Thursday, 17 September 2015

When does love hurt?

According to Psychcentral, the chances of infidelity over the course
of your entire relationship is 25 percent
I think it is expectation that hurts more than anything else. We expect a certain 'kind' of love from someone and when that person fails to make us feel loved the way we want to, the result is that we feel hurt.
For me, love consists of three components and if any one of these is missing, I will feel unloved.
  1. Understanding
  2. Care
  3. Support
Keeping this view in mind, let me make an attempt of redefining love.

I have witnessed that people are more focused on things like buying gifts and being on Whatsapp for hours and meeting regularly over a coffee. Although, these actions do form a part of expression of love but these actions are like rituals that may keep a relationship alive. However, they are not the determinants of whether the love between you and the other person is true or not. These are simply ways of understanding each other on an emotional level.

The question is- Is understanding and care going hand in hand?

If understanding is accompanied with a lack of care then it simply means that your 'interest' in your partner is dying down (for whatever reasons) and if care is good but understanding is missing then sooner or later your partner will feel like he or she is with a mechanical caretaker and not a life partner.

To conclude, I think that love is a blend of understanding and care and if any one out of these two is missing then a total collapse of what you perceive as 'Love' awaits, which in turn makes one feel that 'love' hurts.

In addition to this, being in one-sided love is equally painful.

What is the importance of human relationships? Why do we need people? After all, we are born alone and we die alone?

Relationship is the way in which two or more people or
things are connected, or the state of being connected.
One of major foundations of the system that governs us has been the fact that we are highly dependent on others for our survival. The first instance in our lives where we can clearly notice this dependency is the time of our birth, we are born inside a womb and are depended completely on our mothers every bit of nutrition that we receive at that early stage when our body is being constructed. Although in a way, we are highly independent when we die but then there still remains a good deal of dependency for the final rites of our dead bodies.
So, what really am I trying to say here?I think the only aspect that beautifies this system of dependency that governs us is 'relationships'. When we as human species create connections with our fellow humans we invite endless possibilities in our life experiences. 
Can someone live with no relationships with his or her fellow human beings? 
Yes, of course. But then what kind of a Life will that be? Specially if we take into consideration that we as humans have been made with an inner predilection towards others who share this planet with us, the matter becomes clear from confusion.
Personally, I think of a Life with no relationships, as incomplete and here are some reasons why relationships are important -
  1. We learn and evolve not just using textbooks and applying our knowledge in our work or by merely responding to our inner calling. True learning and evolution includes the art of dealing with a variety of people 
  2. People play a crucial role in our lives, sometimes they put a smile on our faces when we have forgotten about it. Sometimes, they make us feel depressed too. In either case, we become strong and that is what matters at the end
  3. To be human is to love others for who they are. Without relationships we are bound to feel empty (Of course, it is a different matter altogether that some people in order to support their belief about being isolated, would never show how empty they feel within)
  4. Finally, we need to accept that emotions dominate over logic and that makes the whole difference in the way we deal with people. Emotional needs are critical and they need to be given priority. If I were to make a list of 'things' that are a source of emotional satisfaction, with no doubt, human relationships would be among the top three if not on the top itself

Can we really get rid of Suffering?

Pain is when events or people turn against you (deliberately or unintentionally) and that in turn hurts you emotionally/mentally or even physically. Pain, when remains uncured or keeps on returning after short breaks of temporary relief, one can say that one is going through 'suffering’. 

Suffering is ‘pain’ from all aspects of life, grouped together. 

Buddha once said that all life is suffering. Was he hinting at the very nature of life and all that it governs.
Are we born to suffer?
If not then what was he trying to say?

Since a long time, I have noticed that great thoughts and insights often come to me while I am deeply engrossed in some activity (this happens with you too, if you ever noticed). This happened with me a few days back while I was running on the treadmill, the trail of thoughts began with a question –

Can we get rid of suffering permanently?

The answer is both Yes and No. 'Yes', because suffering is a perception of mind and we can turn it off through an approach that I will be discussing soon and 'No', because undesirable experiences cannot be stopped no matter what you do or how influential you are. You may conclude that you are happy because you have a great career, a big house, a nice car and a wonderful family but you cannot really guarantee that you are free from pain. Mr. Pain is stubborn enough to find a way to enter into your experiences. It can come in the form of bad health, a break-up or divorce, a loss of job or bankruptcy of your business. If I were to graphically present life, I would draw it this way.

Life should be clearly understood as a matter made of a unit called ‘time’ which is never still but keeps on fluctuating through desirable times or happiness and undesirable times or suffering.

Here is a quote that forms the very essence of all my thoughts that have so far occurred to me about this subject.

If you cannot get rid of suffering – make suffering ‘IRRELEVANT’

How to make Suffering IRRELEVANT? - Coming Soon