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.
What is the place of training or discipline in surrender? If one surrenders, can he not be without discipline? Does not discipline sometimes hamper?
July 10, 2026
Maybe. But a distinction must be made between a method of development or discipline and a willed action. Discipline is different; I am speaking of willed action. If you surrender you have to give up effort, but that does not mean that you have to abandon also all willed action. On the contrary, you can hasten the realisation by lending your will to the Divine Will. That too is surrender in another form…
