Dr. Vijai S Shankar MD.PhD.
Published on www.academ-advaita.com
The Netherlands

7 January 2020

Adventure (7)

“Life”

 

The moment you marry. Nothing wrong with marrying. Marriage is the best platform to understand your mind.  By marriage you have got a wife or a husband and you want to make your wife or husband secure. 

A woman has become a wife by marriage. A man has become a husband by marriage. A husband tries to make his wife secure and the wife tries to make her husband secure.

A label wife has become secure in the mind. A label husband has become secure in the mind, but not the live woman or live man in life. Now, by that secure label in the mind, which is ‘wife’ or ‘husband’, you will have fear. 

What is that fear? That she should not do what she is not meant to do, speak or think in life. You will be in fear for not realising she is a woman. She will do, speak and think what she is meant to do, speak and think, if it is meant to happen to her and your mind cannot stop it.

Same thing for the man too. You are man, not a label husband! You created a security with the label husband and a live man can never be secure. A husband is a man and what is meant to happen to him will happen and your mind cannot stop it.

You imagine a husband or a wife. You are not living with a live man or a live woman. You try to secure a husband which you cannot see. You try to secure a wife which you cannot see. 

When you understand that husband and man are paradoxical, when you understand that wife and woman are paradoxical, marriage will become an adventure to live and not to imagine.

Man and woman are the ultimate expression of the intelligence in life. All the potential of what you can see in nature is embedded in man and woman. Man and woman are a mini-nature. 

The individual and individuality are a mini-nature. You or your mind cannot secure nature. Similarly, you or your mind cannot secure man or woman. They will be what they are meant to be in any moment.

When you accept your husband or wife as they are in any moment in life, life will become an adventure to live, which is meant for you.  

The wise understand that every situation in life is an adventure.

The enlightened accept every marriage and every situation as it is in every moment in life.

Author: Dr. Vijai S. Shankar
© Copyright V.S. Shankar 2019

Editor’s Note:
Wisdom reveals a deep and unexpected understanding of man’s institutions and practices that have been cherished, unexamined, for generations. Marriage is a norm in society. Its celebration is a public announcement of the union of a man and woman. However, with the evolution in human relationships, the union is becoming a partnership that is less formal and less binding than that of husband and wife. It is, therefore, acknowledged to be less secure than formal marriage.
The wise, however, reveal that the institution of marriage is necessarily accompanied by fear in the mind. The descriptions husband and wife do not replace the paradox of man and woman, who are as they are meant to be in every moment, but not as they are expected to be. Gradual understanding and acceptance of whatever happens in every moment in marriage is the start of life’s adventure.
Julian Capper. UK

German Translator‘s Note: 
Life seems in some ways to be more difficult for married people than for single people. Apart from being alone, singles have the obvious advantage of being able to do what they want to do and not have any consideration or care for a life partner. At least it seems to them. This is all the more true for families with children. Now there is also the responsibility for the children and their well-being. Yes, single people also have responsibility for their family of origin, siblings, friends or acquaintances, but the closeness to their spouse and especially to children they have together is such that it is not really possible to escape this everyday situation. One is confronted with the adventure of life. Escape may happen, through work or travel, in the end even through divorce, but until then marriage is a community that inevitably leads to conflicts, which nobody likes, but which are precisely the adventure of life, but purely illusory and only in your own mind. This joyful and sorrowful closeness between spouses turns out to be a blessing for those who begin to no longer seek blame for conflicts on the other or the children, but who understand that it is the expectations, demands and convictions of their own minds that are at stake when life feels difficult. With this insight, married life, like all life, becomes in fact a welcome adventure that can awaken a person from the dream of the mind to the real life, where inner peace and harmony prevail. Dr. Shankar's series of articles on life's unpredictable adventure accompanies the reader with deep insights on his journey to enlightenment. 
Marcus Stegmaier, Germany.

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