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Freedom in Love and Relationships
In the Gita, Lord Krishna explores karma yoga at great length. They say charity begins at home, what better way to be a karma yogi than with those closest to us?
This is a treatise on love and relationships. The ideas discussed here are based on personal experiences filtered through an analytical process, as well as the teachings of Vedānta unfolded by Swāmi Dayānanda Saraswati of Ārsha Vidyā Gurukulam.
INTRODUCTION:
Action in a Nutshell
Shruti-Yukti-Anubhava- Tools for Understanding Life
Knowledge and its Assimilation
DEFINING LOVE:
What is the fuss all about?
WHO IS A LOVED ONE?
The way you make me feel…
BEING IN A RELATIONSHIP AND EXPRESSING LOVE CORRECTLY:
Dharma- Doing the Right Thing
Remembering Goldilocks- Everything in Moderation
SHOWING MATURITY IN HANDLING PROBLEMS IN A RELATIONSHIP:
Communicating
Understanding and Perception
One and Two-step Responses- Acting, not Reacting
DEALING WITH BREAKUPS:
Conflict of Interest
Situational
CONCLUSION:
Growing in love, Rising in love, Freedom in Relationships
INTRODUCTION
Scriptures are not rulebooks- they are guidelines on how to improve one's quality of life by providing right knowledge to perform the right action. These actions are meant to bring about positive changes in our lives, as well as of those we interact with.
Actions (karma) can be performed in 3 ways:
Through the mind (mAnasa karma)
Through speech (vAchik karma)
Through the body (kAyika karma)
It all begins with a thought. Many make the mistake of attributing a wrong action only to the speech or body level, but a wrong action when backed by a wrong thought is the most morally reprehensible of all
ENTER LOVE
'Love' is an action word- a verb. When one says "I love”, this is an action; an expression of love.
What is further interesting to note is that ‘love’ is also an abstract noun. An abstract noun; simply put, is one which is not accessible to our five senses. Given its “abstract” nature, there really is no way one can discover love using either our senses or any instrument.
Love can only be cognized in the mind, and understood when expressed through speech or action. There is no way to know someone loves you unless they say or do something to that effect, by expressing it.
It took me a while to realize the full importance of the vedic statement “shruti-yukti-anubhavah”- we understand life in three-fold ways with the help of shruti (scripture), yukti (logic and reasoning), and anubhav (experience).
What is further interesting to note is that ‘love’ is also an abstract noun. An abstract noun; simply put, is one which is not accessible to our five senses. Given its “abstract” nature, there really is no way one can discover love using either our senses or any instrument.
Love can only be cognized in the mind, and understood when expressed through speech or action. There is no way to know someone loves you unless they say or do something to that effect, by expressing it.
It took me a while to realize the full importance of the vedic statement “shruti-yukti-anubhavah”- we understand life in three-fold ways with the help of shruti (scripture), yukti (logic and reasoning), and anubhav (experience).
Scripture gives us the direct meaning, logic and reasoning help understand it, and experience helps us assimilate it. Without assimilation, knowledge is of little use.
Assimilated knowledge sets one free, which is why it is referred to as ‘Jñāndīpak’. This flame of knowledge burns all ignorance, and with ignorance gone, there is no misery.
None of us are exempt from having made mistakes in relationships. The best we can do is learn from them and prepare ourselves to avoid the many possible pitfalls in the future. This is accomplished with a proper understanding of our feelings, and most importantly, of ourselves.
We learn, we assimilate and we grow. That is what life is all about. Let us now jump right into the bare basics of love and relationships.
DEFINING LOVE
Love is finding the pleased person (in you).
You love someone because there is an affinity for that person. Such a person pleases you. You feel good around the one you love, and that is nothing but discovering the pleased person in you. The way such an individual makes you feel becomes a quality that you superimpose upon them, when in reality it emerges from you. You compliment them by telling them how special and wonderful they are, only because you feel special and wonderful in their company.
If love for someone was entirely based on who they were, then the entire world would be in love with the same person, which is obviously not the case. Love always emerges from the self, not from any object or person.
