What Does Each Relationship Ask of Us?
We use the words mother, teacher, colleague and friend every day, often without asking what each relationship is for. Madhyasth Darshan describes seven human relationships, what each person in them hopes for, and the values that hold them. Here they are, with a way to use them.
We use the names of relationships all day. Mother. Brother. Teacher. Boss. Friend. We rarely stop to ask what any of them is for.
So when one goes wrong, we struggle to say why. We only know we feel let down, or that we let someone down. Madhyasth Darshan makes a sharp observation here. In Vyavaharatmak Janvad (व्यवहारात्मक जनवाद), it says that even a confused person uses the names of relationships. What makes the difference is recognising the purpose of each one, and living it.
The darshan describes seven human relationships in some detail: what each is for, what each person in it hopes for, and the values that hold it together. This post sets them out, and gives a way to use them.
This may sound like a rulebook that fixes how every relationship must look. It isn’t. It describes what each relationship is for. How two people live that out is theirs to work out.
Trust, in every relationship
One thing runs through all seven. Madhyasth Darshan defines trust (विश्वास) as fulfilling the values a relationship carries, so that what each person expects is met. Trust is the minimum value in every relationship. Others are built on it: respect, affection, care, reverence, gratitude, and love.
We read these as values each person hopes to give and to receive, not debts that anyone can demand. Gratitude, reverence or obedience can’t be required by whoever has more authority, and what a relationship is for is something both people can talk about and agree on. The seven are a way to look, not a complete list: friendships across unequal means, care work and professional relationships carry expectations too.
“Even a confused person uses the names of relationships. What makes the difference is recognising what each one is for.”
The seven relationships
1. Parents and children. Parents give two things: nourishment and protection, held by the values of care (ममता) and loving guidance (वात्सल्य). What they hope for changes as the child grows. In infancy, the darshan says, parents hope only for the baby’s smile. In childhood, for learning and language, for following guidance, for cleanliness and self-discipline. Later, for the young person to produce and to live well with others. Underneath all of it, parents hope for one thing above all: gratitude. Children, for their part, hope their parents will help them grow in understanding, with clarity and steady commitment. The child’s values towards parents are reverence and trust.
2. Spouses. In Vyavaharvadi Samajshastra (व्यवहारवादी समाजशास्त्र), each spouse hopes the other will share fully in running the family and in its place in society. The values are trust with respect, affection and love. The darshan adds that no two people are perfectly matched in ability, and that working out that difference together is one of the main things a marriage is for.
3. Teachers and students. The teacher hopes the student will understand what is taught, and will be attentive and grateful. The student hopes the teacher will teach in the direction of the student’s own curiosity. Both want the same thing: for understanding to be complete. When it is, the darshan says, the teacher celebrates. The teacher’s reward is that joy, not anything material. The student’s values towards the teacher are reverence and gratitude.
4. Brothers and sisters. The darshan calls this relationship one of goodwill (सौहार्द्र). Each hopes the other will grow, and one sibling’s growth delights the other as much as, or more than, it delights the sibling themselves. They hope to complement each other, with trust in the present. The main values are trust, respect and affection.
5. Colleagues. The book’s term covers the person who leads a piece of work and the person who works with them. Each completes the other: the one helping is committed to the work, the one leading is committed to responsibility for it. The book suggests addressing each other as brother or sister, as equals, and says the relationship reaches its fulfilment in stable trust.
6. Our place in the wider order. Every person is also in a relationship with the order of society, from the family up to the world. Here the hope is simple: that each person takes part, with understanding, in keeping things running well for everyone. A family living with clarity and enough is the first proof of it.
7. Friends. The darshan defines friendship as equality in clarity and prosperity, and as the absence of enmity. And it gives a test. When one friend is caught by misfortune, the other feels the difficulty as their own, and puts body, mind and wealth into helping them through. Friendship lasts through fair dealing. Its main values are trust, respect and affection.
Step 1: Name the relationship
When a relationship feels difficult, begin by naming it precisely. Not “my manager” but “the person who leads my work, whom I work with”. Not “my son” but “my son, who is now nineteen”. The name sets what the relationship is for, and the stage it has reached.
Step 2: Know what it is for
Read the description above for that relationship. What is its purpose? A teacher and student are there for understanding to be complete. Colleagues are there to complete each other’s work. Friends are there to share clarity and to carry each other through bad times. Often a problem becomes clearer at once: we have been treating the relationship as if it were for something else.
Step 3: Ask what each person hopes for, at this stage
The darshan’s description of parents is a good model: what they hope for changes as the child grows. The same is true of every relationship. Ask yourself, and then ask the other person: what do you hope for from me now? What do I hope for from you? Many disappointments turn out to be hopes from an earlier stage that were never updated.
Step 4: Evaluate together, until both are satisfied
Finally, look honestly at how well the relationship’s values are being lived, on both sides. Is there trust? Respect? Affection? The aim, as Madhyasth Darshan defines justice, is for both people to be satisfied. When they aren’t, the steps in How to Settle a Dispute So Both Sides Are Satisfied help. And what each relationship asks of us is exactly what How Do Rights and Duties Fit Together? calls responsibility.
And the planet?
Madhyasth Darshan describes human relationships with nature too: with the material world of soil, water and air, with plants, and with animals. The same questions apply. What is this relationship for? What does it ask of me? A farmer who asks those questions of the soil treats it differently from one who only asks what it can yield. We look at this in How to Live in a Relationship with Nature.
And our happiness?
Most of our deepest happiness, and most of our deepest pain, comes through relationships. Knowing what each one is for doesn’t make them easy. But it turns a vague sense of disappointment into questions two people can actually work on together, and it makes the moments when a relationship is fully lived easier to recognise, and to celebrate. We look at celebrating them in How to Celebrate What Matters.
A protocol to try
Choose one relationship that matters to you. Write down what it is for, what you hope for from the other person now, and what you think they hope for from you.
Then ask them the last question. Compare the answer with what you wrote.
Limitations
- The books describe the mother’s part as led by nourishment and the father’s by protection. We have presented these as two things both parents give, which may not be exactly how the books intend it.
- Expectations such as obedience in childhood can be misused by adults. Every relationship described here assumes both people are acting in good faith.
- Families today take many shapes: single parents, grandparents raising children, chosen families. The seven relationships still apply, but not always in the roles the books name.
- The four steps are our own arrangement, and we haven’t yet tested them.
References
- Shri A. Nagraj, Manav Vyavahar Darshan (मानव व्यवहार दर्शन), p. 133 (the seven relationships), p. 134 (parent and child), pp. 135–136 (spouses), pp. 136–137 (teacher and student), pp. 137–138 (siblings), pp. 138–139 (colleagues; the wider order), p. 140 (friends)
- Shri A. Nagraj, Vyavaharvadi Samajshastra (व्यवहारवादी समाजशास्त्र), pp. 148–149 (relationships, their purposes and what each side hopes for)
- Shri A. Nagraj, Vyavaharatmak Janvad (व्यवहारात्मक जनवाद), p. 76 (using the names of relationships versus recognising their purpose; the values in each)
- Madhyasth Darshan Paribhasha Sanhita, विश्वास (trust), p. 175
