Questioner: Acharya Ji, a lot of changes have happened in my lifestyle and in my relationship with my wife after I have started watching your videos and reading your books. We spend a lot of time alone now. We don’t get into escapes easily, don’t get into such entertainment activities which can cause suffering later on.
But, as I am spending more and more time with books, watching your videos, and observing my mind, at times I wonder: is this also an escape?
Is this the right way, or am I am doing something wrong?
Another question is: As a married couple, there is aloneness in our relationship, though we are together. Can aloneness happen between a couple?
Can marriage and Spirituality go together? What is the effect of Spirituality on marriage?
Acharya Prashant:
A movement into oneself brings about a lot of new things. That which used to frighten you does not appear so very frightening. That which would easily disturb you appears a bit childish now. The tendency to lose equilibrium reduces, you do not easily go off-center. And even if you do, you return comparatively sooner. An urge to explore new things arises.
And there are many many changes.
Sometimes even the language changes. Sometimes even before you can realize that there is a change, outsiders begin telling you that there is a change.
These changes are all there.
And as you soak in those changes, as you revel in those changes, your appetite to revel in them further increases.
That’s all very auspicious, very good!
Regarding a couple practicing aloneness, the fact that the two of you are married, comes later. First of all, the two of you are human beings. Two human beings, both with an urge towards the Truth, and both with a right over the Truth.
It is just incidental that these two are married.
If the two persons who are in this social arrangement of marriage are also spiritual friends, then they rise above social arrangement. The social arrangement by itself is a recipe for disaster. But when the social arrangement is purified, consecrated by the spiritual touch, then the poison in it is neutralized. In fact, there is only one antidote to the poison called ‘marriage’, and that is spiritual association between the man and the woman.
Now that the two of you are together, and you probably also have kids, and there are various physical, social, and economic circumstances that are too heavy on you, and you have to be together, then the only and best way of togetherness is – spiritual togetherness.
Spiritual togetherness will not only take the poison out of the marriage, but actually turn the marriage into something immensely beautiful. Marriages are socially not designed to be beautiful. The way the very institution is defined, it’s a crazy thing.
But you can still not only correct that mistake, but actually turn it into an advantage, which by the way also means that you don’t have to run away from your husband or your wife unnecessarily.
Don’t try that.
Whatever might have been the situation, you did hold somebody’s hand, and you made certain promises, and you went on to have kids as well. Now it is irresponsible to just abruptly quit.
If the two of you could be together in your tussles, fights, if the two of you together could shout, and scratch, and bite, and tear, and break, if all those things could be done together, why not meditate and be loving and compassionate together?
Or is companionship only for biting into each other?
So having been companions, now it is your responsibility to help, and guide, and accompany the other towards Light as well.
Otherwise, it’s a very strange thing.
You are saying, “As long as we were in the dark, we were companions. Now that there is Light, I shall be alone.”
That’s a bit inhuman.
