Question

A spiritually inspired person may be “scared” of marriage, because it brings more threads of relationships and responsibilities that tie one into this existence. Is this good?

My Reply

Ask yourself “what am I scared of?”

Most likely, if you are honest, you will realize that you are scared of accepting responsibility. That is not good.

We are indebted to the world because the world (parents, family, community, etc) has made many sacrifices to uphold whatever responsibilities towards us they manage to uphold. Even if we are scared of the work involved in repaying that debt of responsibility, it is very not-good to leave the debt unpaid.

However, if you honestly feel scared that your responsibilities to your spouse and probably children, etc. will interfere with your spiritual responsibilities – then perhaps that is good. But realize that your unpaid debts will continue to exist and these will disturb your peace and meditation and make it difficult to uphold the responsibilities to your spiritual practices. Therefore only after you have paid off what you owe your parents, family, community etc, only then can you safely say “Now i will incur no new responsibilities and dedicate myself only to my brahma-sādhana.“

Remember, Bharata the Sage-King set the proper example by caring for an orphaned deer, at the expense of his own yoga-sādhana. He said,

nūnaṁ hy āryāḥ sādhava upaśama-śīlāḥ
kṛpaṇa-suhṛda evaṁ-vidhārthe
svārthān api gurutarān upekṣante.

“The civilized and the saintly should definitely neglect even their most important goals for the sake of love and compasion for those in need.“

Nothing ruins spiritual practices more than being callous and hard hearted. So we should fulfill all our responsibilities to anyone who has taken care of us, and anyone who needs us to take care of them. Only then can we even begin to think of practicing any “spiritual” discipline.

Question

But if my heart is on spirituality, how will I be any good to anyone in my material responsibilities? I will not care enough about them.

My Reply

Ask yourself where your heart really is. Is it on spirituality? Or is it a coward’s heart, trying to be protected from fears, inconvenience, and hard work?

If it is a coward’s heart, then you should not succumb to it. And all the people who need your support – friends, family, spouse, children, etc. – are your greatest spiritual allies, because they will not stop making this cowardly heart difficult to maintain.

If it is a spiritualist’s heart, then you overestimate your spiritual realization. The most basic spiritual realization is sama-darśana (seeing all things in unity), but you are still riddled with pṛthak-darśana (seeing division between everything). You say you want to focus on Bhagavān or Paramātma or Brahmān but you are so neophyte and novice that you think your spouse, parents, friends, community, etc are non-brahman, non-paramātmā, non-bhagavān.

“mamaivāṁśa jīva loke” – Śrī Krishna

Karma-yoga grants jñāna. Fulfilling your duties to people in this world will therefore destroy your ajñāna-pṛthak-darśan and enrich your with jñāna-sāma-darśana. So, what validity is there in seeing your conventional familial duties as “non-sādhana.”? I think there is none.