Yoga & Married Life

Swami Rama

Marriage is called union and yoga is also called union. Yoga means union of individual soul with the ultimate soul or cosmic soul. Yoga recognizes that an individual suffers because of a limitation, of the separation that he fails to know and understand and finally he comes to know that his true self or highest self is universal self. Yoga never tells you to abandon your duties, to renounce your duty and live all alone without any responsibilities. There are three words. One is called yoga. Another is called bhoga and another is called roga. Those who understand the value of life and study life they know that sensuality comes in the way of their progress yet it is natural for anyone to live sensual life too. So somewhere sensuality is totally condemned and at other places, or from our daily life, we come to know that we cannot avoid sense pleasures. We cannot live without enjoying things according to our capacity and knowledge that we have. So we often find contradiction. Some have the yogic experiences. I tell you that if you are a yogi, if you become yogi, then you know the art of living. You know how to live in the world and yet remain unaffected from worldly fetters. The grief, pain and sorrow that we receive from the world if properly understood and analyzed you can have freedom here and now. 

For your personality is unfolded and you go to higher dimensions of consciousness and think that anything that you have in the world, anything that you desire for or want, is a means and not the end. When you understand the difference between means and the need and need and the want then we come to know that most of our problems are self created by wanting things whether we need them or not.  We need very little. We do not need as much as we desire for. But we want many things and, when we want many things, try to understand why do we want. We come to know that we have various pressures, pressures of our habits, tradition, other people who live around us, biological pressures, mental pressures, social pressures, economical pressures. But when we find many pressures coming to us and life is being forced towards a different direction then we come to know that we remain in search of peace, happiness and bliss, but we never get it. The most ancient traveler in this world is love. If you try to analyze what the love is you’ll come to know that it is love that alone is eternal and all things are running towards that nucleus which is called one-love. 

(contd.)