Several people can be heard pointing fingers at grahastha ashrama saying, “Getting married and raising a family is getting entrapped in the shackles of Maya (illusion, worldly attachment)”. To them family and household seem like being trapped inside web of problems and tensions and remaining unmarried seems like being in heaven. But after a careful consideration, this statement turns out to be quite frivolous and meaningless. This is because thraldoms of maya are not cast through external objects or other human beings; they bind us through our own attitudes and thoughts. If mind is impure and filled with sensual desires, anger and greed, then whatever happens within household would also happen outside, say in sannyas. We have seen many so-called religious men who lived on alms throughout their lives and after their death a huge sum of money was recovered from their possession. We have seen several men who choose not to marry but are given to sensual desires; who are mesmerized by the attractions of sound, taste, beauty, smell and touch and express lascivious interest in them; who have special attachment towards their hut, clothes, books, utensils, disciples and friends. These same tendencies can be found in householders in different forms.
The profound elements like absence of all desires and sacrifice are directly related to our mental feelings. If the feelings are parochial, polluted and self-centred, then even if a person lives in a sanctified place, his mental distortions will drive him to sin. If the feelings are pure and generous, then even in unsuitable and undesirable conditions, the person would reflect purity and virtuousness. Emerson, the renowned philosopher, used to say, “Send me to hell even and I would create a heaven there for myself.” This is an exact truth, every person sees a reflection of his own self in the mirror that this world is. If his mind is engulfed in maya, then he would see maya everywhere, at home or outside, in jungle, in temple and in heaven even. If the mind is clean and there is purity, love and selflessness in sight, then every nook and corner of the house would look no less sanctified than a hermitage. There have been many great rishis like King Janak who did the sadhana of grahastha yoga and attained the highest spiritual state.
Bravery is not in running away but in standing up and fighting. If grahastha ashrama has more problems than it is not right to stay away from it out of fear. How can one learn to swim without entering in the pool of water? It would be prurient to say that I want to be a body-builder but won’t go to gym. It is important to first observe bad qualities like sensual desires, anger, greed, and selfish attachments, understand their workings, and then fight and win against them. Grahastha ashrama is the best stage to do this – so say numerous spiritual masters.
All the great rishis of yore have been born and brought up in this ashrama. Just imagine, if grahastha ashrama, which unintelligent people call names like maya or worldly ties, wasn’t there, then where would Ram, Krishna, Buddha, Christ, Mohammad and Gandhi come from? How would we ever learn of the great stories of devoted wives like Sita, Savitri, Anusuya, Madalasa, Damayanti, Parvati and so on? Where would the brilliant children like Dhruv, Prahlad, Nachiket and so on, whose names are the glittering jewels of spiritual world, appear from? It won’t be an exaggeration to say that all the other three ashramas are kids, grahastha is their father. To call the father as worldly tie, hell or worth abandoning, is a sign of total indiscretion.
Till a person is loaded with responsibilities he does not become mature, sincere and responsible. Childish calves keep flitting and prancing around. When they are loaded with weight they begin to keep every step carefully forward. When an elephant treads through
deep waters, it puts one foot ahead, carefully gauges the firmness of the ground underneath and then only puts the next foot forward. In doing this all his mental faculties get concentrated on each step. Whatever Sage Patanjali has called concentration or the control of the agile tendencies and thought patterns of the mind (chitta vritti nirodhah) does not come about by just talking about them. A responsibility or an inspiration is required for this. When the weight of grahastha ashrama falls upon his shoulders, a person begins to take careful steps towards handling responsibilities. He leaves aside his careless ways. His responsible thinking and decision making, in time, converts into wisdom and discretion. Just as a king has to tread carefully when managing the affairs of his kingdom, so also a common householder has to take steps forward with foresight, wisdom, patience, care and self-control. Just as a trainer trains an unruly horse with a whip and makes sure it becomes a perfect race horse, grahastha ashrama also with its several bitter and sweet experiences earns a man self-control, foresight, maturity and equipoise. All these are signs of yoga. A ripe fruit detaches itself from the branch on its own. Similarly a person attached to the branch of household gradually learns the concepts of selflessness and sacrifice, and finally turns into a yogi.
Attachment, greed, lasciviousness, obsession, indiscretion are qualities that one has to get rid of. These can exist in grahastha ashrama as well as in other ashramas. So grahastha ashrama is not to be renounced, instead, these bad qualities must be renounced.
Source: Married Life: A Perfect Yoga
