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There are many types of relationships that you hold in your life: neighbors, friends, wives, husbands, children, parents, siblings, lovers. Even when people hate each other, there is a relationship, isn’t there?
Fundamentally, all relationships in your life have come up because you have certain needs to fulfill—physical, mental, emotional, social, financial, and so on. You try to establish relationships based on the need you have. If that need is not fulfilled, that relationship cannot be.
Today, our lives have become complex, and we are constantly shifting from one type of relationship to another. One moment you are on the phone with your business partner and the next moment you are talking to your wife. Life has become like this. It is constantly shifting. If you treat your wife like you treat your business partner, you are in trouble. If you treat your business partner like your wife, again you are in trouble, aren’t you?
So, you need to juggle your relationships constantly to keep them going. It all depends on how many balls you have picked up for juggling. If you just had one, it would be easy; but you have picked up ten. So now juggling is complex for you. You don’t want to drop any one of them, because if any one of them falls, a part of your life will fall apart. So you want to juggle all the ten balls at the same time. When you are juggling so much, you can’t focus on anything else in your life, can you? If you are juggling ten balls, can you think of anything else?
Now, there is another way to exist—experientially—where one can exist without any relationships. One is so complete within himself that relationships aren’t needed. But right now, for most people, the quality of their relationships decides the quality of their life.
So let’s see how we can have the most beautiful relationship, every moment of our lives, wherever we are. If you look at it, you are trying to somehow make yourself happy by building different types of relationships and doing different types of activities. You make friends, you get married, you have children, you start businesses—you do everything with the belief that this will bring you happiness. You built all these relationships in pursuit of happiness. In other words, somehow you are trying to squeeze some happiness out of people. Once you do this, relationships will be constant trouble—you cannot do without it, you cannot do with it! When there is no sense of joy or happiness within you, you are trying to extract it from somebody, and that person is trying to extract it from you. Now, this is bound to become a battle.
If relationships have to be really beautiful, it is very important that a human being turn inward and look at himself in a very deep way before he looks at somebody else. If you become a source of joy by yourself, and your relationships are about sharing your joy, not squeezing joy out of somebody, then you would have wonderful relationships with anybody. Is there anybody in the world who would have any problem with you if you are going there to share your joy with them? No. But you are trying to extract joy from them, that’s where the problem is. Relationships have become a problem because we are trying to fill the gaps in our lives with relationships.
If your relationship is about extracting something out of somebody, it doesn’t matter how much you manage, there will be constant trouble. If your relationship was an offering to the person who is next to you right now, then everything would be fantastic.
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A Relationship Is an Offering
By Sadhguru 
August 2011
Fundamentally, all relationships in your life have come up because you have certain needs to fulfill—physical, mental, emotional, social, financial, and so on. You try to establish relationships based on the need you have. If that need is not fulfilled, that relationship cannot be.
Today, our lives have become complex, and we are constantly shifting from one type of relationship to another. One moment you are on the phone with your business partner and the next moment you are talking to your wife. Life has become like this. It is constantly shifting. If you treat your wife like you treat your business partner, you are in trouble. If you treat your business partner like your wife, again you are in trouble, aren’t you?
So, you need to juggle your relationships constantly to keep them going. It all depends on how many balls you have picked up for juggling. If you just had one, it would be easy; but you have picked up ten. So now juggling is complex for you. You don’t want to drop any one of them, because if any one of them falls, a part of your life will fall apart. So you want to juggle all the ten balls at the same time. When you are juggling so much, you can’t focus on anything else in your life, can you? If you are juggling ten balls, can you think of anything else?
Now, there is another way to exist—experientially—where one can exist without any relationships. One is so complete within himself that relationships aren’t needed. But right now, for most people, the quality of their relationships decides the quality of their life.
So let’s see how we can have the most beautiful relationship, every moment of our lives, wherever we are. If you look at it, you are trying to somehow make yourself happy by building different types of relationships and doing different types of activities. You make friends, you get married, you have children, you start businesses—you do everything with the belief that this will bring you happiness. You built all these relationships in pursuit of happiness. In other words, somehow you are trying to squeeze some happiness out of people. Once you do this, relationships will be constant trouble—you cannot do without it, you cannot do with it! When there is no sense of joy or happiness within you, you are trying to extract it from somebody, and that person is trying to extract it from you. Now, this is bound to become a battle.
If relationships have to be really beautiful, it is very important that a human being turn inward and look at himself in a very deep way before he looks at somebody else. If you become a source of joy by yourself, and your relationships are about sharing your joy, not squeezing joy out of somebody, then you would have wonderful relationships with anybody. Is there anybody in the world who would have any problem with you if you are going there to share your joy with them? No. But you are trying to extract joy from them, that’s where the problem is. Relationships have become a problem because we are trying to fill the gaps in our lives with relationships.
If your relationship is about extracting something out of somebody, it doesn’t matter how much you manage, there will be constant trouble. If your relationship was an offering to the person who is next to you right now, then everything would be fantastic.
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