~~OM~~
At first analysis, two celibate spiritual teachers may seem like an interesting choice for a discussion about male-female relationships, but Shree Maa and Swami Satyananda have some unusual credentials. Swami Satyananda is an American who, as a young graduate student, decided to travel around the world before settling into corporate life. He fell so deeply in love with India that he lived there for twenty years and became a full Swami. He offers the perspective of a westerner intimately aware of the issues facing men and women today and a swami who understands relationship karma as seen from the Eastern point of view.
After Shree Maa graduated from college in Assam, India, she walked off alone into the jungles of India. There she became so absorbed in God that she spent eight years eating only a touch of sandal paste smeared on a betel leaf as her daily meal. Although a well respected saint in India, Shree Maa came to the US with Swami Satyananda to bring the spiritual wisdom of the East to this country. Because she is involved in the daily lives of her many devotees in the US, she understands the melodrama of relationships as we play it, and also can see our dilemma from the perspective of someone completely outside our paradigm. Here are some of their views about male female relationships as told to transpersonal psychologist, Charles Hogan.
MEN AND WOMEN, WHAT'S THE POINT?
Why do you think so many marriages end in divorce in this country?
Shree Maa: This country? It's happening all over the world. Relationships have become competitive instead of being an opportunity to learn respect. Everybody wants to win, but where is the peace?
So competition and selfishness are at the root of the problem?
Shree Maa: Yes. We have not yet learned how to give. If each person would practice giving to their partner, their relationships would be peaceful and harmonious. Instead, most of us are selfish. We are only thinking about ourselves. Therefore in the Indian system, this time in the history of this planet is called the Kali Yuga, or the Age of Darkness. Another reason for unsuccessful relationships is overpopulation.
How does overpopulation affect our relationships?
Shree Maa: People are increasing the population, but they don't have a goal or purpose . They are bringing souls to the earth and not teaching them spiritual wisdom. Therefore, individuals are competing for resources which are growing ever more scarce.
What does a person do who doesn't have a purpose?
Swamiji: I suggest that a person without a purpose better find one. Without a purpose it is difficult to have a meaningful life. How can you find the path, if you do know the goal? How can you accomplish anything if you don't know what your path is? We need to find a goal in life that will be worthy of our commitment.
Certainly our goal in life would not be to have a transient relationship with someone who doesn't have a purpose either. That's where most of us make our mistake. We don't have a purpose of our own, and we feel empty and look for another person to give us fulfillment. But they don't have a purpose either. Then we have two people without purpose, trying to give meaning to each other's lives.
It's hard enough when you have a partnership with common goals. But if you don't have common goals, and the purpose of your relationship is just to assuage your loneliness, then as soon as your needs are no longer being fulfilled the relationship is history.
The best thing to do is to stop and think, "What would be a commitment worthy of my dedication? What do I want to give to this world?"
What is the purpose of men and women having a relationship?
Shree Maa: For the illumination of true consciousness and bliss, it is necessary for the masculine and feminine principles to unite, for men and women to harmonize their various natures to work together.
Swamiji: When you put the qualities of men and women together, you have a more dynamic capacity for working effectively in creation. If a man can treat a woman like a Goddess, she will turn him into a God. If a woman can treat her man like a God, he will make her into a Goddess.
How do you treat someone like a God or a Goddess?
Shree Maa: Love and respect them with all your heart.
Swamiji: Completely surrender to your partner.
Shree Maa: This body is not eternal. Inside is God. You have to wake up!
You have to see the God within?
Shree Maa: Yes!
How do you do that?
Shree Maa: How did you get here?
You mean here to this ashram? (laughing, not knowing where she is going.)
Shree Maa: Do you think you decided to come here, or did somebody send for you?
Somebody sent for me?
Shree Maa: Yes. The divine power.
Swamiji: Who told you to come to this ashram? The consciousness within you. The divine spark said, "I want to find out what those people are doing, to see if they have something I can add to my life." That was the divine being within you. If we can pay respect to that being within our partner, we can recognize his or her Godliness.
That's hard. We tend to see the personality and the body, and we don't see the God within the other person.
Shree Maa: Yes. Nowadays it is very hard.
Swamiji: Having a relationship is a sadhana, a spiritual discipline.
Do you have any suggestions for how people can see God in their partners?
Swamiji: We suggest learning puja or worship, which trains you to see the God within.
So if you practice performing worship to a Goddess, you will be better able to see the Goddess in your partner?
Swamiji: Yes, and you can perform puja to your spouse, which will help you see the God within him or her.
Let's say you are with your partner and she is doing something that irritates you and you are upset with her. For instance, she left her dishes in the sink. How do you see the God in her at a moment like that?
Swamiji: In these kinds of situations, we want to develop the kind of communication where we can discuss any problems that arise. Those moments will occur, but they can be diffused with appropriate communication. In a healthy relationship, we will find a way to talk about everything.
Shree Maa: You have to prepare yourself internally first, so that you can see everyone as God.
Is that the purpose of relationships, to experience that state of realization?
Swamiji: Absolutely. Relationships require us to surrender our selfishness and in doing that we attain Godliness.
I know many people have trouble with the concept of surrender. I’ll bet when they hear that, they'll think, "I surrendered to Joe, and he cheated on me and broke my heart."
Shree Maa: We are not talking about surrendering blindly. We are talking about surrendering your ego. You have to surrender to your own self.
