Sin and virtues depend not upon the external manifestation of deeds but upon the sentiments and intent behind the same. Selfishness and selflessness, righteousness and evilness do not depend upon what the overt actions are but upon the attitude that lead to those actions. The gross, superficial intelligence of human kind judges a person good or bad based upon his actions. But in the divine court the external form of actions does not count; only the spirit behind the actions are valued there. The quality of emotions depends upon one’s internal purity. Cheating and ostentations can fool the external world, but not the inner soul ever. The inner being knows very well the exact intent behind every action. There is no way to cheat or mislead the soul whatever is true gets imprinted upon the clean slate of the inner self. Only those actions that inspire the sentiments of sacrifice, service, love, and goodwill in the inner being can be termed as true and perfectly selfless actions. Such actions are definite steps towards self-realization, irrespective of whether their external form was ordinary or extraordinary, normal or unusual, simple or grand.
There are two attitudes to raise the family: One is of false pride, selfishness and imposing authority upon family; and the second of sacrifice, love, service and benevolence. The first attitude leads to bindings, sin and spiritual decline. The second attitude leads to freedom, virtues and spiritual elevation. The family life that spiritual masters and saints have denigrated, called worldly ties, and asked to forsake, is actually related to the selfish attitude of raising families. Raising a family with selfless attitude is, on the contrary, a spiritual sadhana of the highest order. Such a grahastha ashrama has always been adopted by almost every rishi, yogi, spiritual master and deity, and has consolidated his/her path to spiritual heights. By adopting this path they never had to get shackled to worldly ties nor had to go to hell. If grahastha ashrama was meant to shackle and was so hellish, where would so many well know virtuous children get born? Why would the best yogis ever adopt this path?
Definitely Grahastha Yoga is an all-encompassing spiritual sadhana that is holy and leads to development of self. A family person must never think that he/she is leading a spiritually inferior life in any way.
Basically there is not much difference between and married and unmarried lives. The choice depends upon one’s convenience, interest and work style. Those who have a lot of touring to do need not take up the additional responsibility of a wife and children. While those who have a relatively stable life with less requirements for traveling can conveniently adopt a married life. Both lives are spiritually identical. When attitude is pure and selfless, the development of self would happen quickly in both lives.
Mantra 1: Fundamental Tenets of Grahastha Yoga
The ultimate objective of life is to make the individual soul meet the Supreme Soul. To carryout actions for the good of all while forsaking individual selfish desires is the real spiritual endeavour (sadhana). There could be several different ways to adopt this sadhana in practical lives. Grahastha Yoga is one such. A child learns several primary activities at home. More than half of the skills that are needed in life are also learnt at home. Our sadhana of inner refinement must also begin at home. The best laboratory to train life to attain greatness, self-control and selflessness, and to become cultured and service-oriented is home itself. It becomes very convenient to do all this at home because in family-life there is natural love, responsibility, duty, mutual dependence and cooperation. Home is a stable place and is secure from the prying eyes of strangers.
A sadhak of Grahastha Yoga must always contemplate in the following way:
- My family is my hermitage – the most holy place for my sadhana.
- The rituals prescribed to me are – devote my energies and best efforts always to develop my home like a beautiful, fragrant, fertile garden.
- My devotion to God is to fulfil the responsibility entrusted upon me by God for watering, and maintaining this garden and help it flourish.
- My self-control is that I do not consider any member of my family small and unworthy of deserving of my service, and I do not take undue pride in being the owner, master, leader or the bread winner of my family.
- My benevolence and selflessness is in devoting my service to the upbringing and personality development of each member of my family.
- My self-surrender is to serve others with absolutely pure feeling of dutifulness, without expecting anything in return.
- My penance is to provide happiness and comforts to my family members even at the expense of my personal happiness and comfort.
- My yagya (religious deed) is to enhance peace and happiness in this world by making each and every member of my family a refined, truthful, honest and responsible individual.
- My religious vow is to make my conduct and behaviour so pure and idealistic that it would inspire everyone silently to follow me and become virtuous.
- My self-restraint is to raise my family within the rightfully earned means of income.
- My aradhana (prime service to society) is to be always filled with love, benevolence and compassion, and to enhance happiness, joy and unity in the family and neighbourhood.
- My worship is to have complete devotion towards living idols of God in the temple of my home and to adorn them with ornaments of good virtues, good nature and good conduct.
- My sadhana is true, my feelings towards my sadhana are genuine and sincere, and my soul knows that I am truthful.
- Like a true unattached karmayogi I draw my happiness and satisfaction from the sincere efforts I put into my sadhana without worrying about their success or failure.
- I have taken an oath to be truthful and righteous, and I would forever try to uphold it with all sincerity.
Every Grahastha Yogi should adopt these mantras whole-heartedly. He must chant them several times during the day. He may write these on a small card and carry it along and he should read them whenever he gets time, contemplating upon each written word. If possible he should frame it in a poster and hang it upon a wall in his room. Early in the morning while getting up from sleep he must read these mantras a few times before getting busy in the chores, and take a vow that he would try his best throughout the day to do all the activities in perfect accordance with the deep sentiments hidden in these words and that he would try carefully and sincerely to match his conduct with these thoughts. For one who leaves his bed contemplating upon these mantras, the effect of these mantras stays with him throughout the day. The instructions given to the inner unconscious mind early in the morning go very deep; they do not fade in the memory easily and recur in the conscious mind at the right time.
