20  Relationships TC  "20  Relationships" \l 1

Other people do not have to change for us to experience peace of mind.

If a person says an awkward or bad word to you understand that the person’s mind is not on the right level. We need never allow it to affect us. When we can view things objectively, then anger disappears; as our hearts expand, love comes. And then naturally, there is no place for anger, and your reaction will be one of compassion.

Once need is removed from a relationship, the underlying factor of pure love shines through.

Attachment can exist in the form of sincere feeling. In this togetherness we are marching on the path of oneness. How can we be one in two separate bodies? It is only when the heart melts away completely. It is only through spiritual practices where the heart is totally open that you merge. When two totally open hearts merge into each other it assumes a beautiful brightness. When you go to see a stage show you have two spotlights on either side of the stage. These two spotlights are not as bright when they shine alone. When the two come together, the light becomes brighter. That is oneness. Unfortunately humanity as it stands today has a long way to go to find that oneness.

If I think anything of another person then I must surely know that those are my thoughts, and what apparently seems to be misery could be great joy. How can we judge the so called misery a person is going through? Is it not what that person has brought upon himself? It could be beneficial to the person so he could learn the kind of lessons that are needed by him.

When the heart has opened, you will become incapable of projecting negativity. You will project only love.

When we react, we are acting from the periphery. But when we respond, we are responding from the center. There lies the difference, for the mind is peripheral; it acts from the circumference, while response comes from the center, and that is where we want to be, in the center. For you are the center of the universe; there is no limitation to you at all.

I do not advise celibacy for a householder.

Celibacy practiced by a householder in the world as we know it, can become very dangerous. It can become repressive, and those inhibitions and repressions can translate themselves psychosomatically.

When we marry there is at first a mutual attraction. One has to enhance this attraction if love is to become enduring. The reason for the divorces we see is that people are just romantic. They see a beautiful face and are attracted. They think alike, and have similar tastes—both like playing tennis, golf, or the same kind of music.

But tastes keep on differing every day—one year you might like to play tennis very much, and another year you might like something else. These tastes are not from the heart. They are from the mind, and the mind, being so fickle, is subject to change. When the mind changes and develops other tastes, then our spouse becomes incompatible. Yet every mind is an individual mind, and when your tastes change it does not mean that your wife’s tastes have changed also. This process can change however, if there is surrender, self-sacrifice, and service.

You surrender, not to your beloved, but you surrender yourself to yourself. Yet your beloved feels that you have surrendered to him or her.

It is the lack of surrender that causes incompatibility.

By finding fault, it is not the fault of the other person, it is you. You are at fault: therefore you see a fault. We project ourselves upon others because we cannot handle ourselves by ourselves.

It would be good to see our faults in others and then improve ourselves, but we do not do it.

Love has its various levels, ranging from utter simplicity to a super level. As householders, it is part of our dharma to elevate the initial physical, mental, mundane attraction and lead it gently to a spiritual attraction.

Love has to be worked at over a period of years so that two people slowly begin to understand each other. They begin to understand the faults and frailties of each other, and in understanding them, they accept them. When one accepts the faults and frailties of the other, a beautiful friendship is born. That friendship, that companionship, is one of the constituents of love.

The major cause of the sociological problem of divorce is that most marriages are contracted or approached from a superficial level. Instead of bringing it to a super level, the two people have remained on the superficial level, and anything that is superficial cannot be lasting.

When you find that oneness with your beloved, you will automatically find oneness with Divinity. For your beloved is none other than Divinity itself. In any form, shape or size, Divinity is but total oneness. But we can only talk oneness when we have reached there.

The sexual urge is one of the strongest urges, and it has to be given vent. The experience gained in total surrender between husband and wife can lead you to total surrender to God. The human being has been given the necessary equipment right from the physical level to the highest level of the soul. At every stage we have been given the tools to attain higher and higher and higher levels.

Devotion should be without need.

When the wife or the husband becomes demanding in getting the attention to feed his or her ego and self-importance, friction begins. To avoid this friction one has to learn surrender. When one learns to surrender completely to one’s beloved, then a love is felt and that love is akin to Divinity.

Love is not a thing that is just thrown in your lap; you have to work at it. And this has been proven over and over again. If my marriage fails, I must admit that fact. If we do something constructive in overcoming those weaknesses, then the marriage will not fail, because even the weaknesses in the husband or wife will be accepted in love, with love, for love. Why? To preserve love.

Be free to accept and therein lies your freedom.

As we progress in the path of married life we have a lot of ups and downs. Although two people are very close to each other, understand each other, and inwardly feel, “This is the right person for me,” there are ups and downs. These ups and downs are the sense of ego—”I am better than her, she is better than me, I am better than him.” The little ego stands in the way. It blocks the way for the natural flow of love or communication from heart to heart.

When we are unjust to another, we are being violent to that person. Being violent to the person, we are stealing the peace of that person. What greater theft can there be than stealing someone’s peace?

To be able to really love, you must start knowing yourself. If you cannot know yourself, how can you expect to know the object of your love?

Loving one’s husband or wife is service. When service is there, automatically the beautiful quality of devotion develops, and that devotion can lead to worship. We can worship the abstract through the concrete medium of loving those who are closest to us.