Self-Expansion Through Marriage: A Way to Inner Happiness

Foreword

by Susan M. Campbell, Ph.D.,

author of The Couple’s Journey, Beyond the Power Struggle,

and Survival Strategies for the New Workplace

In these times of cultural upheaval, the institution of marriage, like so many social norms, faces profound challenges. Marriages based on feeling good and meeting each other’s needs have proved disappointing. New insights are needed, based on universal truths but capable, at the same time, of adaptation to changing circumstances.

We live in a world, and even more so in an era, in which, as the ancient maxim puts it, all is flux. The greater the flux, or outward change, the greater the need in our lives for something stable, a spiritual center within ourselves to which to relate our ever-changing experiences. In marriage, what our culture needs today is a new paradigm for relationships, one that embraces both the outward institution and an inner process of self-unfoldment.

The vision implied by the title of this book, Expansive Marriage,* speaks to both needs. Marriage carries the connotation of something intended, at least, to be enduring and stable. Expansive expresses the need to respond creatively to the inner challenges of marriage. In embarking on an expansive marriage, you commit yourself to something that you know must change, constantly, and you welcome this fact as an opportunity for mutual as well as for self-development, looking at change itself for what it mirrors to you about your own nature. This is the essence of the new paradigm marriage: its responsiveness to change, its respect for other sides of an issue, and its increasing centeredness in a spiritual reality that never changes.

In my view, an expansive reaction to change grows out of respect for differences of opinion and outlook. Acceptance of these differences fosters a wider, more expansive resolution of the issues concerned.

I heartily agree with author J. Donald Walters’s† emphasis on creativity in marriage. In my book, The Couple’s Journey, I called it co-creativity—Stage Five on the path toward wholeness. The earlier stages are for healing the past. The more mature stages are for shared creativity in a couple’s relationship with the larger world. Co-creativity involves the man and woman in cooperative evolutionary activity leading the couple ever closer to God.

I very much appreciate also Walters’s vision of marriage as a means of bringing out the best in each partner. In the past, most marriages have been comfort-oriented, not expansion-oriented. But in these times of planetary crisis and change, it is time couples rose to meet the new challenges. Partners need to aspire in themselves, and to inspire one another, to live at their highest potential. Inspiration is the only way to effect meaningful change, whether in your partner or in yourself. It is time people realized that change cannot be effected through guilt and self-accusation on the one hand, or through manipulation or control on the other. Inspiration is the agent for change of the new paradigm.

Walters has obviously made the study of the human energy system a major part of his life’s work. Our present culture desperately needs a more enlightened view of human energy—how to generate it, how to nurture and sustain it, and how to use it to help others and oneself. The newly emerging relationship paradigm involves a deepening understanding of energy in ever-subtler aspects. The vision of expansive marriage, with its emphasis on inspiration, creativity, and shared communion even in the practice of silence together, contributes significantly to this new paradigm by portraying a very sophisticated understanding of the concept of energy. Energy is a spiritual phenomenon. Embarking on an expansive marriage will change your relationship to the life force, pulsing through all of us, that we call energy. As you continue further along the path of expansive marriage, you come to recognize that what you have been accustomed to think of as your personal energy is actually part of a vast ocean of energy. Expanding into this universal energy is, ultimately, what expansive marriage is all about.

It is my hope that more and more of us will make new discoveries on this path to self-realization, that we may heal ourselves, our families, our communities, and our planet.

Susan M. Campbell

Belvedere, CA

* The title of an earlier edition of this book.

† Swami Kriyananda’s Western name.

Introduction

The reader, when presented with a book on marriage, will probably want to know the author’s credentials. Is he a marriage counselor? Has he a Master’s degree, or a Ph.D., to show specialization in the subject? What other books has he written on the subject?

I have spent many years counseling people—forty-five years, so far. I have worked with people all my life, both publicly and in private. I have lived in many countries, and familiarized myself with many customs and cultural attitudes, East and West. I have written some sixty books‡ many of them on topics directly or indirectly related to marriage. I have founded and am the spiritual leader of a large and thriving community called Ananda Village, near Nevada City, California, and of several branch communities in America and elsewhere.

My most important credential by far is that I studied with one of the truly wise people of this century, Paramhansa Yogananda. In a life of travels I have met many of the great and famous. None of them had the impact on me that Yogananda had. I was fortunate to study with him the last three and a half years of his life. If this book contains any wisdom, and if it proves helpful to you, it is to Yogananda’s wise counseling above all that the credit is due.

One facet of his teaching was that he never imposed on others a system of beliefs. His central teaching was spiritual, yet he met people where they were, psychologically. Far from trying to convert them, spiritually, he helped them according to their own perceived interests and needs, offering them more if they wanted it, but not if they didn’t. By his attunement with people in all walks of life and in every stage of mental maturity, he was able to help them in ways that were supremely practical.

I don’t say that the ideas in this book were his. Some of them were. Some may not have been. What he gave me was an approach, not a system of set formulae. As he used to say, rather than give a person money, it is better to teach him how to earn money himself.

‡ Editor’s note: By 2012, Swami Kriyananda had written more than 140 books.

Expansive Marriage

Chapter rose1.tif One

A Direction, