A sense of belonging can bring about a host of negative behaviors – demands, jealousy, lack of awareness and ingratitude. Just look at your own life. You are nicer to strangers, feel more grateful to them and give them more attention than to the people you feel “belong” to you.
A sense of belonging reduces gratefulness and awareness, and gives rise to demands that destroy love. This is the biggest problem in relationships. With a sense of belonging comes a feeling of being carefree and indifferent. Look...belongingness can make you insensitive and dull, and can remove the charm in life.
In any case, who belongs to whom in this world? You are a stranger here and everyone is a stranger to you. Blessed are those who feel they are strangers. You feel more obligation to a stranger than to a person you feel close to. Obligation is very good at keeping a check on your ego; it makes you humble. There is no greater antidote to ego than humility, and humility is the beginning of all virtues.
People have such resistance to obligations. They do not realize they are always under obligations, whether giving or taking. Dull people think they are obliged only when they take. Wise people know that even when they are giving they are under obligation, as the person has accepted what they give. So whether you give or take, you are under obligations. And if someone does not give or take, they are still under obligation because they are freeing you from visible obligations – you are obliged even to those who do not make you obliged.
Life continually renews itself with you becoming a stranger in this old and familiar world. You are simply loaded with obligations and you are a total stranger in this world at every moment.
