Monday, October 5, 2020
Chicago, IL
Dear Prea,
You’re absolutely right that love, when you find the right partner that “fits” perfectly, is easy. Then, love becomes not about making things work but about enjoying something that already works smoothly. You don’t have to try, you just have to be, and experience the warmth of another person who just gets it. But it requires everyone in the relationship to be on the same page and have the same unfailing attitude towards each other – that of absolute understanding, egolessness, and vulnerability.
I feel that it is not just about finding someone who agrees with you 100% of the time (something we subconsciously need when assessing the “fit” of a potential partner). Rather, it is about someone who, despite perhaps having different sensibilities or tastes and different opinions, is completely open to who you are and whom you are completely open to in return. It is about the attitude with which you enter into a relationship. It no longer feels like compromise, but simply a witnessing of the other person as they are and showering them with acceptance. Reveling in the other person’s happiness. This is said to be the central attitude of a self-realized person in eastern philosophies. One who feels happiness in another’s happiness, and one who feels pain in another’s pain. One who sees their own self in the other and one in whom others see themselves. One who is not afraid of another and one whom others are not afraid of. Although these are traditional descriptions of spiritually realized people in old Sanskrit literature, I think they also describe the experience of the highest kind of love.
You asked how I came to be the way I am in a relationship. To tell you the truth, I had a lot of help. I got hurt in love a couple times, and I watched the way I acted and reacted (and was called out on it a bunch) and ultimately I realized a couple of things.
First, I observed that there is a principle of cause and effect, a kind of karma, at play in a microcosmic way in a relationship. While everything is fine and there are no disagreements, there isn’t a problem, no need to discuss relationship advice. But when you disagree, if you choose to make that issue a problem, and feel pricked if things don’t go your way all the time, then you get heated – this is the start of a particular loss of control over your emotions, followed by words, followed by actions. That heat results in fighting, being harsh, and pain. The pain you cause in a fight only begets more pain in the future. This cycle repeats itself over and over again until you break up or decide to change. Mostly it results in the former.
Second, I understood that I don’t lose anything by recognizing and accepting that I am wrong. I only gain! Every time I have accepted my own error, I have strengthened myself by adopting the improved understanding as my new position. Thus, when I enter into a disagreement, I always enter it with the knowledge that I may be wrong, and the willingness to accept my error and grow from an improved understanding. That’s why I think, along with the fact that you naturally do this too, our disagreements never have heat. Of course I say that you do this too because without it being mutual, this disagreement-without-heat wouldn’t be possible. So like I was saying, it is the attitude with which you enter into a relationship, not the fact that you have everything in common (though this does help), that ultimately results in a love that is expansive and freeing and easy.
As for our privilege to be able to enjoy this while the world is in shambles, and while others in the world are struggling to survive, you are right. I too struggle with this issue. Do we deserve to enjoy, while there are others in the world who can’t afford to? And yet, would it not be a disservice to others for us not to enjoy whatever simple joys we get, when there are those who would die to be in our position? It’s like when Kuroko tells Aomine that he shouldn’t stop practicing for games, because even though it takes everything Kuroko has to keep up with everyone else, if he were Aomine’s opponent, he would never want Aomine to not play his best. Or, similarly, when Chuckie tells Will about the best part of his day in Good Will Hunting.
However, it is also true, I think, that in order for us to truly experience our personal happiness, we must always be engaged in the work of bringing the opportunity for that kind of happiness to everyone. If we are doing whatever we can to help, then it is only beneficial to our cause to be happy ourselves as well. If we forsake our own happiness because we feel we don’t deserve it, then what help will we ever be to anyone else? With what energy and motivation will we be forces for change in our own lives? It is the uplifting power of love that makes the world go ’round.
The question, then, is how we should engage ourselves in the service of others that is most beneficial to all. What do you think is the best form of dedicating ourselves to making some change towards a better world? Is that why you chose to become a teacher? I know we’ve talked about this before but I’d love to hear your thoughts again…
Love always,
Varun