There is one key ingredient missing in relationships in todays world, and that is the ability to relate.
This is because the way that society has pitched relationships to us from birth is in the form of ownership.
People are not being seen or respected as individuals with the innate need for autonomy and sovereignty, but as utilities and even commodity.
In the advent of agricultural culture, land became a thing to acquire, and own and to secure its inheritance so did women and children. From there, the arrival of the industrial revolution which saw the ownership of the land and people fall into the hands of governmental powers that turned individuals into trading stock with no room for personal choice or compassion.
Here we are in the digital age, far from the community of sharing of all that was enjoyed by the tribe or nomad, where none were independent or dependant, but interdependent. The people of the past had to relate with the land in season, and each other in order to survive. The family was the entire group and thus the respect of the the individual was in as highly regarded as the total clan.
We live in an age of incredible opportunity. But for what? To own, gain, and control? Never has there been such a time in which an individual can be free to express who they truely are, and yet the choice has been made by most to express who they truely are not.
If you where to ask an individual if they are living from their heart and truth, many would give a confused look of “what does that mean.”?
How can we be our true selves when we have become so disconnected to where we come from. The earth is simply commodity, and people as a means of capital and acquirement. We are made to promise and vow in exchange for our dreams, and to commit not out of truth, but what is best for society. But what even is society? But an idea, a rule, and a means to control.
This societal structure is built upon the foundation of slavery and conformity with the ideology of the greater good, and it’s trickle down into the relationships we endeavour to experience uncovers the learning we have gained to own the other.
To relate, is to see the other, to hear the other, and to respect that they have the same right to be, feel, and share as the self.
To relate is to be ever fresh to the moment without carrying the contamination of the past. It is to set aside motive and acquisition and connect in a way that says we are each within our own rights to be who we are.
Marriage is full of promise, but who can actually keep a promise when no one controls the universe.
To relate is to drop all promises and simply be true to yourself, whilst allowing the other to be true to themselves. To relate is not to want FROM the other, but to want FOR the other.
To relate is to want the other to be free. And, in understanding this, who doesn’t have great love for the one that has liberated them.
To relate is to forget the confines of a decided moral, but to let morality birth naturally from within.
To relate is to leave behind the Ideal of the relationship in its confinement, and unfurl the wings of relating that are acceptance and freedom.
To relate, is the deepest trust of not needing to secure, but to simply be and let be.
Relationships fail, the evidence is clear. But relating has its roots in eternity.
Let there be light
Saddhanta Ananda
LIVING ESSENCE 