Juggling these demands leaves me uncomfortable, drained, and with very little time for sadhana. How can I balance these family obligations without letting them hinder my spiritual path?
Yes, the sense of responsibility is also an attachment, an attachment of the sattwic kind.
As far as a choice is concerned between duty towards the Divine and duty towards the family, the Gita and the example of several saints and yogis, and more recently great ones like Swami Vivekananda and Sri Aurobindo, the verdict is clear. Duty towards the Divine supersedes and overrides everything. Imagine if Hanuman ji stayed back to look after his father or Lakshman ji to look after his wife or, for that matter, Bharat ji to take care of his mothers. All these and many other stories clearly point out that the duty towards the Divine and, in fact, even living a higher and greater ideal comes before the needs of the family and everything else. In the army, it is a proclaimed ideal that the needs of the country and of those working with us come before our own and family needs. The Divine is even much higher and greater.
So does one abandon the family? Well, if they come in the way of the Divine seeking due to all kinds of expectations, then they must be abandoned as the famous Tulsidas ji adviced to Mirabai when she had a similar dilemma.
In fact, family attachment is one of the most difficult bondage to conquer. The Jivanmukta, of course, dwells with the family but is not bound to them. He acts as the Divine Will demands and not as the family expects. But the problem with women, as the Gita also points out is that women are not independent, financially so to say. That is another problem which has now been solved with new possibilities of women working and earning independently.
Here is what The Mother reveals.
‘Duty towards the Divine is far more sacred than any social or family duty; it is all the more sacred because within the human collectivity it is almost wholly ignored or misunderstood.
One who has given himself to the Divine has no longer any other duty than to make that consecration more and more perfect. The world and those who live in it have always wanted to put human—social and family—duty before duty to the Divine, which they have stigmatised as egoism. How indeed could they judge otherwise, they who have no experience of the reality of the Divine? But for the divine regard their opinion has no value, their will has no force. These are movements of ignorance, nothing more. You should not attempt to convince; above all, you should not let yourself be touched or shaken. You must shut yourself carefully within your ivory tower of consecration and await from the Divine alone help, protection, guidance and approbation. To be condemned by the whole world is nothing to him who knows that he has the approval of the Divine and his support.
Besides, has not mankind proved its utter incompetence in the organisation of its own existence?’
(Ref. https://incarnateword.in/cwm/14/duty-towards-the-divine-and-others)
Of course this is to be seen in a general sense. Each life is unique and needs unique approach. Besides, leaving the family for the higher life should be prompted by a genuine inner need and not as an excuse to escape from the challenges that are always there in every life. If one tries to escape, then the same challenge will come, in a different way in the course of one’s spiritual journey.
Hope these are enough pointers.
Affectionately,
Alok da
