Binding Contract

When can I get out of this binding contract? You have always felt very uneasy with all kinds of contracts in life. Be it an employment or life, marriage or state, airline ticket or just plain admission in a college. You are always seeking freedom from all kinds of bondages.
When we get into this life of ours, we are getting bound by a body which tells us right from birth, that this is who you are. This is your name and those are your parents and relatives. That’s the house, school, friends and so on. We start believing in it. We get so much used to it that we enjoy that binding.
You have heard of the Stockholm syndrome. The girl from the movie “Highway,” has started becoming comfortable with the idea of living the life with her captor. Likewise, we start loving our own kidnapper, the body. We understand the body’s plight and start living the dream of enjoying the entire life with it.
Just like Shri Ram. He fell in love with His wife Sita and thought of living the entire life with her. But they both had to go to the jungle. Then she got kidnapped and finally after a big fight she came back but again she had to go back in the jungle. Finally, after having two kids, she meets her husband to go back to her mother.
We become comfortable with our bodies, mind and senses. The sense organs are the windows of that house called body. The mind is the spacious halls. Here all plays happen. Relatives come into that house and call it their own. They enact roles after roles from parents, siblings, husband, wife, children, in laws, etc.. Everyone feels that they are the owners of that body and have relationship with it. Not realizing that they too are not the owners of their own bodies.
This kind of false perception is the creation of the illusory potency of The Lord. Giving rise to false beliefs and possessiveness of the perishable thing called the body.
Marriage is another perishable relationship which you can experience in the world today. Divorces and separations are a norm. Those who live in a repressive or confined relationship with their partners can never understand freedom. The main cause of the relationships deteriorating is mistrust, possessiveness, expectations, desires, wants, etc. and they never seem to get fulfillment. This causes the rift in relationships.
So how do you still remain in relationship and yet not get affected by these issues? This is what I shall address here.
Every relationship is based on transactions and legal bindings. Think this way, the women in Brazil have children on whose head a gun has been kept and they are forced into prostitution in New York and other places. They are told if they don’t do what they are told to then their kids back home will be killed or sold. What can these women do? Marriage is like this forced prostitution. Spouses hold a gun on the head of each other. They force each other into submission. That is the worst kind of relationship anyone can have. Later, they become like the heroine from Highway. Succumb to false marriages just like the body and spirit inside. The truth is the bond is a forced one.
The one real thing that needs to keep the marriage going is called LOVE. Truly unconditional love is extremely important. In that, there are no demands or wants. No desires or unnecessary pressures of any kind. It’s love of the highest order. Growing out of mutual respect for each other. The goals of both are to reach the state of absolute blissful relationship, independent of each other, yet, working with each other in tandem.
It all starts with acceptance. Both have to accept each other with whatever the positives or negatives that they have. Empathy with each other too works magic. Knowing beforehand what the other needs and providing for it without any kind of bias or force. There are no selfish intents or false beliefs about the other. The attitude of live and let live. So a lot goes into making the relationships work successfully.
Similarly the false beliefs of the worldly bonds with relatives or people around abound. To know that these are only some passengers we meet on a flight here is very important. Once the destination called death arrives, we all have to disembark. No relationships can survive the journeys. We all are very self centered. We bother about our own seats, needing little disturbances and more arms rest. Similarly, these life journeys are temporary and we should never believe that the aircraft is our own. It’s like a rented space. Just like our bodies. They too are rented from the rental agency called Mayabazaar. We have to return it when we go back. So stop taking possession of any kind of relationships.
The only true relative is the One who made this soul of ours. Or the spirit which runs the whole system. That owner is called the Supersoul or Paramatma. He is the Father in Heaven or Brahman.
So stop owning anything or anyone. We are here in this world to live in love with each other. Since the body or this world also we cannot own, so why do you want to possess anyone like your spouse or kids too? Know there is only One true Master. He is our only possession. God is that only One whom we can have everlasting relationship with.