Marriages do not work out as we expect them to do because of the gap between the ideal and the strength and sacrifice needed to realise it. This is very much missing today in the fast food and utilitarian culture imported largely from the West. But the Divine is always willing to help us realise the Ideal. He is not the spoilsport to our happiness but the helper and guide and it is only rarely that he does not grant a sincere prayer, and only when He sees the harm that may accrue through it. The reason why relationships end up badly is not God but our incapacity to love. A love full of demands, expectations, wishes and desires based on the need for pleasure or happiness is not so much love but emotional and vital hunger. So too a love calculating gain and loss is a business and a marriage based on social benefits is a transaction. These are as good as failures even if it succeeds by outer standards. So grow in love and try to make it beautiful and sincere. That is all that is needed.

Alok da,This might not exactly be a serious spiritual question with depth but forgive me for asking this . One consistent pattern from childhood is that one sees is that in all the images and depictions that one gets acquainted of rishis,yogis is that they really have massive long hair. Shraddhalu ji in today’s times also has that look. But there’s this fear/tension of hair loss among young men today, it’s quite a psychological blow on one’s confidence and what not. And one opposite pattern has been that so many men of the homeless type or labouring class , even with all the malnutrition and what not really also have good hair and I’ve seen men young lads thinking about this being a result of life of low stress and what not. Does yogic concentration/metabolism have any indirect ripple effect on having a healthy hair cos that’s how all these rishis are adorned, I know it might sound silly but am curious
Hairs and Nails represent the inconscient atavistic elements in humans. They have an evolutionary necessity in animals but in human beings they are simply an extension of the animal body type. That is why there is in it a very strong genetic hereditary element. There were a number of very close disciples of Sri Aurobindo namely ..

