“Marriage is meant to give joy”. Hampstead, Temple of all Faiths (UK), 29 November 1981.

Marriage is an auspicious occasion, is the most auspicious occasion in the life of human beings. It is auspicious, that’s why its joy giving and the vibrations flow with that auspiciousness all over the world. The joy of Sahaja Yogis today in England, London should spread all over the world.

Marriage is meant to give joy, is meant to give cheerfulness, happiness and all the blissful things that we can think of achieving through our combination with two human beings, we can say. It’s a very close and private relationship which has to be respected. It is not to be in any way dishonored or indiscreetly squandered away. Those who cannot respect their partners in life will never be respected anywhere else. Those who ill-treat or in any way try to spoil the image of their partners are harming themselves.

Try to understand each other, decorate each other, not correction, but decorating. Like an ornament, when added to a personality decorates that person, in the same way, try to decorate another person. So the decorum and decency of life comes from this auspicious relationship. That must be maintained. Marriage is the bondage that keeps the society in its own beautiful bondage of Mother’s grace.

Give up all your old ideas, all your so-called modern methods by which we have ruined our married lives. If you cannot enjoy your own wife or your own husband, there’s nothing in this world you can enjoy, because the relationship is the most intimate and very sacred. So you have to forget that you live independently, now you live as one person, one personality, supporting energy, complimenting each other in complete concord. This creates that peace which we are talking about.

If the marriages are not successful of two persons, how do we expect the whole nation to live happily? Think of it. At this level, the seeds of peace are sown. So we have to be sensible people, that’s the main part of marriage is: how far we are sensible about it. It’s easy to get into tantrums, get into tempers, to get into some sort of an indecent, indiscreet habit. But the person who is sensible never crosses a certain limit of that decency. Once you cross it, it is very easy to cross again. That’s what today when we read about Rama is that He is a maryada purushottam. Maryada is the boundary in which one has to remain. A woman has to remain in her boundary and a man has to remain in his boundary.

Now to think that the woman is dominated by man or man is dominated by woman comes from a kind of a complex and this complex must be given up. You are complimentary to each other. You decorate each other. Never talk ill of your husbands and never talk ill of your wives. This is the key of having an exclusive married life. If you start talking of each other to others, that exclusiveness, that trust is finished. So you have to trust each other. The trust in God, children imbibe when they start learning from their parents how they trust each other. So you are the nest where the tomorrow’s great children are to be born, to be established and to grow as great saints.

So it is such a great occasion that nine marriages have taken place. Nine is a very auspicious number for Me. There are nine planets, there are Nava Durgas. Nava Durgas are there. Nava Durgas are the nine forms of Durga. Nine forms of Mother. And that is something so great today has happened. It’s a very good day and all of you should understand the value of Sahaja Yoga marriages. You have to create a model marriage for all the English, for all the Americans, Europeans and also Indians. Because Indians learn from you all these things. If you have model marriages, they will go in for model marriages also. So it is important for people who live in England to understand the depth of this occasion and the esteem of what you mean to the whole universe and to the peace.

The enjoyment is your own, is exclusive. But in Sahaja Yoga, it is so collective, you could see that. It is so collective, you have so many brothers and sisters and we are all enjoying the joy of you couples who have joined together as husband and wife. So one has to understand that marriage should not make you narrow minded or selfish or in any way cut off from others. All relationships are beautiful in their own forms. Like you have brothers and sisters, you have mothers and fathers, you’ve got Sahaja Yoga and you have got the children. All in their own form should be given what they deserve, what they have to have, what the right thing is to be done.

Marriage gives you now a lever to be dharmic, to be moral. This teaches you how to respect the chastity of others and your own chastity. We have to teach ourselves. You know how much damage has been already done by having bad marriages, divorces. We have to teach ourselves, we have to bear up a little bit, we have to educate, re-educate and improve ourselves and not to say that “I am such and such, what can I do?”

You have to bring glory to the system of marriages because it is the system established by God Almighty, is not established by human beings, is a wrong idea. It is established by God Almighty to have an auspicious occasion where such an auspicious thing is taken, the sacredness of this is to be maintained and has to be done in such a way it is a very decent relationship. All the culture, all the beauty of gracious living flows through happy married life. Not vulgar, not showing, not cheap, but a dignified, enjoyable, cheerful, welcoming, giving companionship.

I am sure you all realize the importance of it and I am sure you all must have prepared yourself for this occasion. And I would like to see among all of you, who really shows the complete acceptance of your partners as part and parcel of your being and the graciousness with which you handle them. I bless you all. You are all saints and saints have married here. All the angels and all celestial beings must be singing praise of you. So be careful and assume, assume your positions as in Hindi language, we say biraji, to assume that position in your full esteem and glory.

We all are with you all the time to help you to sustain your relationships. All of us must see that we sustain their relations, make them feel the sweetness of married life. All the teasing, and all that should add up to their relationship and the whole enjoyment of their companionship should flow to us as the ripples flow towards the shores and again are repelled back into the ocean, in the same way, it should be such a give-and-take and such a beautiful thing. For that, the key of married life is purity.

Purity is the only way you can keep your married life absolutely all right. Whatever has happened in the past, just forget it. Now starts the new life. After this, don’t hide anything from your wife or from your husband. Everything must be told, it should be straightforward life, absolutely a straightforward life, extremely pure. And this purity, everyday practiced will be seen very soon in life, that marriages always elevate a person. But purity is the key of married life. And I hope you will remember those words. Try to keep your mind pure. Do not suspect your wives, nor deceive, vice versa.

Keep a very straightforward relationship and learn how to be that way, your children will learn from you and there’s no time taken now for the whole world to be transformed, once we learn this trust. Not in money alone, but in every way, a trust, a complete trust. As you trust yourself, you must trust the other, who is not other anymore. So those who have been married before, those who are married, who are going to get married, and those who are married today, for all of them, I bless you with a very deep enjoyment of this understanding, the joy of your purity, the beauty should flow all your lives, eternally.

May God bless you all.