|| Shri Hari ||

Duties in a Household Life

 continued

Question -  How can a householder be free of worries,  because he has to provide for, marry his children and take on various other domestic responsibilities and liabilities ?  

Answer -  Every being is born according to his fate.  The fate involves three factors - birth, age and pleasures or pain as the fruit of the past actions.   Out of these three a being has already taken birth.  As far as age is concerned,  he will live as long as is destined and he will face pleasure and pain in the form of desirable and undesirable circumstances.  In fact circumstances don’t make a man happy or sad but he becomes happy or sad in the favorable or unfavorable circumstances out of ignorance.*  

If a girl is marriageable age, her parents should not be worried because everything has been decided by her own fate.  So she will have favorable or unfavorable circumstances according to her fate.  But parents should think that she should be married to a deserving young man of a goog family so that she may lead a happy life.  But it is beyond their power to make her happy or to send her to a good family.  Therefore parents should perform their duty without being worried.  Worry makes the innersense (heart) impure and there is no progress.  They should perform their duty after giving a serious thought to it because the thought develops intellect.  So every person should give a serious thought to how to perform an activity but he should not worry about it.  If a problem is thought over, being free from worry,  a suitable solution is certainly found out.

* Sati mule tadvipaako jaatyaayurbhogaah  (Yogadarshan 2/13)   

(to be continued....... ) 

 ‒From the book ‘Jeevan ka Kartavya' by Swami Ramsukhdasji