Dear Sundari
What is Vedanta’s ‘real’ take on relationships? I have read your book, the Yoga of Relationships, and benefitted a great deal from it. But I am still confused by what the bottom line is about this, most specifically, romantic relationships. I see many people my age (65+) who have lived lives of disappointment and unfulfilled love needs. I understand the basic premise of Vedanta, the joy is never in the object, I absolutely get that chasing love, or giving in to this desire, is futile. But this need for love still persists. I guess I just have a long way to go to be free of this desire.
What intrigues me is how a free person, such as you, could be in a relationship and why?
Sundari: The difficulty of Vedanta is assimilating the both/and of the teachings. On the one hand, it tells you upfront that you are whole and complete, nondual ever-present Existence, shining as Consciousness, and that your ‘true nature’ is Love. No-one can give this to you or take it away. You do not need to chase or depend on objects because all objects depend on you. You are what you seek. And on the other hand, the scripture tells you that there are no rules for a free person. How to reconcile being the Self with the apparent person, who does exist? Well, herein lies all the teaching.
It is a natural human need to seek love and attention, to be held, known and seen. There is nothing wrong with this, it’s beautiful. Duality makes it possible to enjoy apparent objects. But the problem with duality is that it tends to make us believe that we depend on these objects for our happiness. And that is a recipe for both joy and suffering because the joy that comes from objects actually comes from you, the Self, not the objects. No object can be relied upon because firstly they are not in your control and secondly, they are inherently unreliable – i.e., always changing. Believing joy comes from objects sets the stage for a whole chain of karma, starting with ownership, dependency, fear of loss, the inevitable disappointment when the object does not measure up, and ultimately, the grief of loss, whether through the relationship changing, ending or death.
There are ways that humans try to protect themselves from the pain of disappointment and loss, from denying their needs to elaborate means to hold onto objects. Neither work. While nonduality, the science of Consciousness, can seem to the uninformed like another (small) self-centered cop out, it isn’t. To be centered in the Self actually is to truly know the meaning of love, and what it means to love ‘another’. This includes loving the apparent person for who they are as a person, with their Isvara given nature and quirks, and as the Self. It sounds like a contradiction but it isn’t. That does not mean it is easy.
A ‘free person’ as you put it, is an oxymoron because if you are free of the person you know you are not a person but the Self. Yet to all outside appearances, you are still, very much a person. Acting in the world, fulfilling needs and desires with feelings coming and going, the same way anyone else identified with being a person experiences life. So, what gives? Well, the difference is subtle, invisible – and huge. It is simply that as a free person, your desires are unbinding, your feelings are transitory objects known to you. You love happily and deeply, but not for happiness or depth. This import of this statement can easily be missed.
As for why I am ‘in’ a relationship – the answer is why not? A free person would not be free if they were not free to experience what is natural, meaning love. But for a free person the both/and of loving (as with any other feeling, positive or negative) is always resolved in the undeniable truth of their own Existence – capital ‘E”. The difference with love as your nature with love as a feeling is that the former does not come and go, whereas love as a feeling, does. Love as a feeling is a reflection of Love as your nature. It is the same but not.
So, while it may be true for a free ‘person’ as much as for a non-free person, that relationships end or change, the love that underpins them never does. Even if another love should appear, there are no differences in love. Love is the same, no matter where it is directed. While some people in our lives occupy a seemingly ‘special’ place, and have a certain dharma attached to them (such as monogamous love relationships), love is the same for anyone else because the source is you, the Self. For a free person, the overriding status of all relationships, even passionate love relationships, is friendship. The Self sees everyone as a loving friend.
There is a beautiful quote by CS Lewis on friendship that I love – because friend can be substituted with lover:
“Friendship is unnecessary,” he wrote, “like philosophy, like art, like the universe itself (for God did not need to create). It has no survival value; rather it is one of those things that give value to survival itself”
All that makes life beautiful is unnecessary to the Self, who has no need for a universe, for beauty, or to survive because it is that which makes beauty beautiful, and it is unborn. But how much poorer our lives as the apparent self, who is the Self, be, without friends, lovers, art, philosophy, or the universe itself. God does not need to create, yet we have this beautiful playground to play in. Why not enjoy it, especially when you know the playground depends on you?
Much love
Sundari
ShiningWorld.com
