During family conflicts with spouse, how to keep a cool mind and avoid physical fights?

[Shri Anil asked: Padanamaskaram Swami, During family conflicts with spouse, how to keep a cool mind and avoid physical fights? If the spouse strongly wants to live separately with children without association of the other spouse shall it be allowed? How to proceed in this matter? Swami, Kindly give Your answer to this. At Your Lotus Feet Anil]

Swami replied: Yogashastra means description of serpentine movement of kundalini in crossing the six chakras (wheels). Here, chakras stand for different worldly bonds in which bond with the spouse is also described, which is the third one called ‘svaadhishthaana chakra’ for which fire (agni) is the deity. Due to this fire, quarrels also come between the couple. The sexual life is also due to the heat of this fire only. Hence, we understood the reason for quarrels between couples through the nature of this svaadhishthaana chakra, which lies in the stomach.

The solution for this is given by the serpentine motion of kundalini. Kundalinii means awareness or mind and intelligence. The solution shall be discovered by the intelligence (jnaana). Mind indicates love (bhakti). This means that the awareness must be a mixture of both mind and intelligence. By intelligence, one must evolve the path. After evolving the path, the mind or love shall be shown to the spouse. The serpentine movement indicates a curved way, which means that even if one does not have love on the spouse, following the serpentine way, one shall at least pretend as if he/she has unimaginable and unbounded love to the spouse. Sometimes, indirect ways are to be used for the sake of solutions to achieve a peaceful life. For example, let us imagine that one has beaten the spouse in an extreme state of anger.

This beating itself is very wrong. First, the person shall control the anger because after all, the spouse is not an enemy like Duryodhana fighting with the person like Dharmaraja. Such a fight is always rare and accidental. In such a case, the person shall immediately fall at the feet of the spouse asking for excuse. By this, the spouse also will understand his/her mistake also. If the person starts arguing about the fault of the spouse, the spouse will never realize his/her mistake. This is a tactful solution not only in the worldly life, but also in the spiritual life. If you are a devotee of God and if your family is not cooperating to your devotion, you shall have secret devotion to God so that you will neither hurt your family nor leave your devotion. Such curved path is not cheating. The cheating comes only when you are grabbing something from somebody through cheating. You are only establishing a peaceful end and the cheating means are justified by the noble ends.

For all this, one shall conquer one’s own ego and then only all this drama is possible. In a role, the actor will never remember himself/herself in order to do the best acting in the drama. Drama is not a sin because every quality has both good and bad sides. If you take cheating in its good side, the end will be peace and happiness. If you take cheating in its bad side to steal something from somebody, the end will be sin followed by divine punishment. If you say that acting is a sin, then all the actors acting in dramas shall go to hell because the actor is cheating the audience in the role of God Rama and in fact, the actor is not Rama. Is this not cheating in strict sense? Therefore, any quality based action is good or bad from the point of the good or bad angle in which it is done.

Kalidasa wrote a drama on Shakuntala in Sanskrit. King Dushyanta forgets Shakuntala due to some curse. Later on, King Dushyanta remembers his entire love affair with Shankuntala since the curse was released. Later on, Dushyanta meets Shakuntala in a different place by which time, Dushyanta already repented for his mistake. Dushyanta immediately falls on the feet of Shakuntala as we see in the last seventh act. By this, Shakuntala is also pleased analysing that her husband’s mistake is due to the curse. If Dushyanta had not fallen on the feet of Shakuntala and had argued for the absence of his mistake, Shakuntala would have taken a very long time to compromise.

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