The Greatest Gift

Gifts have become such an essential part of modern day relationships. Nowadays, a gift is not seen as a token of love. Rather, it is seen as the only sign of love. I have seen many people whose only motivation for a relationship is gifts. They just get into relationships to receive gifts. But it is not right to make materialistic gifts so important in our pure relationships.

Let me cite an example of a married couple I know. They have been married for so many years. It was the wife’s birthday and therefore the husband gifted her a beautiful saree and he told her that since they were building a house and were funding many other expenses, he was not able to give her anything more this time. You would be shocked to know what the wife did. She literally took the beautiful saree and threw it to the face of her husband as she wanted a diamond necklace and not the saree. This is how materialistic our relationships have become. 

Now, let me narrate a sweet pastime of Lord Krishna. It was the time of Janamashtami, which means it was Krishna’s birthday. Nanda Maharaj had been collecting various precious gems from around the world to give to the children and the citizens as return gifts on Krishna’s birthday. On His birthday, many children came. A boy named Bhadra had nothing to give Him so he just gave a tilak  of cow dung to Krishna. Someone gave flowers, someone gave just leaves but Krishna was elated with these gifts. Now, it was His turn to give return gifts to His friends. Nanda Maharaj presented all the various extremely precious gems in front of Him so that He could give them away to all His friends. However, to everyone’s shock, Krishna did not like any of them as according to Him, none of those gems could match the love with which His friends had given Him the cow dung tilak, flowers and leaves. He was very upset that He had nothing valuable to give. Then Balaram told Him that the most precious thing that He could give was Himself. Krishna really loved the idea and therefore He went to each of His friends and hugged them and said “I am yours.”

This should be the standard of love. Krishna valued something as trivial as a cow dung tilak so much because He could see the love that was behind that gift. In relationships too, we should not be attached to materialistic gifts, instead we must understand the love that person has for us. The best gift that anyone can give is themselves and the best gift we can give is  ourselves. Giving ourselves means giving our time. It is extremely important to make time for our partner. Only giving and receiving expensive gifts on birthdays and anniversaries cannot build a strong relationship. We must invest time everyday. 

In this busy world, it is very difficult to get some time to spend with our partner but we must make it a part of our routine. When our partner needs us, we should be there for him or her. We can make everything else wait but we must prioritize our relationship. This is the greatest gift that we can give or receive. So, this Valentine's day, let us not just give gifts to our loved ones, instead let us give ourselves and our time to them.