A lesson from his life as a monk….
If you see the whole picture little parts can be adjusted, but if you don’t see the whole picture one little part can create chaos.—Radhanath Swami
According to all the scriptures of the world, at the very centre of the whole picture of marital relationship is a higher principle: to help each other in loving God, in serving God, and in serving humanity. Keeping in view this higher principle, both the husband and wife can easily adjust and go on with their marital relationship.
In the 1970’s Radhanath Swami lived in an austere Ashram (monastery) on a mountain top in West Virginia. At that time, how this relationship tip of ‘seeing the whole picture’ helped him maintain friendship with another monk, Radhanath Swami explains, “When I first came to live in an Ashram there was a person, he joined after me but became my authority. There was nothing about him that I liked, and even more important, there was nothing about me that he liked. I was thinking that if weren’t in that Ashram I would never want to do anything with that kind of a person, and I knew that he felt exactly the same way about me. But somehow, we were milking cows together; we milked the same cow, one on each side of the cow. Despite our differences we both accepted in our hearts that the higher principle of our relationship is to help each other to love God, to serve God, to serve humanity, and to follow the path that would purify our hearts. That was the higher principle and everything else we somehow just tolerated. Because we focused on that principle within a year we became best friends for the rest of our lives. We were so absolutely loyal, faithful and helpful to each other. I saw no faults in him anymore and he saw no faults in me. We were serving together practically all day, every day.”
