The question is from Anando. It is difficult to describe to people why you are with me. Anything that you can say, you will feel is inadequate, facile, superficial, does not do justice. And if you don’t say anything, that is also embarrassing. Something has to be said.

And it becomes more difficult when there is no rational explanation, and you are not with me for any particular philosophical, rational doctrine. If you are not with me for any religious intentions, then naturally you feel that you cannot answer the question.

But to me this is important, that you should not be able to answer the question. If you are able to answer the question, your relationship is certainly superficial. You can call it love, but everybody is loving; people are falling in love and falling out of love, and this is such a mundane affair. It has associations which have made the word very earthly.

And it is good that you are not here out of any particular intellectual conviction, because I am not an intellectual man; that you are not here for any religious reason, because I have left religion far behind. But you can, without giving a very particular answer, explain the whole situation just the way you have put the question.

Whoever asks you, explain the whole situation: “This is the situation. Now you figure out what kind of relationship this is.” Why should you be embarrassed? Let the person who is asking the question feel embarrassed. Let him think it over, let him waste his night – what to make out of it, what kind of relationship this is. But you be truthful.

Your question is absolutely the answer. Just say to the person exactly what you have written in your question: “This is the situation; now you figure it out. I am unable to figure it out; perhaps I am too involved. You are an outsider. It is possible you may be able to figure out what it is. If you can find out, tell me so I also can have an answer for others.”

The more mysteriously you are related to me, the more it will become difficult for you to answer. But there is no need for any answer. Simply explain the situation: “This is the situation and I don’t know what word can be the right word to explain this whole situation.” This will be authentic, sincere. You will not feel inadequate, you will not feel embarrassed. In fact, the other person will feel embarrassed that he asked such a question, that it was not nice to ask such a question, that it was crude, primitive. There is a possibility of a relationship which no word can describe – and that’s what is happening between me and you.

You can simply say, “I don’t know but I can describe the whole situation.” And this will be helpful for that person too, to come across a relationship which is so vast that it cannot be confined to a word, so far away from ordinary language that to pull it into language is to be violent. Perhaps you may help him to feel something just by describing your whole situation sincerely and authentically.

Your question is your answer.