The Way Relationships Endure

Love is a relative thing. Boundless love alone is not enough to sustain a relationship. Despite deep love, many relationships break apart simply for lack of trust. One can even stay with a bad person who deceives others daily before one's very eyes, because though the person is bad, they are essentially honest. At least they don't hide their bad, dishonest sides while throwing dust in the eyes of their partner or those close to them, presenting themselves as virtuous, saintly, pure beings. When people throw dust in others' eyes and hide themselves behind costumes, behind masks, whom are they really deceiving? Does their inner self never voice any protest from within?

Whenever we are about to commit some evil or socially transgressive act, our brain repeatedly sends us red signals not to do it, but remarkably, when we do something good, a kind of peace plays in our inner being. We regain faith in ourselves. We begin to like ourselves. Our self-respect increases. Long after performing that act, we continue to feel the tranquility of that good deed. In exactly the same way, our bad deeds chase us like viruses throughout our lives, reminding us of all the immoral, unconventional things we have done, how day after day we have deceived the simple people around us, close to us. In time, this breeds hatred for ourselves. We want to walk the path of purity, we repent our past misdeeds, we want to reform ourselves.

We constantly fight with ourselves to lead ourselves down the right path. Even our slightest mistakes become thorns in our throat. We cannot forgive ourselves. We try to settle accounts of good and evil, right and wrong in this world according to our own rules. Though most of the behaviors people exhibit in any situation depend on themselves, we still make mistakes, keep making them. After a time we realize our mistakes, begin trying to reform ourselves. We succeed in that effort too, but our past mistakes haunt us. Fleeing from them, in our weakness of being unable to forgive ourselves, we often don't hesitate to cause ourselves pain. But is this right at all? Everything in this creation moves and will move according to its own rules, whether we want it or not. The actions we harbor hatred for—perhaps creation itself needed them to follow its own natural course, and somehow made us accomplish those very deeds. What we call Satan, Iblis, or the brain's deception—isn't that actually another mystery of creation? When various natural disasters come, is everything their fault due to human actions? Or does nature make humans do these things for its own needs? Whenever humans lose control over themselves, that's when they make mistakes—whether from worldly greed and lust or in pursuit of spiritual peace. Can't this lack of control be called humanity's internal disaster? Because humans too are an element of nature, a source of creation.

What elements, then, actually keep a relationship alive? I know there is no debt or formal acquaintance between you and me. Whether we have boundless love between us, I'm not certain. That I trust you completely is not particularly significant. There's not even any accounting of what I want or expect from you at day's end, the kind of reckoning by which one might silently endure everything to maintain such an odd relationship. Actually, it's not that anyone is forcibly sustaining the relationship, but both of us do have to make some effort—be it mental—yet what keeps this relationship alive? What is that thread that can never be severed...even when we try?

Relationships usually survive bound by a bridge's connection. A bridge connects two people from this shore to that, willingly or unwillingly. But there is no such bridge between us. Yet neither can completely ignore the other. I cannot, but perhaps if I found the door closed from the other side, I would be forced to leave, forced to forget and adapt myself. But that isn't happening.

Both our life's reckonings are completely different, both our lives have countless tasks to pursue, to think about, to keep busy with, yet neither can completely ignore the other and emerge from this relationship. Why? What is there within us that makes this relationship—externally fragile, nameless, without acquaintance or destination, yet internally so strong that it survives...where there's no effort at all, yet there are attempts to let go?! How effortless and worthless must a relationship become before one tries to abandon or forget it? What is that thing that keeps the relationship standing so immovably even in this way?

Is it only love? Boundless, infinite love? Infinite love belongs only to the Creator. I have heard that the Creator loves His creation so much that when anyone causes His creation pain, He cannot bear it; perhaps this is why He doesn't allow anything in creation the opportunity for infinite love. Love that is boundless or love that holds the possibility of suffering—He separates that. In that sense, our love is not boundless, yet despite such neglect and carelessness, a relationship endures!!

What then is that thing that keeps relationships alive? I want to know. I don't know the reason for this, and despite searching hard, I have found no answer.