Sunday, September 12, 2010

Enjoy Differences For Variety Spices Life

A young couple asked, "We have been married for several years but the only thing common between us is our irreconcilability. We are not able to make decisions; our indecisiveness is our common point. We don't even smile at each other. What do we do?"

My response is simple: Celebrate. Celebrate your differences. Make your differences fuel your togetherness. Just imagine how boring life would be if there were no differences.

Often people say they are upset that life is full of contradictions. Life is not so small that we can put it into compartments like good and bad, right and wrong, evil and noble.

Life is vast; so vast that it is big enough to include contradictions in its fold. The Kali symbol is a good illustration of this.

Goddess Kali is shown dancing on the chest of her husband, Shiva. She loves her husband and at the same time dances on his chest, almost killing him. Life is full of contradictions.

One has to accept them gracefully and at the same time change whatever is possible. We also have to learn to accept what cannot be changed.

While we're discussing differences, let us also accept the fact that the context of a relationship should be one of love, and not of expectation.

Love has to go through transformation and purification. Only then would we find that we are bigger than our differences, and that we are slaves to differences.

Differences add richness, variety and spice to life. One should be creative in a relationship. In a music concert, there would be different musical instruments but all of them are harmonized to create symphony.

The many tones, pitches and notes come together in a pleasing symphony. Exactly in the same way, you are different, your spouse is different. Learn to enjoy the differences.

By : Swami Sukhabodhananda