An essential part of a Vedic wedding is to have the august presence of spiritual preceptors, elders and other senior guests from both sides of the family. To receive blessings from such spiritually enlightened personalities is considered so auspicious for the new couple. Blessings come in many forms. One of the most important forms of blessings is to get to hear words of wisdom and knowledge from such personalities, for their words come from many years of ardent spiritual practice and realizations and service to their own spiritual preceptors. Their words can be our source of guidance for rest of our lives.
One such wedding was that of Sachin and Neha (names changed for privacy). They had Radhanath Swami as their esteemed guest of honor. After the ceremony of ‘Kanya Daan’, Radhanath Swami spoke eloquently to all the assembled guests and the newly weds explaining the significance of marriage and the duties of a husband and a wife towards each other.
Some years passed after the wedding and Neha started to experience many varieties of harshness in the behavior of her family towards her. Her in laws especially treated her very rudely and it kept getting worse steadily. Her husband Sachin found himself unable to do anything to make things better, on the contrary, he would only keep chiding his wife that she does not adequately respect his parents. The matter got so horrible for Neha with constant mental torture and physical abuse. The major issue between them was that each of them felt there is no respect for the other’s parents.
When Sachin and Neha’s spiritual mentors became aware of the situation, they tried to help them understand each others role in making this marriage work and what havoc it would create if they end up in a divorce. It did not seem to make things better. At one point of time, their spiritual mentors discussed the matter with Radhanath Swami. Radhanath Swami told them something very profound, “most marriages in a spiritual organization end because of mundane desires in the heart that the partner does not fulfil, it is seldom because of any spiritual concern. We rarely hear of marriages in a spiritual society breaking because of the spouse not allowing the husband/wife to follow the spiritual principles”.
Sachin and Neha decided upon the inevitable way to end their mutual suffering – divorce. Before going ahead with divorce they lived separately for almost three years. After this difficult period of a three year separation, the family court pronounced January 14th 2008 as the day when both of them will officially divorce. Just the day before, Sachin met Radhanath Swami and asked, “What should I do?” Radhanath Swami told him, “What did I advice you on the day of your wedding? Just meditate on that.”
Sachin heard the recorded address that Radhanath Swami spoke on the day of his wedding and felt tremendous amount of transformation. In the courtroom he sat face to face with Neha and they both mutually decided to give their marriage one more chance. Today, both of them are living a happy life of contentment on all levels.
