Relationship and Dependence

Dependence makes the mind prone to deception, because the mind is blinded by its desire to depend. Dependence in relationship is the soil for manipulation, control, and abuse. Those who are aware that others depend on them psychologically can then use this dependence as leverage. When they do use dependence as leverage, abuse in ways of sex, money, emotion, and so on happens. Those who seek dependence in relationship are usually the victims of abuse. This causes pain, and the reaction to this pain is to reinforce dependence, because the mind thinks it is the severance of dependence which causes pain. On the contrary, the severance of dependence is the freedom from pain. The unwillingness to let go is the cause of pain.

When the mind is unwilling to let go, it perceives letting go as painful. When the mind is willing to let go, it perceives letting go as freeing. Therefore, it is the mind which decides whether to let go of dependence is painful or not. When the mind realizes that dependence causes abuse, that the desire to depend is what justifies abuse and manipulation in relationship, one is vigilant toward dependence. One desires dependence psychologically for security. Psychological security is essential for the mind to function. Without security, the mind is anxious and fearful, and therefore unable to function rightly. One can observe this in daily life. However, dependence is mistaken as the foundation for psychological security. Dependence can never be secure, because that which the mind depends on is illusory. The mind can only depend on an idea of a person. The real person is not an idea, is changing all the time. What is changing cannot be depended upon. The idea of that person is not real, therefore the mind is always caught in this dissatisfaction that the other person is not good enough. No one is good enough, as no one can ever fit perfectly into an idea. Real security comes not from the dependence on an idea. Strangely, when there is no dependence psychologically, the mind is secure. Then one sees that what is unchanging is the observation of change. That observation is completely secure, and it needs no dependence on any idea or person to be. Because this observation flows without a source or support, it cannot be disturbed or destroyed. In this observation which is naturally secure, what was regarded as relationship in the past was only abstract and not real. It was relationship with ideas and abstractions. What is real relationship is the gentle and swift touch of observation. What is real relationship is direct and radically intimate, because there is not the idea that acts as the screen through which relationship happens. Without the idea, the mind is naked, as it were, to everything. This supreme sensitivity is the flowering of love.

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