This also explains why the woman who gave a permanent headache to the first husband, after re-marriage becomes the source of joy for her second one. The same individual with the same exact personality is capable of evoking two completely opposite reactions in different people.
You love someone because there is an affinity for that person. Such a person pleases you. You feel good around the one you love, and that is nothing but discovering the pleased person in you. The way such an individual makes you feel becomes a quality that you superimpose upon them, when in reality it emerges from you. You compliment them by telling them how special and wonderful they are, only because you feel special and wonderful in their company.
If love for someone was entirely based on who they were, then the entire world would be in love with the same person, which is obviously not the case. Love always emerges from the self, not from any object or person.
This also explains why the woman who gave a permanent headache to the first husband, after re-marriage becomes the source of joy for her second one. The same individual with the same exact personality is capable of evoking two completely opposite reactions in different people.
Thus it is evident that a person cannot be the right one or the wrong one, but a person can only be right or wrong FOR YOU. What’s right for you may be wrong for somebody else, and vice versa.
WHO IS A LOVED ONE?
As mentioned, love is finding the pleased self, and the person who evokes the pleased self in you, is the one you love.
There is nothing mechanical about it, it is absolutely natural, and understanding it does not in any way take away the feeling of magic associated with love.
That is why, such a person that you love very dearly may not always be able to comprehend why exactly is it that you love them, and yet you do, hence the only sensible thing to say to such a person is that you feel absolutely overjoyed in their presence and you love them for who they are and for how they make you feel. Not only is this answer very sweet, but also genuinely true.
There is nothing mechanical about it, it is absolutely natural, and understanding it does not in any way take away the feeling of magic associated with love.
That is why, such a person that you love very dearly may not always be able to comprehend why exactly is it that you love them, and yet you do, hence the only sensible thing to say to such a person is that you feel absolutely overjoyed in their presence and you love them for who they are and for how they make you feel. Not only is this answer very sweet, but also genuinely true.
BEING IN A RELATIONSHIP, AND THE CORRECT EXPRESSION OF LOVE
Dharma, is doing the right thing, at the right time.
To do dharma, one must know WHAT to do, then understand the situation and decide HOW to do it, and finally one must also know WHEN is the right time to do it. This is where the role of love as an action word comes into the picture
Express your love for a person in a way that is comfortable to both partners- yes, not everything we do may be likable to others. If you love the person you respect this, and learn to fine tune your expressions to keep things happy and healthy for everyone.
Excess of anything in life is unhealthy. Everything should be in moderation.
Water keeps us alive, in excess it drowns you.
Fats lubricate your joints, act as vitamin carriers and comprise your cell membranes; in excess it clogs your arteries and gives you heart attacks.
Expression of love is the oxygen that fuels a relationship; an overdose of it suffocates the loved one and pushes them away.
This is what I call the Goldilocks effect, try to find that sweet spot which is neither too much nor too little, but just right.
Someone once told me that making a blind person cross the road, even if he doesn’t want to go to the other side, is wrong. No matter how good our intentions are, if the action itself is wrong, and is only going to hurt them instead of helping them.
There is also a parable in the ‘Bhagavata Purana’, where a cow keeps licking the newborn calf out of affection, and each time the calf tries to stand on its own, the cow licks it again and it falls down. Too much of a good thing may become a bad thing
On the other hand, if you love them, but they feel you are not expressive enough, then please take that into consideration. Find a way to convey what they mean to you- say something sweet, do something nice for them, be refreshingly cute, or at your charming best. Make a kind gesture, take their hand in yours, tell them how special they are, and tell them how special they make you feel. Be lovable, romantic, do what pleases them, it will go a long way in keeping the relationship healthy.
Love- the noun is finding the pleased self in us, and love (the verb), is pleasing the one we love.
We can considerately modulate our expressions to suit the need. Love, in reality is only a win-win situation, if one truly understands what it is.
Saying “I love you” is a very easy thing to do. The best expression of love is understanding the loved one, and acting according to the situation, not reacting according to our instincts.
