The Main Take-Away
There is one main take-away from Vedanta that has the most power to transform your life, and it is that all the trouble we experience in our lives boils down to one simple fact: we are unhappy because we did not get or do not have what we think we want/need. Thus we chase objects because we feel incomplete and insecure, and we get angry, insecure and miserable when we do not get what we want. Which tends to happen a lot when we have no objectivity over our likes and dislikes because life is a zero-sum game. No matter how much you chase your desires, you will always come up short, for one simple reason: the joy is not in objects but in you. You are what you desire. That’s it. It is simple, but not easy to accept or to master.
No Island is An Island
Romantic relationships give us the most trouble, but whether we are in one or not, unless we are very ill or insane, we must relate to others. Life is a series of relationships, long and short. This is true whether we are talk about romantic, familial or platonic relationships. We may think of ourselves as individual entities, and our inner subjective world feels and is unique to us. But in truth, the individual cannot be separated from society. No man is an island because no island is an island. Everything in the transactional reality is connected to everything else all the time. Our happiness depends on our relationships to a great extent, whether we run towards them or away from them.
Vedanta is not for or against relationships. As inquirers seeking moksa, the need for a relationship is only an impediment if it creates dependence on an object in the form of ‘the other’ for our happiness.
Good Relationships Are a Boon to Life
Good relationships undoubtedly exist that offer much that is positive; physical and emotional intimacy are as important as psychological intimacy. Having a sounding board and a witness to our life, someone we trust and feel totally comfortable with, who loves us and shares our values but also calls us on our lesser selves with goodwill. Who allows us a sense of security and stability, and of course, provides the valuable benefits of friendship. Most of us want that, right?
Not everyone does. As there is nothing right or wrong with having a relationship, there is nothing right or wrong with choosing a solitary life. It is certainly preferable to being in a relationship for the wrong reasons. While it is a documented fact that people in good relationships have a higher general sense of well-being and live longer happier lives, that does not change the fact that nobody has the power to make you feel loved and valued if you do not value and love yourself. Or the fact that bad relationships, of which there are more than good ones, drastically reduce the quality of our lives. I am sure there are few among us who have not been down that road at some point in our lives. Why is this?
Incompleteness Causes Relationships
The uncomfortable truth is that it is not relationships or the lack of them that cause incompleteness and unhappiness. Incompleteness and unhappiness causes relationships. Chasing love or a relationship implies a dependence on something or someone outside of yourself to make you happy. This is very problematic because all objects of desire exist in duality–the transactional reality–including the person we take ourselves to be. No matter how much we delude ourselves that we can control objects, everything is in a constant state of change, which includes our and our beloveds’ feelings. No object can make us happy for long because nothing in the transactional reality stays the same. No wonder we are so anxious about securing and hanging onto love in this world.
At the same time, incompleteness also causes us to run from or avoid relationships. If I avoid relationships because I am afraid of true intimacy and have no idea how to love, I may feel I have dodged a bullet, but have I? No, I have not. My life will be shallow because for life to be rewarding it requires sacrifice. All relationships require work and some compromise, but mostly, they require opening yourself to giving and receiving love. That is risky, but you cannot save your life by never risking it.
So what I am really looking for?
I Seek Freedom from Incompleteness
Freedom from dependence on objects for our happiness requires a very different orientation because we do not enter relationships for freedom. While most of us think we enter relationships for love, in truth we enter relationships because we are seeking freedom from a feeling of incompleteness. If I am convinced that love is an object-oriented experience, I do not want freedom. I want to attach myself to someone. Well, perhaps I want freedom from loneliness, but freedom from loneliness is not permanent freedom. In fact, I can commit to someone and feel lonelier than ever, even if they do love me. I sure most of us have had that experience.
The need for love is not love. And the fulfillment of the desire for love is not love, even though it initially feels like it is. If we ask for love from someone, our hearts are targets for pain because that heightened feeling of love wears off sooner or later. Unfortunately, lasting happiness is seldom produced by people who do not really know what love is, particularly confused, lonely people looking for love from confused, lonely people whom they hope will end their emptiness but are incapable of doing so.
