The art of letting in and letting go

BANGALORE: A young girl phoned and asked, “I am in great confusion. I am in love with a man of another caste. My parents have accepted our proposed marriage but my boyfriend’s parents have not accepted it. If this marriage does not happen, I will never get married to anyone and even my boyfriend is also saying this.”We live in reactions and our reactions decide our course of action. It is like a drunkard trying to decide his life in an intoxicated state. I told her, why should you say you will never get married? How do you know what you are going to feel next year? It is like saying that from tomorrow, I will not get hungry. You should know what to let in and what to let go.First, let go of the frustrations of romance. Let in the feeling that in love, these struggles are natural. It is like a hunter who lets in the vagueness of the forest and the thrill of what may happen.A trekker also enjoys the pleasure and pain of trekking. He does not reject pain but develops the pleasure of pain. Like in acupuncture, you go through the pain and also there is a pleasure in the pain of the pressures of an acupuncturist.Why should I suffer?Because you have not accepted the pleasure in your pain, you are not seeing that there is also joy in pain. Like when you miss your beloved, there is pain and also there is the pleasure of the thought of the beloved.What should I do? I am in my late twenties and my parents are worried that I will be late in marriage.You being a management student, give a deadline or a life line to your boyfriend. In one year we should decide what to do, and you should educate your parents. He feels frustrated educating his parents.God has given him a great opportunity to cleanse his parents’ mind. Motivating someone is not frustration but a great opportunity for one to be useful. After giving one year, if it does not happen, then one should know to how say “bye-bye” to a relationship. Or, decide to just get married and slowly the parents will accept the reality.It is easier said than done, is it not?Give me a better option. Get married without the parents’ consent or let go of the marriage - what other option have you got? You have to learn to make decisions and not live in an emotional, indecisive state.