The Building Blocks Of A Strong Marriage
Wed, 07/23/2014 Bad Antogast, Germany
(Below is a continuation of the post Ignorance, Meet Self-pity)
Q:
Dearest Gurudev, please can you talk about domestic violence and give
some knowledge on this. What is the role of acceptance and
responsibility when a spouse feels that their actions are in proportion
to their hurt?
Sri Sri Ravi Shankar:
Listen, when two
people are living together, there will definitely be arguments. However
compatible, no two people can think the same things all the time. There
will be difference of opinions. If both have sweet talks all the time,
both will land up having diabetes (laughter). Sometimes,
misunderstandings do crop it and it should come.
When one gets upset
the other should be quiet; take turns to get upset. If both get upset at
the same time, it is a problem. And if you compete by saying, 'You got
upset, now I will get more upset than you', then there is a bigger
problem. If one is getting annoyed, the other keeps quiet. The other can
take their turn the next time. If you want, you can give back twice as
much, but not at the same time and the same place. To one bad day, you
can add another bad day, but don’t make the days so horrible that you
can’t continue anymore. One should take turns in getting annoyed or
upset. This should be the basic ground rule. If someone is upset,
support them.
Now, domestic violence happens because of anger, and
alcohol. It happens many times that there is no argument, but a person
comes back home drunk and hits the spouse. If someone is drunk, they
don’t know what they are doing. This is a big problem all over the
world, especially in developing countries. Men come home drunk and beat
their wives. Next day they say, 'Oh, please forgive me, it’s not me,
it’s the drink'. This is no good.
Marriage is give and take, or
compromise. You cannot say, 'I want it this way only', no! You have to
let go of your wishes and desires and listen to what the other person
wants. You have to compromise somewhere in between. If there is no
compromise, then there are arguments. When there are arguments, then the
fight happens.
Stress is another cause of domestic violence. If
people are stressed, sometime or the other, it is going to erupt. So
people should know how to get rid of stress.
Then, everyone should
have some purpose or goal in life. If both husband and wife, direct
their energy into something useful or bigger, they will not police each
other, or sit on each other’s head and blame each other. They won’t go
on bickering about each other’s mistakes. So if they have a bigger goal
in life and are busy doing that work, then things go smoothly.
When
two lines run parallel with a goal in front, they are together all
through like the railway tracks. But if they are just focused on each
other, then they cross at some intersection. So it is important that two
people living together should not bore each other so much that both
want to run away from each other.
To keep the relationship alive and
charming, spirituality and knowledge is a must. Big heartedness is a
must, a greater vision is a must and leave space for each other. Then
domestic violence will not happen.
Q: Dear Gurudev, I am really
worried about my family. They are caught up in a dark world of lies,
manipulation and money. I have had to completely break contact with them
and it breaks my heart. They do not listen to me and I see bad
consequences in store for them. It is hard to watch all this. Do you
have any advice?
Sri Sri Ravi Shankar:
First of all,
don’t cut-off from them. At least don’t give them the feeling that you
don’t care about them and are cut-off from them. That is not going to
help them. It is your innate nature to help and you want to help them.
For some reason you are born into this family. There is some karma
together, so you do what you can to help them, if at all.
That
doesn’t mean that you have to be there every day, listen to them and be
involved totally. You can have a very friendly relationship. Cordiality
will not come in the way of what you want to do. You have your life and
they have theirs, but you can be cordial with them and politely refuse
what you don’t want to do and help whenever you can help them. This is
the skill that we need to learn in our communication and in our actions.
This
world is full of people who are so absurd, crazy and mindless. See what
they did in Ukraine, they shot down an airplane with so many
passengers. What are they doing in Iraq? Gaza? Israel? Can we run away,
renounce and go to another planet? No! We have to live on this planet
with these people.
Recently, a very famous medical surgeon came to
our Bangalore ashram. He gave a talk which was an eye opener. He said
how many clinical trials of many medicines are done because of the
pressure from the pharmaceutical lobby. He was telling me about a
particular medicine, where the chief medical officer manipulated the
research and passed the drug saying it is good for health. When he was
dying, he confessed that he had committed a great sin and passed a
medicine that actually had adverse effects and wanted to repent for his
sins. That medicine is still being given to people and freely used all
over the world. There are dozens of such cases.
We will invite him
here some day to give a talk. Most of the surgeons today in USA and in
Johns Hopkins are his students. He is an elderly retired man and is
against these pharmaceutical lobbies. He says that when you are working
they will come after you and ruin your career. But now that I am
retired, I can speak my heart out and feel free to speak what I want.
These
pharmaceutical lobbies are destroying the health of people. A whole
generation spends their time thinking butter is bad for health and leads
to cholesterol and heart problems. We had an elderly Swamiji in our
ashram who was 78 years old and had a slight heart problem. His
cholesterol was high and the allopathic doctor said, 'You should not
have butter', but the Ayurveda doctor said, 'You should have butter. It
is good'.
Today in the Time magazine, the research shows that butter
is good for you and not margarine. Margarine was used to substitute
butter but the research was all wrong.
Similarly, in India they used
to have coconut oil. But then a whole research lobby said palm oil
should be used and not coconut oil. Now they say, cold pressed coconut
oil is better than palm oil.
The chemicals that were used in the last
century are proving to be hazardous to health. Now they are using
Genetically Modified seeds and products (GMO). And the employees of the
company where these seeds are being made say, 'We don’t want to eat it',
what does it mean? The employees of Monsanto refuse to eat GMO food in
their canteen.
These people are only concerned about money, money and
money. Even if people die, they are not bothered. These types of
pharmaceutical lobbies, recreational drug lobby, gun lobby is huge in
North America. I don’t think you have much in Europe. There are more gun
stores than grocery stores in America. Two gun stores to one grocery
store and there is a big lobby working for it. All these lobbies are
destroying the health of society and they think yoga and meditation are
rubbish. We must see that more and more people know of these practices
(yoga and meditation) and become happier in their lives. A whole
generation thought butter is bad and missed out on eating butter.
Q: How do I see God in the face of a stranger?
Sri Sri Ravi Shankar:
It
is actually the other way around, you can’t see God in people you are
familiar with. In a stranger, you might think that maybe God is like
this because you don’t know their bad qualities or good qualities. If
you don’t know their bad qualities, it is easy for you to see God in
them. People whom you are familiar with, you know their bad qualities
and weaknesses, and you will ask me, 'How do I see God in them?'
If I say, 'Forget seeing God in anybody, see God in yourself', you will say, 'I can’t see God in myself'.
Then I would say, 'Never mind, be a communist and don’t see God anywhere'. So it is your choice!
What do you mean by God? God means love. Can’t you see the other person as made up of love?
One
would find it easier to see God in a stranger than in someone familiar.
Have you heard the saying, familiarity breeds contempt? But I don’t
agree with that. There are many cases where people are very centered.
The more close you go to them, the more charming and loving you will
find them. But familiarity breeds contempt is also true to some extent.
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