The Need for Security is Built-In
It is very human to seek security through relationships, it’s built-in for most. But it has a serious downside. If we base our entire sense of self and happiness on relationships, that dependence is a source of limitation and suffering because our true nature as the limitless Self is free of dependence on any object for happiness. Yet we are taught from a young age that security and happiness lie in finding the ‘missing’ part of ourselves. Because of this, most (Western) love relationships are extremely high maintenance. We relentlessly seek them and enter them loaded with the pressure of impossible expectations imposed on us by our conditioning and by society.
We expect them to take care of us, and make us happy, safe, entertained, stimulated, and excited about life. We enter transactional contracts based on extracting what we want, instead of giving who we are. It is no wonder that these impossible demands cause so much misery and unhealthy co-dependence. In seeking someone who will love us and make us feel secure, most of us do not examine why we are chasing happiness outside ourselves. We experience repetitive patterns in our relationships or failure at them, whether platonic or romantic. Without understanding that we are the problem, we repeat the same relationship with different people seldom finding satisfaction.
You Are Not Who You Think You Are
So, if the need for connection is built-in but dependence on others for happiness is the road to bondage and suffering, and seeking satisfaction of desires in relationships is not the royal road to lasting happiness, what is? The answer to that depends on if we are ready for self-inquiry. If we are, we want freedom from the one who believes themselves to be separate, incomplete, chases after objects, and suffers as a result. The central message of Vedanta is that you are not the needy incomplete person you think you are. You are whole and complete, unchanging, ever-present, non-dual Consciousness. For that, you need nothing. But to actualize that knowledge, you do need qualifications.
The Qualifications for A Good Relationship
While relationship advice is plentiful and books on the topic are often best sellers, it is a great shame that nobody teaches that qualifications for a good relationship are essential. And they do exist, but they require a very clear set of values, or what can be termed relationship dharma. The success of a relationship depends on following this dharma, which boils down to the rules of love. The rules or qualifications and values for a good relationship are the same as most of those required for self-inquiry. They are non-negotiable, assuming you want a good relationship and a peaceful mind. The first qualification is that the joy is never in the object, and dependence on objects is the source of unhappiness because life is a zero sum; the second is dispassion – the ability to be objective about our thoughts and emotions; the third is forbearance, the ability to accommodate, and fourth is a no-brainer – control of speech and of the senses. If we know this going in to a relationship, and do not have all the qualifications and values, we can develop them. But sadly most people don’t because deep psychological conditioning is in the way.
Psychological Problems are the Main Problem: If you have a ton of unresolved psychological issues, your mind will be focused on getting what you want, or avoiding what you don’t want, not on why you want or don’t want it. And it’s the why that really matters.
The psychology involved in our relationships will determine every other area of our lives, such as sex, associations, money, work, etc. There is no one magic formula for a happy life or relationship, no utopia where we all live happily-ever-after. But Vedanta provides the logic behind why relationships are so difficult and the tools to work with them, which, if applied correctly, do work for everyone because they are in harmony with the logic of Existence. It is up to you to make sure your life is congruent with this logic, and not try to make it work the other way around, because that will never result in lasting happiness.
When our lives are subjugated to the logic of Existence, life flows as it must. Although this is no immunity against loss and pain, we see ourselves to be much more than the sum of our gains and losses in this world. That we are perfect as we are, whole and complete, satisfied, no matter who is or is not in our lives.
Past Conditioning Primary Imprint
We are all born with a particular nature that predisposes us to relate to people in a certain way. Sadly, many of us don’t carry around a very high opinion of ourselves. We struggle to feel our own value or believe that anyone could truly care for us. This low opinion is often the work of a “critical inner voice” we all possess, which is like an enemy in our head that constantly tries to bring us down. I call it the voice of diminishment. It makes us feel unlovable and doubtful of anyone’s feelings toward us, fostering critical and suspicious attitudes toward ourselves, our partners, and relationships in general.
