so you find someone you are actually compatible with at 50 and someone who looks fit enough to last another 3 decades with you.
To increase the population and make sure human race is not wipedout from the face of the earth, marriage is a useful tool, yes – although this is a purpose that is long gone, what with 7.5 billion of us threatening to wipe out all other species instead.
To keep an order in the society, maybe marriage is a fairly useful tool… probably. As a therapist especially in India I have very little regard for marriage as I have seen marriage more as a tool which pushes people to have extra-marital affairs. People stay in marriage for the sake of the society and go have relationships with whoever they want, too afraid to be honest and open (even with themselves) about what they really want. This is slowly changing but anyone who is open and supportive enough to have friends who share their personal stories knows how rampant this still is.
Is marriage truly necessary if we want spiritual growth? No. For spiritual growth, nothing is truly necessary except brutal honesty with oneself and utmost sincerity and dedication towards the path. Everything else that you need to develop, the universe will bring into your life and you will surrender because you will know that that is right at that point in time, no matter what others, the society or the sacred books tell you. (Note that this is a dangerous thing if one is not brutally honest and completely sincere with oneself because then one can follow one’s wild fantasies in the name of ‘doing what feels right’ – this is what many of Osho’s disciples did and went completely haywire, and I still see a lot of people on the spiritual pathway doing this)
So – am I saying marriage is completely unnecessary? Well, yes and no. Is it necessary? I don’t believe it is, no. Unless maybe you’re going to need the paperwork or moving to Dubai where you will get arrested if you live without marriage, or unless you are having children and your country needs the parents to be married. If you do find a person you love deeply, who loves you back equally deeply and you both want to commit to each other, then marriage can be a truly beautiful, divine thing. But as with most divine things in the world, this is usually just defiled and used as a means to a whole lot of other ends.
Bottom-line? If you meet someone with whom giving seems natural and effortless, and it makes you want to spend the rest of your life making that other person happy, do it. Otherwise, take a good hard look at what you are really seeking and whether marriage really is going to fulfill that need.
