Yoked work - Successful marriage

    
When successfully yoked, the team can pull substantially larger and heavier loads. Key word; team. They can accomplish far more together than apart. They have purpose. Focus. Goals.

The yoke of marriage means being attached to each other by the love of Divine.

This yoke sometimes it’s so light we don’t even notice it. This  yoke becomes chaffing when the road is filled with potholes, causing one of us to stumble and pull the other down at the same time. Sometimes the road is unmarked, and we are uncertain which way to go.  At that time, the yoke is not so easy.

Successful Marriage requires discipline, self-knowledge, and moral effort.

Marriage can only survive when there is Agreement on how to conduct the division of karmic labor

The higher and more spiritual sophisticated is the agreement level (spiritual, mental, social, financial, physical) the easier is the partnership.

• Physical work = not only doing the labor, but agreeing on how to do it, requires constant attention.
• Spiritual work = For those who feel ready to accept the austerity, marriage can be a high-speed vehicle toward consciousness.

There is never perfect agreement (as long as humans have egos, anyway) and so there is never an effortless marriage.

As the old saying goes, everyone wants to"get married", but no one wants to"be married".

But of course it is the"being" married which is the true reality. There is really nothing to"get", except the social approval. All the work and all the reward is loaded into the"being" part.

Marriage is actually a living spiritual environment like a garden which must be lovingly tended, through drought and frost, in good years and bad. It has weather cycles like the earth. A long dry spell might kill it.

Much like a child, it is constantly in process, constantly negotiating for change, and requires constant awareness and attention.

Clearly marriage is not a"thing or an"achievement but rather an interactive process. Marriage is an Ongoing yoga = a vital and supremely demanding negotiation for self-definition, core meaning, emotional security, and higher truth.

Marriage is a sophisticated spiritual practice which needs dedication and wise guidance.

The core of marriage practice is ongoing forgiveness which allows us to register disappointment, anger, grief etc.


Forgiveness allows one to accept responsibility for the karma, and - at the point of acknowledgement - to release the addiction to suffering.

Q:

• Many people say that when it comes to marriage, they're seeking nothing less than a soul mate. Is that asking too much?

Dr. Phil:

What's a soul mate?
It's just a term somebody made up, and with it comes some pretty mystical expectations.

I've long believed that if you're looking for that perfect partner, you're making a big mistake.

If you can find an 80 percent fit and hope that you'll grow together on the other 20 percent, you'll find happiness a lot quicker.

You wait for a 100 percent partner and you're going to be looking a long time, maybe forever.


But if you're okay on the core issues -- children, careers, division of labor, religion, handling in-laws -- then you jump in and handle the other things as they come along.