Regarding Bachelorhood and marriage and children..

[Guest guest]

All of you must remember Sri Ramakrishna's comments when M. first visited him.

These comments have made a tremendous impression on me on the significance of

the reason why we should give up everything to reach God. The conversation

though familiar I reproduce below:

 

Sri Ramakrishna: Are you married ?

M : Yes, sir

Sri Ramakrishna: (with a shudder) " Oh Ramlal, Alas he is married " .

Sri Ramakrishna: Have you any children ?

M: (trembling): Yes sir, I have children.

Sri Ramakrishna: " Ah, me, he even has children " .

 

It shows how relationships take up all our mental bandwidth which we ought to

give to God. If a person is unmarried and leads a celibate lifestyle it will

help him reach the goal easier (because he doesnt have the mental entaglement of

a wife),

 

If a person is married and doesnt have children it will definetly be easier for

him to cultivate dispassion and other virtues. The reason is well explained in

the upanishads, There is mention of three eshanas or desires . " Desire for

Progeny, Desire for wealth, Desire for heaven " . These are the primary desires.

It further says that desire for progeny leads to desire for wealth and which in

turn leads us to believe that there is more to enjoy and thus desire for worlds

which give us more enjoyment. So you see even at the marriage level if we stop

the desire for children then you can cultivate a lot of virtues enunciated in

the upanishads easily. Again this must be interpreted in the terminology of

giving up the sex desire in a given time period even though married and having

no children, as without giving up this desire we are fooling ourselves in the

essential pre requisites. Please note the term easily so that I dont indicate a

bias towards married people with children. Its hard

to be in the midst of wife, children and all our desires and work and yet make

progress. Its of course possible and many have done it but just as sannyasa is

one end of the spectrum of renunciation we have lower levels of renunication

which we must make our lifes synchronized to.

 

As in everything its how much mental bandwidth you give to God which will help

you reach the Goal faster. As Sri Ramakrishna said.. " Give 15/16th part of your

mind to God and rest to the world " . As all of you well know that

relations(especially wife and children) take much space, I find Jagganath's

comments on being a bachelor( Though I am not one) extremely relevant in this

context. Surely renunciation is for all " Sannyasin or householder " . The sooner

we renounce the faster our progress.

 

Jai Ramakrishna

Vinay

 

 

Strength is life, weakness is death.

- Swami Vivekananda

 

 

 

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