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Someone once told me that making a blind person cross the road, even if he doesn’t want to go to the other side, is wrong. No matter how good our intentions are, if the action itself is wrong, and is only going to hurt them instead of helping them.
There is also a parable in the ‘Bhagavata Purana’, where a cow keeps licking the newborn calf out of affection, and each time the calf tries to stand on its own, the cow licks it again and it falls down. Too much of a good thing may become a bad thing
On the other hand, if you love them, but they feel you are not expressive enough, then please take that into consideration. Find a way to convey what they mean to you- say something sweet, do something nice for them, be refreshingly cute, or at your charming best. Make a kind gesture, take their hand in yours, tell them how special they are, and tell them how special they make you feel. Be lovable, romantic, do what pleases them, it will go a long way in keeping the relationship healthy.
Love- the noun is finding the pleased self in us, and love (the verb), is pleasing the one we love.
We can considerately modulate our expressions to suit the need. Love, in reality is only a win-win situation, if one truly understands what it is.
Saying “I love you” is a very easy thing to do. The best expression of love is understanding the loved one, and acting according to the situation, not reacting according to our instincts.
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SHOWING MATURITY IN UNDERSTANDING AND HANDLING A RELATIONSHIP
Nobody’s relationship is perfect, aiming for such a thing would be foolish, and would only result in frustration. At some point of time everyone has been fraught with one problem or another. Problems will come and go. You cannot eradicate all of them completely; however what you can do is not contribute to it by making it worse.
An even better thing to do is to analyze the nature of the problem, by getting to its root, and finding a solution to it. This can only come by through mature understanding of both the problem and the person, keeping the two separate.
An even better thing to do is to analyze the nature of the problem, by getting to its root, and finding a solution to it. This can only come by through mature understanding of both the problem and the person, keeping the two separate.
COMMUNICATION:
I cannot stress the importance of communication enough, it is incredibly essential that as soon as a couple starts facing a problem in their relationship, they communicate it to one another.
Communication requires two entities; a speaker, and a listener.
It is absolutely necessary that the person who first senses a problem speaks up, and explains the nature of the problem as clearly as possible; making the other person understand their position.
Equally important is that the other person gives an opportunity to the first one to speak, and makes them comfortable enough to be able to express themselves. Both partners are responsible for their success or failure in communicating. Even this lack of communication has to be communicated, which is paradoxical, and sadly ironic. As you see, not communicating is a vicious circle, so the only choice one has is to do so in a timely manner, before it’s too late.
If a problem is discussed early on, there is still a chance it may be solved. Even if it is situational and not possible to solve, one can make reasonable decisions in time before things get much worse.
Communication requires two entities; a speaker, and a listener.
It is absolutely necessary that the person who first senses a problem speaks up, and explains the nature of the problem as clearly as possible; making the other person understand their position.
Equally important is that the other person gives an opportunity to the first one to speak, and makes them comfortable enough to be able to express themselves. Both partners are responsible for their success or failure in communicating. Even this lack of communication has to be communicated, which is paradoxical, and sadly ironic. As you see, not communicating is a vicious circle, so the only choice one has is to do so in a timely manner, before it’s too late.
If a problem is discussed early on, there is still a chance it may be solved. Even if it is situational and not possible to solve, one can make reasonable decisions in time before things get much worse.
UNDERSTANDING AND PERCEPTION:
We discussed the importance of communication. Let us suppose that a couple communicates well, but even after communication, there has to be an understanding of one another. Here is the second level of failure, and we will address.
Many of you might have heard the parable of the blind men and the elephant. Each of the blind men mistook the elephant to be something completely different. The first blind man touched the leg and thought it was a pillar; the second blind man touched the tail and thought it was a rope; the third touched the trunk and thought it was a tree, and so on.
Each one of us perceives life differently, and it is important to understand the reason or motivation why your loved one thinks or feels a certain way. What seems right to you may seem wrong to someone else, one has to develop an appreciation for these variegated perceptions, without it there can never be a beautiful acknowledgement of one another.
