Beautiful bonds

[1]

Sadhguru Jaggi Vasudev [1]

There are many types of relationships in your life.There are neighbours, friends, wives, husbands, children, parents, siblings and lovers, as well as people you hate — everything is a relationship. Fundamentally, all relationships in your life exist because you have certain needs, be it physical, mental, emotional, social, financial etc.

You try to establish a certain type of relationship to fulfil whatever kind of need you have. If that need is not fulfilled, that relationship cannot survive.
There is another way to exist, and that is experientially, where one can exist without any relationship. One is so complete in himself that relationships do not matter. But right now, for most people, the quality of their relationships decides the quality of their life. So let’s see how we can have the most beautiful relationship, every moment of our lives, wherever we are.
If you look at your life, you will see that you are always trying to make yourself happy by building different types of relationships and doing different types of activities. You make friends, you get married, you have children, you start businesses — you do all this and more because you believe that this will bring you happiness. You build all these relationships in pursuit of happiness. Or, in other words, you are trying to squeeze some happiness out of people. However, once you do this, relationships will be a constant trouble. You cannot do without them, you cannot do with them. If there is no sense of joy or happiness within you and you are trying to extract it from somebody and that person is trying to extract it from you, this is bound to become a battle.
If relationships have to be really beautiful, it is important that a human being turns inward and looks at himself in a deep way before he looks at somebody else. If you become a source of joy by yourself, then you will have wonderful relationships. Relationships are about sharing your joy, not squeezing joy out of somebody. There will hardly be anyone in the world who would have any problem if you share your joy with them. If you try to extract joy from them, that is where the problem starts. Relationships have become a problem because we are not using it to enhance our lives. We are trying to fill the gaps in our lives with relationships.
If your relationship is about extracting something out of somebody, it does not matter how much you manage, there will be constant trouble. If your relationship is an offering to the person who is next to you right now, then everything will be fantastic.