Relate to the world, oneself and others

Life is relationship. We relate to each other, to our families, to the world, to the Earth, to the universe.

As life is lived in relation it is essential to understand what the relationship is, and what it means for us and for others every action in the relationship, be it between lovers, family, friends, teachers or society.

The set of our relationships forms society. Society is us. So, what each of us is in the relationship creates society: if we are jealous, if we have prejudices, angry, aggressive in our ambitions, self-pity with our own loneliness, depressed and exclusive in our relationships, then we will form a deranged society . Multiply by 6,000 million the selfishness or the affection, the greed or the generosity of each one of us when we relate and the result is the current world. What we are affects everything, affects people, animals, the Earth, the biosphere and, as you can see, it does it in both directions: we are affected by the bad but also by the good.

Most of us are aware, when we are not too afraid to admit it, that we are very lonely. We do not know why and how it happens, but even when we are surrounded by our families, our friends, our girlfriend or boyfriend, we feel isolated and alone. Even in our most intimate relationships, we only think of ourselves, we fear that they abandon us and we feel insecure, which generates even more loneliness, more dependence on people or things, and the consequent suffering. We have created such a habit of all this fear and suffering that we forget, or perhaps have never been taught, that these habits, biological, cultural or personal, can be changed. It is true that we have inherited that aggressive territorial instinct of survival from our ancestors, from the animals we once were, but our brains are, in turn, intelligent enough to decide when instincts are necessary and when we should change our behavior.

It is surprising that the school does not deal with the relationship, with the relationship with oneself, with others, with work, with money, society, the Earth and the universe. Because our own personal and collective survival depends on the relationship, it is logical to think that parents and educators should insist that one learn about the relationship, in the same way that we learn to read, to write, mathematics or computer science. They teach us how to earn a living but not how to live, so that each one must learn for himself the art of relationship, the art of living.

We must learn what the relationship is, what is not relationship and what is wrong. Although we are intelligent and educated externally, internally human beings continue to be violent. True education changes the interior of the human being. The key to relate correctly is to understand our own thinking, which is self-knowledge, namely: the ability to understand how our thinking and our behavior are conditioned by our experiences, our family, culture, country, religion, gender and biology.

If you do not understand your own thinking, think what you think, it will have very little importance. If they do not know their own inclinations, their biological limitations, personal prejudices, fears, wounds, anger, if they do not have the capacity to see beyond this, any thought or relationship will be confused or perverted. After all, self-knowledge is the basis of the relationship.

One can discover the truth of oneself in the most accessible mirror of all, the mirror of the relationship. You can see what you feel, think, how you behave, simply by carefully observing your behavior in your daily relationships. You can see in your relationship with others what angers you, what hurts you, if you are generous, cheerful, fully alive. Remember not to get stuck in your discoveries, life and oneself change at every moment. Just observe what you feel, you do not have to externalize it or repress it to act later. It is not easy not to act from anger or greed, but although it is difficult, it does not mean that something is wrong in one, it is simply the conditioning action of millions of years of aggressive and predatory tribal spirit. But if one can learn from a moment of anger, then it makes sense, and if we do, there will be one less drop of poison in the air we breathe.

1. What is the relationship?

Life is relationship

Life is a movement of relationship, there is nothing that lives on Earth and is not related to something or someone. Even the hermit, the man who retires to a solitary place, relates to the past, relates to those around him; It is not possible to escape from the relationship. In the relationship, which is the mirror in which we see ourselves, we can discover what we are, our reactions, our prejudices, our fears, depression, anxiety, loneliness, sadness, suffering and deep pain ; we can also discover if we love or if there is such a thing as love. So let's examine this question of relationship because it is the basis of love.

The relationship is a means to know oneself

The relationship is a mirror in which one can see oneself. We can distort what we see in that mirror or leave it "as it is", allowing it to reflect that "which is". However, most of us see in the relationship, in that mirror, the things we want to see, not "what is", we prefer to idealize ...

Now, if we examine our life, our relationship with one another, we will see that it is a process of isolation, that we are not really interested in the other, and that if we talk a lot about it, we are not really interested in it. . We relate to someone while that relationship is rewarding, while offering refuge, while satisfying us, but at the time when there is some difficulty in that relationship and we experience some discomfort, we disengage from that relationship; In other words, we only have a relationship while it is rewarding. This may seem hard, but if we really examine our lives carefully, we will see that it is a fact ...

If we look at our lives and observe the relationship, we will see that it is a process of creating resistance against one another, a wall above which we look and observe the other, but we always stay and stay behind that wall, be it a wall psychological, material, economic or a national wall, and while we live in isolation, hidden behind a wall, there can be no relationship with the other ... The world is so problematic, there is so much suffering, pain, war, destruction, misery, that we want to escape and live within the walls of security, within our own psychological being. Therefore, the relationship for most of us is, in fact, a process of isolation, and, consequently, that kind of relationship gives rise to a society of isolation as well. That is exactly what is happening all over the world: we remain in isolation and reach out over it ...

Jiddu Krishnamurti. Editorial Kairós

source: http://www.culturamas.es