Question: Why do relationships become so complex, especially between girlfriend and boyfriend or husband and wife?
Ans: If relationships are body-based, the excitement about each other’s bodies will usually die after some time. What you thought of as the ultimate is not ultimate after some time. It is natural that people begin to grow out of it when the main draw which brought them together starts to melt away. Without knowing why, they start being unpleasant to each other because, essentially, such a relationship is about extracting sweetness and happiness from another person.
If you try to squeeze the joy out of someone, after some time, when it does not yield the same results as it used to, in the beginning, some bitterness will begin. Certain things may happen as you start growing older. From yesterday to today, you are a little older. So, today, while you are young, you must think of all the relationships that you hold in your life — not just biological relationships — in terms of an expression of joy, not an extraction of joy.
For this to happen, you must first become joyful by your own nature. If you focus on becoming an exuberant overflow of joy, and your relationship is about sharing this joy, you do not have to worry about the normal circus that people go through in their relationships. If this happens, your relationships will not be need-based.
A relationship may not stay just in one area of life. Once people are together, they will have to share many things. Naturally, you will start stepping on each other’s toes for many small things that happen. Because of this, there will be many interactions — or you can even call them altercations — that will happen.
When relationships are need-based, if what you need does not come, you will start cribbing. You will start complaining and feeling bitter that you are not getting what you are supposed to get. If you just eliminate this need within you, you can hold fabulous relationships with every kind of person, irrespective of who they are. They do not have to be like you. May you have the most beautiful relationships in your life.
(Ranked amongst the 50 most influential people in India, Sadhguru is a yogi, mystic, visionary and bestselling author. Sadhguru has been conferred the “Padma Vibhushan”, India’s highest annual civilian award, by the Government of India in 2017, for exceptional and distinguished service.)