Please let there not be clashes of perception, try to see what your partner sees, and you might perhaps be enriched by that point of view as well, and even if you don’t agree, just acknowledging it, appreciating it, is enough to build a great rapport between the couple. Give the person a right to their views, just as you would expect a right to yours. This is a very beautiful practice, and will always make you accessible to each other.
When a loved one is angry, don't tell them to calm down, rather, try to understand the cause of their irritation, and wait for it to subside before approaching them gently.
It is very easy for all of us to ask someone to calm down, but can you get angry if I ask you to get angry? And I don’t mean simply act angry, I mean feel angry, just for 30 seconds. Of course you can't, because no one wishes to get angry on purpose, there is always a reason behind that anger, rather than criticize the act of anger, wait for an opportune moment and try to find out the cause. There is likelihood that you yourself may have done something wrong, and this would be a good opportunity to rectify.
Many of you might have heard the parable of the blind men and the elephant. Each of the blind men mistook the elephant to be something completely different. The first blind man touched the leg and thought it was a pillar; the second blind man touched the tail and thought it was a rope; the third touched the trunk and thought it was a tree, and so on.
Each one of us perceives life differently, and it is important to understand the reason or motivation why your loved one thinks or feels a certain way. What seems right to you may seem wrong to someone else, one has to develop an appreciation for these variegated perceptions, without it there can never be a beautiful acknowledgement of one another.
Please let there not be clashes of perception, try to see what your partner sees, and you might perhaps be enriched by that point of view as well, and even if you don’t agree, just acknowledging it, appreciating it, is enough to build a great rapport between the couple. Give the person a right to their views, just as you would expect a right to yours. This is a very beautiful practice, and will always make you accessible to each other.
When a loved one is angry, don't tell them to calm down, rather, try to understand the cause of their irritation, and wait for it to subside before approaching them gently.
It is very easy for all of us to ask someone to calm down, but can you get angry if I ask you to get angry? And I don’t mean simply act angry, I mean feel angry, just for 30 seconds. Of course you can't, because no one wishes to get angry on purpose, there is always a reason behind that anger, rather than criticize the act of anger, wait for an opportune moment and try to find out the cause. There is likelihood that you yourself may have done something wrong, and this would be a good opportunity to rectify.
ONE-STEP AND TWO-STEP RESPONSES:
Sometimes the partner’s behaviour might seem absolutely unreasonable and unacceptable. There is no explanation for why they act a certain way, in such a case you can either make things distasteful, and blame the person for doing something wrong, or you can be a considerate human being and try to appreciate that there must be a background, something that is causing your loved one to behave in this peculiar way.
Although at present there is no answer/explanation for this behaviour, just acknowledge that there must be a reason, and leave the reason alone temporarily if the partner cannot speak about it, and focus on how you can make yourself more accommodating and supportive in a situation like this. This is when you need each other the most, so please make yourself available, and reach out in a way that suits the situation.
A one-step response would be reacting in a way your mind demands, merely on impulse- shouting, pressurizing and saying things that you might regret later on.
A two-step response would be taking into consideration the loved one’s plight, their state of mind, and then figuring out a mature way to be loving, supportive, and affectionate, without taking up the partner’s space. Neither push yourself too hard, nor distance yourself too much. Just be as accommodative, kind and supportive as your partner would want you to be.
Even in a one step-step response, one may love and care for the partner, but these good feelings become vestigial, lying there buried and are of no use when they are most required, so please avoid these one-step responses, they will hurt you and your loved one for no good reason. Nobody is born with this knowledge, we learn through time, through experience, and a discriminative understanding of right and wrong, and also based on how our inherent nature is.
The past cannot be changed, if we have committed these mistakes, the first thing to do is acknowledge that we were wrong, sincerely ask for forgiveness, and resolve not to repeat them.
Even understanding where we have gone wrong is “knowledge”, and there is no better way to apologize than by setting an example through our actions, minus the same errors. This is the true test of assimilation, and whether we pass or not is clearly indicated in our behaviour.