Mantra 2: The Oath of Firmness
Every morning a Grahastha Yogi must chant –
- I am a Grahastha Yogi
- My life is oriented towards sadhana
- What do others do, how they do it, what do they say and think – I do not care, for I am satisfied with myself
- My true sadhana of performing my duties is so great, so satisfying, calming and fulfilling that it suffuses my soul with bliss
- I shall continue my enriching, blissful sadhana uninterruptedly
- I shall always perform all my duties towards my home with selfless attitude.
This oath must get firmly ingrained in mind. Whenever mind begins to waver and infirmities appear to set in, this oath must be consolidated again with sincerity.
Before falling asleep in the night all the actions during the day shall be thought over again:
- What all activities did I do today that were related to my family?
- What were my errors in carrying these out?
- What inappropriate actions did I perform out of selfishness?
- What all wrong did I do unintentionally?
- Which all actions were good, appropriate and in perfect accordance to the regulations of Grahastha Yoga?
All the activities done for the family must be divided into these categories and then ideas to correct the errors made must be found out. (i) Searching for mistakes and errors, (ii) accepting them, (iii) being ashamed of them, and (iv) putting sincere, honest efforts to correct them – whoever likes this process and adopts it in his life, his mistakes reduce day-by-day and soon he rids himself off all his weaknesses.
Mantra 3: The Oath to Fight All Shortcomings and Faults
On the path of sadhana of Grahastha Yoga, a sadhak is faced with a number of new problems every day. Sometimes due to his errors and at other times due to others’, incidents keep unfolding that are not in consonance with the tenets of Grahastha Yoga. A sadhak wishes that each of his action should be perfect and according to the principles, but mistakes keep recurring. Sadhak believes that in a few days, in a few weeks, or a few months all his faults would be rectified and his actions would become perfect. But when a long time passes by and the errors do not subside, then his mind begins to worry and feelings of disappointment and failure begin to creep in. He thinks: I am trying so hard and yet am unable to win over my nature. I err daily and my sadhana is not progressing properly. Sometimes he thinks: my family members are silly, idiotic and irresponsible. They trouble me and annoy me; they do not allow me to tread on the path of sadhana. So it is not worth continuing my sadhana anymore. Egged on by such disappointing thoughts he gives up on his oath.
Every sadhak must take precautions against this difficulty. It is certainly true that human nature has its own fallacies and shortcomings. The day a human overcomes all his shortcomings he would attain the supreme spiritual state, and become free. Till he has not arrived at his destination, he has to remain in human form with all its known shortcomings. When there is a mix of several individuals, in which some are in an advanced spiritual state and some are lagging behind, it is but natural that new errors and mistakes would surface every day. Some of these would be committed by us, some by others. The frequency of occurrence of these errors would reduce gradually, but it is impossible to believe that our family would transform into a family of deities. So neither there is any need to be afraid of difficulties nor to get worried and perturbed. After all sadhana stands for ‘the practice to correct errors’ and this practice must go on unhindered.
Yogis practice their sadhanas like Pranayam, self-control and meditation every day because their mental makeup still has some shortcomings. The moment these are removed, they also would attain self-realization. Being devoid of all faults is a sign of reaching the pinnacle, the final destination. Sadhaks should not even expect that all the desired feelings would come into action with a short practice of sadhana. Thoughts can come to mind in a flash but for them to get fully ingrained as an intrinsic tendency is a long, laborious process. To make an impression upon a stone the rope has to rub against it for a long, long time. One must understand that absolute freedom from all faults is the final aim; it is the final state of evolution of a being. It is not a sign of the first stage of sadhana. If one begins to search for mangoes amongst leaves of a newly grown plant, he has to return disappointed.
Rather than expecting total perfection, one must observe whether there is at least some increase in satwic (pure, serene) qualities or not. If there is even a little bit of progress it is a sign of hope, joy and success. A drop on drop fills the whole pot, a grain on grain becomes a quintal. If there is a little bit of success daily, then in the countless days of life, huge success will aggrandize. And this wealth does not get destroyed ever. This accumulation continues life after life and we would certainly reach us to our final destination definitely at the end. If success is being attained little-by-little, one must keep going with renewed enthusiasm. There is no need to feel disappointed and give up.
When one comes face to face with personal shortcomings during self-introspection, one must not feel disappointed. One must strengthen these feelings –
- Like a brave soldier I am fighting in this battle that would continue my entire lifetime.
- All the bad samskaras my family members and I have acquired over millions of previous births, keep presenting obstacles in my path. Sometimes I err, sometimes they. Obstacles keep coming, but I would not let them perturb me.
- I would fight all the difficulties I am faced with. When I trip and fall, I would not give up, and become quiet and accept defeat. I would get up again, ward off the dust and fight again. Only the one who fights, falls and hurts himself.
- Even when my own bad tendencies make me fall I would continue my fight.
- I am walking the path of truth. I am a blissful soul and it is my duty to fight my and others’ ill-tendencies and not stop till I win over them.
- I am true to my oath, my intent, my sadhana and my ultimate goal.
- I shall protect my righteousness and win against all the difficulties.
- I shall continue to search, identify and weed out all my faults always with the same fervour I started out with.
This above mantra must be always contemplated upon along with measuring of success attained. This prevents one from getting demoralized. The above three great mantras: the fundamental tenets of Grahastha Yoga, the oath of firmness, and the oath to fight the holy war against faults and shortcomings must always resound loudly in the core of a sadhak‘s mind. These thoughts should be imbibed in his mind and keep inspiring him most of the time. This will not only edify his personal and family life but also contribute to development of better society.
Source: Married Life: A Perfect Yoga
