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+The Koan of Relationship+
A relationship is a puzzle with no clue to it.
Howsoever you try to
manage it, you will never be able to manage it. Nobody has ever been
able to manage it. It is
made in such a way that it simply remains
puzzling. The more you try to demystify it, the more mysterious it
becomes.
The more you try to understand it, the more elusive it is.
It is a greater koan than any koan that Zen masters give to
their
disciples, because their koans are meditative -- one is alone. When you
are given the koan of relationship it
is far more complicated, because you
are two -- differently made, differently conditioned, polar opposites to
each
other, pulling in different directions, manipulating each other, trying
to possess, dominate... there are a thousand and
one problems.
While meditating, the only problem is how to be silent, how not to be
caught in thoughts. In relationship
there are a thousand and one
problems. If you are silent, there is a problem. Just sit silently by the side
of your
wife and you will see - she will immediately jump upon you: "Why
are you silent? What do you mean?" Or speak, and you
will be in trouble -
whatsoever you say, you are always misunderstood.
No relationship can ever come to a point where
it is not a problem. Or if
sometimes you see a relationship coming to a point where it is no longer
a problem, that
simply means it is not a relationship anymore. The
relationship has disappeared - the fighters are tired, they have started
accepting things as they are. They are bored; they don’t want to fight
any more. They have accepted it, they
don’t want to improve upon it.
Or, in the past, people tried to create a kind of harmony forcibly. That’s
why, down the ages, women were repressed - that was one way of
sorting things out. Just force the woman to follow
the man, then there is
no problem. But it is not a relationship either. When the woman is no
longer an independent
person the problem disappears - but the woman
has also disappeared. Then she is just a thing to be used; then there is
no joy, and the man starts looking for some other woman.
If you ever come across a happy marriage, don’t trust
it on the surface.
Just go a little deeper and you will be surprised. I have heard about one
happy marriage...
A hillbilly farmer decided it was time to get
married, so he saddled his
mule and set off for the city to find a wife. In time, he met a woman and
they were married.
So they both climbed up on the mule and started
back for the farm. After a while, the mule balked and refused to move.
The farmer got down, found a big stick, and beat the mule until it again
began to move.
"That’s once," the
farmer said.
A few miles later, the mule balked again, and the entire scene was
repeated. After the beating, when
the mule was moving again, the farmer
said, "That’s twice."
A few miles later, the mule balked for a third time.
The farmer got down,
got his wife down, and then took out a pistol and shot the mule in the
eye, killing it instantly.
"That was a stupid thing to do!" the wife shouted. "That was a valuable
animal and just because he annoyed you, you
killed him! That was stupid,
criminal..." and she went on like this for some time. As she stopped for
breath, the
farmer said, "That’s once."
And it is said, after that they lived forever
in married happiness!
That is one way of solving things, that’s how it has been done in the
past. In the future,
the reverse is going to be tried - the husband has to
follow the wife. But it is the same thing.
A relationship is
a koan. And unless you have solved a more fundamental
thing about yourself, you cannot solve it. The problem of love can
be
solved only when the problem of meditation has been solved, not before
it. Because it is really two non-meditative
persons who are creating the
problem. Two persons who are in confusion, who don’t know who they
are - naturally
they multiply each other’s confusion, they magnify it....
Thank you 4 your visit
John
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