Slashing our delusions with the hammer of truth is the lilting poetry called Moha Mudgara—Bhaja Govindam— by Adi Shankaracharya. He hammered through many of our pet peeves such as money, land, wealth, physical pleasures and much more. Now, the next hammer throw is on our relationships. We are in familial relationships of mother, father, grandparents, son, daughter, girl and boy friends, friends, contacts and acquaintances in office and social media.
Never for a moment have we stopped by to think—for what reasons are these relationships? The master gently guides our mind to know that the connections have been established to fulfil certain responsibilities in the world to make our stay here more comfortable. Beyond that, none of the relationships we hold on to are permanent. So the seer sings and enquires: my dear brother, who is your wife? Who is your son? This samsara is indeed very strange. Who indeed belongs to you? From where have you come? Constantly meditate upon this truth, he guides. Who is your wife? Who is your husband? The person you look upon so dearly as a member of your own family was indeed thoroughly unknown to you a few months before the knot was tied or the wedding rings exchanged.
That boy or girl was simply existing as the son or daughter of some hitherto unknown parents. Even before they were born to their parents, the children were foetus in the wombs, caused by seeds that gained strength and energy from the food the parents ate. The food was generated from plants, trees and yielding fruits. The plants, trees and even animals and sea creatures that became the food on the plate were sustained by the muddy earth, nourished by water and sunlight. So your dear relations that you see around you, be it humans or animals, are nothing but a handful of soil that has transformed itself in the form of living beings. Forgetting this origin, O brother, says the Acharya taking the liberty to talk to us as our own elder brother would do, you get lost in the relationship.
We cry over our relations, we fight with them, we feel extremely happy at times to meet them, we want to avoid them, we hate them, we are jealous of them, we desire them, we wish to possess them, we are confused about them, we spend sleepless nights sometimes thinking about them. When this truth of the origins of all people around us is discovered, our life will be one of a detached attachment, fulfilling individual responsibilities and at the same time, keeping the spiritual goal very clear.
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