You cannot have a sound relationship with the other, unless you have a sound relationship with yourself. If you don’t have a firm ground beneath your feet, you will be wobbling and when you are wobbling, no one will ever ask for your support; instead, you will be seeking support from others.Through the ages, people have been unhappy in their relationships. Speak to any father, he complains about his children; speak to any husband or any wife, they have complaints for each other; as long as they are being diplomatic, they will keep up a very sound face, a beaming smile and a false story to explain their happiness. We are happy to live in delusions and we are happier when we present these delusions as reality to others.

Try to understand that the whole idea of a relationship begins from that point when you have already established a sound, beautiful, and dynamic rapport with your own self. Isn’t it a joke that we are bothered about others but we are not worried about our own self? We often ask as to how I can have a healthy relationship with others, but the question should be how I can have a sound relationship with myself. A person who is himself lost cannot give directions to others. It’s as simple as that. Our society and our family – all have been leading an ignorant life. They themselves have been stumbling. Ask any parent, did they plan their baby? Were they emotionally, psychologically ready for this new system, a new person in their life? Were they ready to be a vehicle to bring a new soul on this earth, to give birth to a new body, to give a new life, to be engaged for a wandering soul to start a new journey? Ninety nine per cent of the answers will be that children are born unplanned.

Children are just accidental inventions.

Children are just happening to the parents and now because they are pregnant, they must give birth to the child. They must rear the child and they must provide a sound family system according to their own understanding. The issue is really very important, and I wish to take your attention on this as no one ever has guided you on these lines – Before you think of others, think of yourself. Let me quote Jesus Christ on this ,’the other is hell’ , when you say other, it is going to be hell. Why? Because if you don’t understand your own self, you will not understand anyone who is around you. There will be elements around you who are foreign to you, who are different from you, who have their own entity , withwhom you have to build a relationship that can be friendly one or filled with prejudices and hatred.

The basic thing is that for the person who has known the real self, the term “other” no longer exists; there is no one other left. Whoever he sees, talks to, meets, communicates, that person will never be the other, as every other person has now become his/her own reflection. If you stand in front of a mirror, you see your own face. What do you see, when you look into people’s eyes? In first place, you must have that deep-rooted, communicative eye to look at the other person. As you are hiding your own true self and living a false life, so is the other person. So, these two false personalities will never gel, will never have a communion, and will never have a heart-to-heart relationship. What they will have is just a communication and in these times of great scientific inventions we don’t have to be in front of one another, e-mail will do all the work and SMS will do the rest.

You start your day with a “Good Morning” and the next sentence which comes out of your mouth is a “Bye” because you have to run to achieve your own goals and your ambitions and the other person too is busy with his own objectives. In this scenario, who has the time to communicate? The need is to understand that unless you are not deeply involved with your own inner being, unless you are not established in your own true identity, unless you don’t know who you really are, how can you enjoy? No one enjoys one’s own company – that’s why we are always looking for a friend, for someone on whom we can release our tensions and pressures. You need to talk all the time, you need to have a shoulder upon which you can cry, you need to have a set of ears in which you can fill up all of your mind’s garbage.

Now, if you can’t enjoy your own company, you can not be a good company to others. The day you enjoy your own presence, the need of “others” ends. In a way, the need of being in any relationship also will end. When this stage comes, that is the time when you are appropriately ready and groomed to be in a relationship. When you are seeking a relationship, at that time, you are a beggar and beggars cannot be givers. When two beggars sit together none of them will become rich: zero plus zero is always going to be a zero. If you are a beggar because you were seeking happiness from the other and the other has come to you with the same expectation, there is bound to be a clash.

This clash comes out in open after some time, not on the same day, not in the first meeting, but later. In the first meeting, there is hope, there are great expectations that a golden future is ahead in this relationship. Parents are always expecting from their children, that the day they will grow up, the day they will have great jobs, that will be our happiest day. Parents dream that their child will become a professor, a great entrepreneur, a successful professional. The child is already living the parent’s dream and is already expecting that all of the father’s hard-earned money will come to him only. So, there is no need to work hard because father has good connections in the political circle and has a great status in society. So, we already have enough money and I can just float on the glories of my father or my mother.

Children are looking at their parents, and parents are looking and dreaming a golden future for their children. The wife and the husband also have such dreams.

We expect a lot from others. Moreover, we want others to change for us. Here is the root cause of all the confrontation in a relationship. We expect so much from the others that they cannot deliver. And once that happens, we start complaining. There is an agenda to change this person for our good but the other person too has his own ego. Why would he or she change for you – and then we all live a frustrated life.