Ananda Sangha of Portland--Expansive Marriage by Swami Kriyananda

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Expansive Marriage
by J. Donald Walters (Swami Kriyananda)
from Expansive Marriage—A Way to Self-Realization

One of the false expectations with which couples approach marriage is the fond belief that they will forever be all in all to each other. I can’t imagine any two people being that to each other—unless, perhaps, they are exceptionally stupid! No one person can ever help you to learn all your lessons in life. No one person can fulfill your every need.

No one, that is, but yourself. For all the fulfillment you have ever sought awaits you within. But that kind of fulfillment is never personal.

One purpose of marriage is to expand one’s identity ever outward, from the ego to infinity. The ocean of cosmic awareness, which is God, has projected little waves of itself to become the myriad manifestations of worlds, atoms, rivers, other people, you, and me. We seem separate from that great reality only as long as we concentrate on our own separateness from it, and from one another—even as the wave appears separate only as long as we concentrate on it, rather than on the vast ocean of which it is a part.

To fix this image clearly in your mind, imagine the wave on the ocean to be endowed with a personality; and imagine, further, that in concentrating on its own separate and special reality it decides that its own, alone of all realities in the universe, is meaningful to it. Think of the wave therefore protruding itself further from the ocean in an effort to dominate all the surrounding waves. In so doing it sets itself in conflict with other waves; for these, too, similarly inflated with their own self-importance, want to dominate one another. As conflict builds among the many self-seeking waves, pain, fear, and suffering develop also.

The stronger the affirmation of ego, and the desire to advance and protect that ego, the greater the pain—and the more fleeting the pleasure.

There is no escape from suffering so long as one seeks his escape through the ego. The way to liberation lies in withdrawing the ego-wave back into the ocean—in realizing that our greater reality is the cosmic ocean. This expansion of awareness is no loss, though the ego may fight it with all the skill at its disposal, attached as it is to its own petty dominion. Instead, soul-expansion is the greatest possible gain.

Anything, indeed, that helps us to break out of the confines of selfishness and self-seeking will be for our own highest good. And since marriage is a means whereby man learns to expand his sense of personal identity, it has a much higher purpose than mere selfish fulfillment.

Marriage becomes, however, a barrier to that purpose if it allows to stand in the way of further expansion. “Us four and no more” was the way Paramhansa Yogananda described the mental wall people tend to place around their little homes, shutting the vast universe out of their lives. To those who seek the higher fulfillment of spiritual union, marriage should be seen, not as a cozy self-enclosure, but as a window onto ever-greater realities.

For worldly people, marriage represents a reinforcement of egoism—an attempt to buttress one’s own sense of security and self-worth. But for those spiritual people who marry, marriage represents rather a reinforcement of their efforts at self-expansion.

Worldly people seek gain from one another. Spiritual people seek gain for one another, consciously or unconsciously with a view to realizing that the only true gain lies in expanding one’s sympathies.

Worldly people think, “What can I derive from this relationship?” Spiritual people think, “What can I give to this relationship?”

Needless to say, the world is not divided on any issue into two distinct and easily identified camps. In some ways, many seemingly worldly marriages are truly spiritual. Whereas many supposedly spiritual marriages come apart at the seams on fundamental spiritual issues. What we must concentrate on is not the point to which our journey has brought us so far, but on the direction we must continue to walk.

When I refer, then, with seeming glibness to “worldly” and “spiritual” people, please understand that my purpose is not to direct your attention to individuals, but rather to specific directions in your growth. The more your sympathies expand outward, the greater will be your own true fulfillment. And the more you allow those sympathies to shrink inward upon yourself—or, what is close to the same thing, upon your family in the thought, “I and mine,” —the more you will know insecurity, and a gnawing sense of insufficiency in your life.

An emphasis on universality, however, is not for those who have not learned to be loyal first to their won. The husband who thinks, “The whole universe is mine; why, then, be faithful to my wife?” is not yet refined enough in his perception of truth to be ready for soul-expansion, which is the only way out of egoism.

Such attitudes may be found also with respect to the spiritual path. It is found in the claim, “All truth is mine; why should I be faithful to my own spiritual path, or to my guru?” But “spiritual prostitutes,” as Paramhansa Yogananda called people who can’t stick to any path, never go deep enough at any point on the ice of life’s experiences, on which they so love to skate, to penetrate through the crust of outwardness to the ocean of truth underneath.

It isn’t only charity that begins at home: loyalty begins there, too. It is only through the window of such loyalty that we can touch the universe as we should—with our souls.

Through meditation and introspection, learn first to love yourself in the soul way, by sensing the hidden joy of your own being. Then, with that egoless love, reach out to touch your spouse, your children. Refine your love so that it becomes more and more pure; so that it contains less and less of the consciousness of “I and mine.” Love your family as you love yourself: for their souls, not merely their personalities.

Then expand that love to include your neighbors, your countrymen, all mankind, all sentient beings—the universe! In this way will your love expand at last to become the love of God.

An outward expansion of love is what Yogananda called the social way of attaining cosmic consciousness. And a very important balance it is to the inward way of trying to merge with God in meditation.

And so it is that marriage can be a door to infinite awareness. But it won’t be unless you work hard at making it so! The obstacles to success will be many. While facing those obstacles in your struggle toward perfection, remember further these words of Yogananda’s “There are no such things as obstacles: There are only opportunities!”

Marriage is in no way a panacea; it is what you do with marriage, and for that matter with any human condition, that determines whether your progress will be toward greater freedom, or toward an increase of delusion.