Happiness Strategy: Turn Strangers into Friends and Friends into Strangers

By Swami Anand Kul Bhushan

Have you noticed how strangers become friends? You are stuck at an airport due to a delayed flight and since you are so full of boredom and frustration, you start talking to another passenger. After complaining about the airline or whatever, you are relived, then you move to other things – what do you do, where do you live, are you married and so on and on.

In a few hours, you are friends with so much in common even if you come from the other end of the town or the world. You exchange mobile numbers and mail addresses and keep in touch. Or, it can also happen on the web as you enter a chat room. In real life, you have close friends, friends you have known since childhood. You know all about them: their habits, their mannerisms, and their responses.

Now try this meditation: Turn your friends into strangers. Osho says, “Look at your friend as at a stranger; he is one! Don't be afraid. We are afraid of strangers, so we go on forgetting that even a friend is a stranger. If you can look at the stranger in your friend also, you will never get frustrated because you cannot expect anything from a stranger.”

You take your friends for granted. Everyone is here to fulfill  his/her own expectations – not yours! The wise old folks tell you never to take anybody for granted. Yes, not even your brother or sister, father or mother, wife or husband; leave alone your colleagues and friends. That’s why people are unhappy and have to ‘work’ at their relationships to keep them fresh, vibrant and alive.  In these times of non-stop stress and tension, everyone is living for oneself, not to please you. So, treat them as strangers and let them go free. This is the sure way to happiness.

But how do you achieve this? By meditation. How do you do this meditation? The next time you interact with your close relative or meet your friend, tell yourself you are meeting him/her for the first time. There is no burden of the past – good or bad. Just play the game of meeting a stranger without letting the other person know about it. He/she should not be able to guess that you are into this new mode. As it gets going, keep watching yourself and the other person and observe the change in the behaviour. Soon, you will slide into witnessing and that’s meditation, at its peak. It will mean you are happy with yourself and your relationships.

You will realize that no matter how close you are, you are a stranger to others. Similarly, others are also strangers, no matter how well they know you. This transformation of strangers into friends and friends into strangers is a fascinating role-play. It may bring out the best in both of you.  To boost your relationships, try it!

And you will be happy in the bargain. Now I you go on meditating, you may experience something beyond happiness. It is bliss. You are neither happy nor sad. You are in bliss. This is a state of being perfect, oblivious of everything yet accepting it all, good and bad, happiness and sorrow, light and darkness, life and death.

You are in total silence, the vibrant silence of mountains. You experience peace, not absence of conflict but a serene sense of goodness. It is topped by love; not physical love or lust but a belonging to everything, all nature, all living beings, all space.

With meditation, you go beyond happiness and relish bliss.