Because this voice is shaped by painful childhood experiences and critical attitudes to which we were exposed and then developed towards ourselves, it’s hard to shake it. Allowing someone to love us is the ultimate challenge to the inner critic, and it will not go down without a fight, even though we may be convinced we want love. Our critical inner voice is all about preserving our negative sense of identity, or the adaptive child program, which is more interested in self-preservation than intimacy. No matter that this identity is not benign, we are deeply attached to it usually, unconsciously, because of the protective feelings we have around our past. Human nature can be perverse. Often, if we had to see ourselves as okay, this forces us to let go of our painful life story. But because we are afraid of our world collapsing if we do, we remain steadfastly committed to attacking ourselves. Worse, we feel threatened when another person sees us another way, even if it is positive. We push love away. When is it enough already?
Our Attachment Patterns
The most profound influence on the way we behave in relationships is the attachment pattern we experienced as children. Our life stories, based on subconscious content that creates our likes and dislikes, are, for the most part, chronicles of our unresolved psychological issues. They consist of the unhappy villainous parts of ourselves that embarrass us and do not enhance our reputations. They also include virtuous positive traits, which sadly, we all too often also deny.
Until we are conscious of these patterns, we unconsciously seek partners as stand-ins for those who damaged us because they over-indulged us, were indifferent, and did not love us, abandoned, or abused us either emotionally and/or physically. Without some self-awareness and objectivity, we land up living pain-filled lives tainted with the unnecessary and pointless burden of blaming our caregivers for our unhappiness while seeking partners who are much like them.
Recreating Our Childhood Relationships
Unknown to many because the inner child and unexamined likes and dislikes are operating unconsciously in the background, we try to recreate within our adult relationships the feelings we knew so well in childhood.. All maladaptive unconscious child responses to life result in damaged self-esteem, anxiety, and repressed anger, fractured, unhappy and destroyed relationships. It is what sends many people to seek therapy as adults because the damage is deeply buried.
Relationship with Your Likes and Dislikes
If we have not recognized and started to negate our adaptive child program, chances are we are not relating to another person in our relationship. Though everyone ostensibly seeks the perfect complementary soulmate, in reality many are in a relationship with their wounded persona, their inner child with its likes and dislikes, fears, and desires. Wounded people relate to life through the filters of the unconscious content of their minds, wanting life to give them what they feel they never got and deserve. And it is these expectations that are the death knell for good relationships. It’s a sad state of affairs because life will give us the karma we are meant to have not what we want or demand.
The Mind Creates the Narrative BUT
Our Love-Deficit Cannot be Remedied by Anyone
If our past has damaged our ability to love ourselves, and in our low self-esteem we deny both our positive and negative qualities, it will sour all our relationships. If we don’t love ourselves or believe we are worthy of love, how can we love others? We won’t, it’s that simple. No matter how much love is lavished on you, if you do not love yourself, it will not have any effect. It’s like water off a duck’s back. When crippling low self-esteem (which is the basis for most negative habits) rules our unconscious thoughts and impulses, happy relationships are highly unlikely, even if you have someone who loves you.
Not only because we believe we are unworthy, but because we are looking for someone to correct our self-love deficit, which will never happen. It is not possible because this only takes place when you learn to love yourself. If this does not take place, you will be a needy insecure, anxious person in or out of relationships, incapable of giving or receiving love. Looking for and chasing love in all the wrong places. Or you will deny your inner lack, internalize your love need, and shut down on love even if it should come your way.
The Solution: The All-Important Life Tools for Relationships
You may well benefit from a good therapist to help unwind your psychological patterns. In addition, the two psychological tools Vedanta provides us with to deal with the ups and downs of life and are
1. Develop the qualifications! There is no way around this, if you want a happy life.
2. Conduct a Fearless Moral Inventory – Make a Value/Dharma Contract. You are the only true loser if you don’t
3. Karma Yoga: the understanding that life is a gift, that I can act appropriately but only the Total, or God, is in charge of the results. Gratitude and devotion are the best attitudes. This helps me to see everyone in my life as God.
4. Mind Management: Understanding and identifying the subconscious content of your mind in light of the three energies behind all creation, subtle and gross: the three gunas, rajas (desire/passion), tamas (denial/sloth) and sattva