How do we have dharmic , spiritual relationships?
There are three different types of relationships. The first is with ourselves, and it determines the quality of our relationships with others in the world.
It’s very common for us to think more about our bond with everyone in the world than the one we have with ourselves. But our relationship with ourselves is the foundation for all other relationships. Who is it that relates with others? If you and I have a relationship, who’s the ‘I’ in that equation? Therefore, first, even if my goal is about a relationship with you, until and unless I’m able to have a relationship with myself that is grounded, centred, and full of compassion and understanding, I’m not going to be able to have a fruitful relationship with you. If we want to have relationships in the outer world, we have to begin within.
If we haven’t been raised by parents who were enlightened and filled us with deep awareness of the perfection of our Self, when we embark on a relationship with ourselves, we must know on the deepest level that we’re Divine. This is very important, because it’s not what tends to be in the forefront of our consciousness. Most of us have been raised in families where we were judged—typically negatively—based on what we look like and how we perform according to cultural norms. Are we pretty? Handsome? Is our body the right shape? Are we athletic enough, or academic enough? We internalized that our value, worth and identity are rooted in our looks and our abilities.
For most of us, when we look at ourselves in the mirror, we see that our hair is not the way we’d like it to be, our skin is not perfect, our body is not the shape we want and it can’t do things that we’d like it to do. This dissatisfaction based on the physical form is, to a large extent, the foundation for the relationship we have with ourselves. We tell ourselves: ‘I really should be taller, or fairer, or prettier, or more talented.’ Not only is this a recipe for inner disaster, but it’s actually a dishonest, non-dharmic relationship with the self, because it’s affirming the wrong notions: that we are the shape of our nose, the colour of our skin, the physical dimensions and capabilities of our body.
This is not just maladaptive and painful to us, it’s actually dishonest.
Our dharmic relationships in the world must begin with the awareness of who we are. Our body keeps changing, all the cells in our body are continually regenerating. Every aspect of who we are on a physical level is constantly changing. And yet, throughout our lives, we refer to ourselves as ‘I’. At age two, we say ‘I, me, my toys’. We then grow up a little, but still say ‘I’. We grow up a little more and continue to say ‘I’. We never say anything but ‘I’, regardless of the changes in our body. None of the cells that formed our skin, organs and blood at the time we first learnt to say ‘I’ in our early years are still there in our body. So who is that ‘I’? Where is that ‘I’?
When we talk about experiencing consciousness and the Divine, it reminds us: this is who you are . So the foremost aspect of having a dharmic relationship in the world is to have one with yourself—to know honestly who you really are. Who you are is the consciousness, the soul, the Divinity within the body.
Next, we move to dharma in our interpersonal relationships. Most times, a problem arises when we think we need something from the other person. We think we lack something and take that into our relationships, which we believe are a way to fill the emptiness. For example, if in my childhood, my parents or my siblings told me I was stupid and ugly, I might have a hole in me that says, ‘You are ugly and worthless.’ Thus, the relationship I’m going to want is one in which I feel beautiful, brilliant and important. It may feel good as I now feel whole, but it’s very temporary. This is what we call the honeymoon period.
The problem is that, over time, my issues begin to take a different form. I grow and change, and so does the person I am with. Slowly, that person’s ‘pegs’ no longer fill my ‘holes’. So now I think, ‘I have fallen out of love.’ But there wasn’t really love there to begin with.
This is why it’s so important to begin with the relationship we have with ourselves, because only when I know that I am whole and complete will I stop looking for people to fill the emptiness I feel. Only then can I have a dharmic relationship with another person.
Finally, let’s look at our relationship with others in the world. When I know who I am and I know that what matters is my response, then that’s what I carry into the world.
Once, a wise man was sitting on a road in the jungle. A traveller passing by said to him, ‘Baba, that village up yonder, how are the people there?’
The old man said, ‘Well, where did you come from?’
‘Oh, I came from the village down this way, and the people were horrible! They were evil liars and cheats!’
‘I’m so sorry, but that’s exactly how the people are in the next village up ahead.’ The traveller was dejected to hear this, and he walked away.
A short while later, another man came by. ‘Baba, how are the people in the village up ahead?’ he asked.
‘Well, where did you come from?’
‘Oh, I came from the village over there, and the people were beautiful! They were so kind and loving, giving and selfless!’
The old man said, ‘I have great news! That’s exactly how the people are in the village up ahead!’
After the second traveller walked off, a young boy who had been sitting with the wise, old man the whole time turned to him and said, ‘Babaji, there’s only one village up ahead. How is it that you told the first man that the people are horrible and evil, and you told the second man that the people are honest and beautiful and kind?’
The old man explained, ‘Because that’s what they each saw in the last village, which means that’s their vision of the world. So that’s what they will see in all villages up ahead.’
It’s not the people, nor the situations, but our approach that becomes the filter through which we see the world.
Regardless of where it comes from, the answer is to change our perspective and perception. When we move through the world—whether in a relationship with one person, or an organization—and we expect the best, we impact not just our present reality but also our future.
I once saw a sign that said, ‘Watch your thoughts and you will see the future.’ This is true. Our thoughts create our future. Hence, as we navigate the world and our relationships with the world, the dharma we bring with us is the power of our own thought.
Lastly, and perhaps most importantly, when we speak of dharmic relationships, it is to cultivate and sustain the awareness of Oneness, an awareness of family. It’s very easy to shut ourselves off from the world, particularly from all the pain it contains. We have enough of our own pain, we think. Our own stuff keeps us up at night, why should we take on extra? Yet, the truth is that we don’t have a choice. That separation, those walls between us and the world, are actually the cause of our suffering.
Ironically, we think that we’ll be fine as long as we can create a safe, cosy little cocoon and isolate ourselves in there, away from the world, but paradoxically, we end up suffocating ourselves. The goal should be to break down those walls and allow ourselves to connect. There is pain in the world, yes, but there’s also joy, and opening ourselves up to the pain allows us to be open to the joy as well. We have to let those walls dissolve and really experience that Oneness, that connection.
We look very solid and separate from each other, but actually we are One. Spirituality tells us, ‘No, you’re not the body, you’re spirit, you’re soul.’ Science shows us that if any of us were placed under an electron microscope, what you’ll see is energy, not matter. We are made up of atoms, as is everything in the universe. Those atoms, under an electron microscope, show whirling, twirling electrons. There is no border or boundary to any of us, no line around us. We appear solid only because our physical eyes are not as sophisticated tools of vision as an electron microscope, which shows constant movement, energy in constant motion and interacting with surrounding energy. There is no place, scientifically or spiritually, where I end and you begin, where any of us ends and the rest of the world begins. That illusion of separation, disproved by both science and spirituality, is what causes our suffering. And by dissolving that illusion, we actually alleviate our own suffering and, simultaneously, the world’s suffering. That’s the element of dharma in relationships.