Swamiji: In English, surrender is the last thing we want to do when we have exhausted all other options. In Samskrit the term we use is samarpana, to offer ourselves in equilibrium. It is the goal of all our spiritual longing.
When we talk about surrender, it does not absolve us from discriminating. In surrender, we offer ourselves in equilibrium to the God within, our partner, and ourselves. That doesn't mean we obey their every order. We have a duty to discriminate: what is part of my path and what is not. Then we'll say to our partner, "Please explain to me how what you are asking is going to manifest our purpose, our highest Godliness. If it does, I'll probably be all for it. If it doesn't, I still respect the God within you, but I can't do what you want in this case."
Is it enough for one person to surrender, or do both need to surrender?
Shree Maa: If you live together, it is important that both people surrender.
What if you live with somebody who doesn't want to surrender?
Shree Maa: You will never have peace. There is a great verse in the Lalita Trishati which says that Shiva and Shakti revolve around each other mutually and reciprocally. Who understands this, understands the center of energy.
What do you do if your partner is sabotaging your spiritual practices? Let's say they make fun of your meditations, but you really love them, and otherwise you get along?
Shree Maa: We are back to our first discussion. Why would we have a relationship without a common goal?
Swamiji: If you do have a relationship without a common goal, you had better stop right now and say, "Partner, what is the purpose of our being together, and how can we make that purpose manifest itself. If we can't manifest our purpose together, let's be honest about it and either make it happen alone or with another partner. Let's see how we can negotiate, how we can support each other's goals. Otherwise, both of us will have to come back to this planet and start all over again."
If you do have a relationship without a common goal, you had better stop right now and say, "Partner, what is the purpose of our being together, and how can we make that purpose manifest itself. If we can't manifest our purpose together, let's be honest about it and either make it happen alone or with another partner. Let's see how we can negotiate, how we can support each other's goals. Otherwise, both of us will have to come back to this planet and start all over again."
So you are saying that the purpose is more important than anything else.
Swamiji: The romance, the attachment, the infatuation, the honeymoon stuff is so transitory. Unless we have a common goal, it will be very difficult to make it through life. As soon as we wake up and become aware of this, let's get to the business of defining our purpose and working together to make it manifest.
How should we deal with the loneliness of not having a partner? Is there a lesson to be learned in that situation?
Swamiji: Yes, there is a lesson. The reason we don't have a partner is because we are not a good partner, nor are we ready to become a good partner. We should cultivate a partnership with God. When we are alone, but not lonely, we will become a good partner. If you are lonely and don't want to be alone, and you meet someone who is lonely and doesn't want to be alone, then you start a relationship based on fulfilling each other's needs. That's not the same as having a relationship because I love you and have something to contribute to you.
Once you have a relationship with God and you have divinity inside you, and you are not lonely, you have a direction in life. Then you can find someone with a similar direction with whom you can relate on many different levels at the same time. If you have a relationship with God, you will automatically come to a point where you will have a relationship with God's children. You have to give your love away in order to make it grow.
Do you advise celibacy for someone who is single?
Swamiji: My suggestion is promiscuity brings confusion and conflict, and relationships without commitment don't bring satisfaction. They create a transitory fulfillment on a very superficial level, and there remains an unfulfilled need to be accepted one hundred percent. Celibacy is a fact of life, not a discipline. Many people practice celibacy by thinking about what they are trying to avoid. We carry our desire with us and perceive the world through an unfulfilled desire. So real celibacy, I believe, is not a practice. It is where the thought doesn't come to our minds. As long as the thought comes to our mind, and we are forcefully restraining ourselves, we are practicing celibacy, not living it.
What is the best way to choose a partner?
Swamiji: The best way to begin to search for a partner is to clarify your goals. What do you want? What are your values? What is important to you? What is your life-style? From that understanding of what you want, you can ask potential partners what their goal in life is. You can develop a list of issues that are important to you. Then you have to determine if people are giving you the answers they think you want to hear, or if they are sincere.
Next, get involved in pursuing your goal. When you do that, you automatically come into contact with other people who have similar goals. You are liable to meet someone in the context of that pursuit, rather than finding someone who has no long-term goal or vision.
What is the logic behind arranged marriages in India? That approach to choosing mates seems very strange to Westerners.
Shree Maa: First, someone looks at your horoscope. From looking at the horoscope, they determine what you should do on this earth. What are your basic tendencies and what are your strengths and weaknesses.
Is your fate in the stars? What does the chart tell you?
Shree Maa: We are born on this earth, but we have a relationship with the whole universe. Various planets at various times are closer to us and they have a greater capacity to attract our energies. When we take birth, an astrologer determines which planets are closest to us and which planets are most influential in our growth and development. Some of the planets have malevolent influences, which can be cured through our sadhana.
Before coming into this lifetime, do we decide who we are going to have as a partner?
Shree Maa: I believe we do, but it looks like they don't believe that in this country. They think they choose their partners. But ultimately God does.
It's all planned in a way. Is that why the astrologers can read our charts?
Shree Maa: In the Indian culture our faith is that birth, death and marriage are written before we come into this world.
Swamiji: We will enjoy the fruit of our karma, whether we like it or not, and we still we have the choice of whether or not we want to change it. Both are occurring at the same time. Our Mother is the Goddess Parvati, who presides over the law of cause and effect. Our father is the Lord Shiva, who allows us free will to choose.
Shree Maa: Ultimately we have to change, and that is God's blessing.
