Life is in community. Life is a communion, so don't try to escape from the world, and don't try to remain in a solitary life. Because the richness is in the community; you are enriched by the community, by your relationships. The more you are related to people, the more you are rich. A solitary person living in a Himalayan cave is very poor, impoverished -- because rivers of relationships don't flow in him. He becomes a desert.
Each time somebody looks into you, a river flows in. Each time somebody shakes a hand with you, an energy moves into you. Each time there is a contact, you gain something. When you drop out of all contacts, out of relationship, and you become a solitary monk in a Himalayan cave, you have almost committed suicide. You are only one percent alive. Just because you breathe, you are alive. This is a sort of death: you are living at the minimum, you are not living at all, you are living very grudgingly, you are living very reluctantly, you are living with a deep complaint that you don't want to live and you have been forced to live. You don't want this world at all: the rainbows and the trees and the stars and the people.... No, you don't want to relate with anybody.
When you don't want to relate with anybody, your contact with God is diminished, TERRIBLY diminished. When you come into relationship with a man, or with a tree, or with an animal, you are coming in contact with God in different forms. To be in the community is the only way to be really alive. Relationship is life, and relationship is beautiful.
Composed an written by
Ritesh Kotian
