The Spiritual Dimension Of Holy Matrimony

Avatar Meher Baba
Most people enter married life as a matter of course. Others under-take it as ritual as that is what is expected of them.
However, the success or otherwise of a marriage will hinge on the manner in which the relationship between two individuals — who have now become life partners — is handled.
Marriage could be a spiritual experience, but again, it all depends on cultivating the right attitude. From the spiritual point of view, married life will be a success only if it is thoroughly determined by the vision of Truth.
It cannot offer much if it is based upon nothing more than the limited motives of the physical or if it is ins-pired by considerations which usually prevail in business partnerships.
A fulfilling marriage transcends the here and now so that the partnership evolves into one that seeks and achieves the Ultimate.
Marriage needs to be undertaken as a spiritual enterprise which is intended to discover what life can be at its best.
When two partners undertake the spiritual adventure of exploring higher possibilities of consciousness, they cannot at the outset limit their experiment by any convenient calculations concerning the nature and amount of individual gain.
Matrimony almost always makes many demands on both partners for mutual adjustment and understanding, and creates many problems which were not originally expected.
Though this might in a sense be true of life in general, it is particularly so in a marriage where two souls get linked in many ways, with the result that they are called upon to tackle the whole complex problem of personality rather than any simple problem created by some isolated desire.
In one sense marriage could be regarded as the intensification of most human problems. As such it becomes the rallying ground for the forces of bondage as well as for the forces of freedom, the factors of ignorance as well as the factors of light.
As the quality of life in marriage of an average person is determined by mixed motives and considerations, it inevitably invites an uncompromising opposition between the higher and the lower self.
Such opposition is necessary for the wearing out of the lower self and the revealing of the Divine Self. A marriage develops so many points of contact between two souls that severance of all connection would mean the unsettlement and derangement of practically the whole tenor of life.
Since this difficulty of breaking away from one another invites and precipitates inner re-adjustments, marriage is really a disguised opportunity for souls to establish a real and lasting understanding to help cope with the most complex and delicate situations.
The spiritual value of a marriage depends on many factors. If it is based upon shallow considerations, it can deteriorate into a partnership in selfishness.
If it is inspired by lofty idealism, it can rise to a fellowship that not only requires and calls forth increasingly greater sacrifices but actually becomes a medium through which the two souls can offer their united love and service to the whole of humanity.
At the outset, in a marriage, partners are drawn to each other by physical attraction as well as love; but with conscious and deliberate cooperation they can gradually increase the element of love.
Deep love forms through a process of sublimation, by mutual sharing of joys and sorrows. Love grows deeper till possessive and jealous love of the initial period is entirely replaced by a self-giving and expansive love.