The Right Age To Have A Boyfriend or Girlfriend?

A student asks Sadhguru, “What is the right age to have a boyfriend or girlfriend?” Sadhguru sets the context on what a relationship means, and gives perspective on sexuality and the time to get into a body-based relationship.

Yogi, mystic and visionary, Sadhguru is a spiritual master with a difference. An arresting blend of profundity and pragmatism, his life and work serves as a reminder that yoga is a contemporary science, vitally relevant to our times. 

See, if two bodies are rubbing,  only skin is touching, all right?

I hold that kind of relationships with people, where my life energies reverberates with their life energy. Those plants which bear fruit too early will never become full-fledged trees. Superscript: The Right Age To Have A Boyfriend or Girlfriend?

Interviewer (Pooja): So the next question has been asked by Rahul. “What is the right age to have a boyfriend or a girlfriend 

Sadhguru: Rahul is… wants a boyfriend So I think every child has boyfriends and girlfriends.

When you are three, four, five years of age, didn’t you have boyfriends and girlfriends? You had. Now you’re giving it a new meaning to this simple friend. Well, a friend need not necessarily mean you have to get physical with them.

Hello?

This is something that you have picked up from certain societies where body is everything. See why is it so that today it has become like this? This was only in United States.,  but today its everywhere. If you say a relationship, people think it’s a body-based relationship. Well, don’t I have a relationship with you right now? Don’t you have a relationship with your parents, your friends, your teachers? You don’t have a relationship?

But you cannot say… if you say I have a relationship with my teacher, they will think, oh, you have… doing some hanky-panky with your teacher . Why have you become like this? See, the problem is just this. Your intelligence has been hijacked by your hormones . If I say “you are my friend” that means I must mess with your body. Is that a necessity?

Okay, you are a girl, if you’re my friend but I can’t say you’re my “girlfriend,” because it will be understood in a different way. Why this has happened is, we are giving too much significance to body-based relationships. You must understand there are relationships deeper than the body. You can hold such profound relationships with people without your body being involved in it. Isn’t it so? Possible or no?

Well, body-based relationship may be necessary with somebody that is fine. That’s your choice. But that is only possible in a limited way. But friendship and relationships are possible at various levels with enormous number of people.

Possible or no? You can hold intimate relationships with thousands of people. I have very intimate relationship…

I… the way I’m sitting here right now, I assume a certain intimacy with you. But if I have used the word “intimacy,” people think two bodies should be rubbing. See, if two bodies are rubbing, only skin is touching, all right?

Skin is the outermost cover of who you are. How can that be intimate?

I don’t consider that intimate . I can penetrate people, not just their minds and  their emotion, their very innards, their very life process, I hold that kind of relationships with people, where my life energies reverberates with their life energy.

That is intimate. That’s really intimate. Body rubbing, okay, its maybe a necessity at a certain stage of one’s life. It’s okay. We are not trying to make it right or wrong. Its one’s choice. But don’t make that the basis of friendship. Why can’t you be friend with every girl and every boy around you? So essentially you’re asking at what age should I go into sexually-oriented relationships? Is that what you ask?

But I think it will be… you’ll be doing a great service to yourself and to the world, if you remove this boyfriend, girlfriend business and call it something else. Call them your what…romance  or your love affair or whatever. Because friend, the word “friend”  must be released from the body. It’s very important. Otherwise, friendships won’t happen. Everybody will be like this. Because if I say “you’re my friend,”  she’s afraid, unnecessarily, isn’t it? If I say “She is my friend,” she will fear “What is he up to? How is he my friend?”

Release the word “friend” from the body, it’s very important. Let friendships happen all over. Well, body-based relationships happens  with a another individual, that’s different. That’s your choice. At what age?

See when you’re in… education. If you don’t take charge of these instruments at this stage in your life, believe me, your own body, your own mind will trip you in so many ways, right through your life. You won’t ride them, they will ride you. That should not happen. At this stage in your life, let the focus fundamentally be on how to grow yourself to the best possible place within yourself. Don’t be in a hurry to live. Living will happen a little later. If you live too early, tch, you will not live too well. Don’t try to live too early. I am not a moralistic person  to tell you “do this, don’t do this.” If somebody has such a  compulsive need, they can do it. But everybody needs not make it a trend that if you’re in college, you must have a sexually oriented relationship with somebody. There is no compulsion like that.

There is no such rule that it must be so. One can grow. There’s a… I’ve spoken this before. But I must tell you this, among the mango farmers, there is a practice. If you… across India this is well known. If you plant a mango sapling, within twelve-fourteen months flowering will happen when the season comes. A mango farmer meticulously  removes every flower from the plant because if you let it go, it will bear fruit. One or two fruits will come out of this little plant. Only those which are not allowed to fruit up to three to four years will become full blown trees and bear lot of fruit. Those plants which bear fruit too early will never become full-fledged trees. So a mango farmer has this wisdom. He keeps on nipping off every flower. Similarly, human being should not be in a rush to live. The important thing is before you try to live, you are in a place high enough so that life will roll out well for you. You live too early, then it could become an uphill task all your life and tomorrow…

Many turmoil’s are happening. See if you go to Western universities… Right now, I was just at Ross business school  just this week. I was at Ross business school, then in  Harvard Business School, and if you look there, I don’t know what’s the percentages. But people tell me or if you just look around, you will see, most of the faces there are Indians, Chinese and like this. Only about forty percent are Caucasian race or American white though they are the majority population there. Why this is happening is…These Indian families and Chinese families, their children have a certain support system and they have to live with their parents till they’re twenty-five or so, till they finish their university.

But generally the white families, by the time they’re eighteen, they’re out of their families, they’re all living with their partners, they’re going through emotional stuff, they have to make some money for that and the daily evening they have to take care of their partners.

No time to go to the library, no time to study. All the toppers are Indians, Jewish community, and Chinese. You just see across the universities in United States. So what does this mean? A whole lot of Americans are not even finishing university, simply because they have a boyfriend and a girlfriend going and it will not always go smooth, things will happen daily turmoil’s, problems, you know?

Every day these things are happening. Now, you need to understand that this is a time of  your life when you’re at the highest level of energy. At this stage in your life, if you create a certain focus and balance within yourself,

this energy will translate into something fantastic. But at this stage in your life, if you do not  bring focus and balance and you earn it, let’s say when you’re forty, forty-five, you will not have the same energy. This is something that you don’t understand that they think this level of  energy will be there all your life. No, no, no, it will pass. It is just a question of eight to twelve  to fifteen years maximum. From the age of fourteen to thirty, there is a certain upsurge of energy.

At this time if you learn how to manage this, keep a balance and focus to your life, you bring a focus to your life, this life will function and play at a higher level of life.

If you don’t bring those things  and you’re in a hurry to live, then you will see it becomes an uphill task  not that you won’t make it at all, you may make it but unnecessary struggles through life. So its individual choice. If somebody has such a strong compulsion, they may go for it. Don’t make it a trend that if you’re in a college, you must have a body based relationship. Not necessary .