transformation | Radhanath Swami | Marriage and Parenting Advice

The 99 Club

Everyone is working for peace and satisfaction. If we do not find great satisfaction within our souls then we are much affected and afflicted by the circumstances surrounding us. The key to real peace is within and not without.—Radhanath Swami.

Once upon a time, there lived a King who, despite his luxurious lifestyle, was neither happy nor content. One day, the King came upon a servant who was singing happily while he worked. This fascinated the King; why was he, the Supreme Ruler of the Land, unhappy and gloomy, while a lowly servant had so much joy.

Later in the day, he sought the advice of his most trusted advisor. After hearing the King’s woes and the servant’s story, the advisor said, “Your Majesty, I believe that the servant has not been made part of The 99 Club.”

“The 99 Club? And what exactly is that?” the King inquired. The advisor replied, “Your Majesty, to truly know what The 99 Club is, place 99 Gold coins in a bag and leave it at this servant’s doorstep.”

When the servant opened the bag, he let out a great shout of joy… So many gold coins! He began to count them. After several counts, he was at last convinced that there were 99 coins. He wondered, “What could’ve happened to that last gold coin? Surely, no one would leave 99 coins!”

He looked everywhere he could, but that final coin was elusive. Finally, exhausted, he decided that he was going to have to work harder than ever to earn that gold coin and complete his collection.

From that day, the servant’s life was changed. He was overworked and chastised his family for not helping him make that 100th gold coin. He stopped singing while he worked.

Witnessing this drastic transformation, the King was puzzled. When he sought his advisor’s help, the advisor said, “Your Majesty, the servant has now officially joined The 99 Club.” He continued, “The 99 Club is a name given to those people who have enough to be happy but are never contented, because they’re always yearning and striving for that extra 1 telling to themselves: ‘Let me get that one final thing and then I will be happy for life .’

“We can be happy, even with little, but the minute we’re given something bigger and better, we want even more! We lose our sleep, our happiness, we hurt our family; all these as a price for our growing needs and desires. That’s what joining The 99 Club is all about.”

Words of Wisdom

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 14^th 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.