Although at present there is no answer/explanation for this behaviour, just acknowledge that there must be a reason, and leave the reason alone temporarily if the partner cannot speak about it, and focus on how you can make yourself more accommodating and supportive in a situation like this. This is when you need each other the most, so please make yourself available, and reach out in a way that suits the situation.
A one-step response would be reacting in a way your mind demands, merely on impulse- shouting, pressurizing and saying things that you might regret later on.
A two-step response would be taking into consideration the loved one’s plight, their state of mind, and then figuring out a mature way to be loving, supportive, and affectionate, without taking up the partner’s space. Neither push yourself too hard, nor distance yourself too much. Just be as accommodative, kind and supportive as your partner would want you to be.
Even in a one step-step response, one may love and care for the partner, but these good feelings become vestigial, lying there buried and are of no use when they are most required, so please avoid these one-step responses, they will hurt you and your loved one for no good reason. Nobody is born with this knowledge, we learn through time, through experience, and a discriminative understanding of right and wrong, and also based on how our inherent nature is.
The past cannot be changed, if we have committed these mistakes, the first thing to do is acknowledge that we were wrong, sincerely ask for forgiveness, and resolve not to repeat them.
Even understanding where we have gone wrong is “knowledge”, and there is no better way to apologize than by setting an example through our actions, minus the same errors. This is the true test of assimilation, and whether we pass or not is clearly indicated in our behaviour.
DEALING WITH BREAK-UPS
CONFLICT OF INTEREST:
In such a case, where the couple isn’t compatible with each other, or has different goals in life and different expectations from one another, or just cannot get along at all, it is a good thing to have broken up. Why fool yourselves and pull on for longer than necessary? Not every relationship is meant to be, and sometimes it’s best to find out sooner and part ways with some dignity, before it becomes more painful.
If the conflict of interest is superficial, then please have a mature dialogue and see what can be done about it before taking a decision. Just as while being in a relationship, communication is important even while leaving a relationship.
SITUATIONAL:
There are a variety of reasons here. Religion, caste, race, family pressure- all of these are situational reasons which may often be resolved through dialogue. The couple may be perfectly compatible, but due to the factors mentioned above, their relationship cannot last, and things wear out. In this situation, again try to speak to one another, explore the possible options.
Also, if you love someone enough, and they care for you but don't share the same feelings, you should stop right there, because they will only feel guilty they cannot reciprocate it. Their guilt cause them pain, their pain will hurt you, and your pain will in turn hurt them further. It just doesn’t work this way.
Please remember, a relationship can never be forceful, if you want to be with someone, that someone must also want to be with you. Anything else would be an obligation, and the relationship will collapse in no time.
There is no love without trust, trust the person you love to make the right decision, continue loving them in a way that is appropriate to the time and situation, and after having once expressed your feelings for them, have faith that anything they decide will be in your best interest, as well as theirs. If nothing works out, you’ve had your time together, and now you have to let it go. It is one of the most difficult things to do, but it is the only right thing to do.
If you truly love someone, you are there for them in the way they want you to be.
CONCLUSION
In the Vedic tradition of marriage, there is a beautiful custom where the bride and groom make sacred vows to each other in the form of prayers.
“I give you my heart”, both of them recite this at the same time
“May you approve of my way of thinking and acting, and may I approve of yours”, this is a prayer for both parties as well. They approve of the other’s thinking, and thus validate each other. This is how people grow enough to gain freedom in relationships.
Love is all about freedom, making one accepting OF another, and in turn also being acceptable TO another. In love there is a freedom of individuality, and the warmth of togetherness. It is the best of both worlds.
When you start taking away someone's freedom, it is because of your own limitations and insecurities, and your very lack of that freedom. You are as free as the freedom you extend to others. Those who understand this will no longer “fall” in love, they will rise in love.
May each one of us find that freedom by being in a relationship with the one we love, may we approve them of who they are, may we in turn be approved by them.
God bless you and yours.
Hari: Om
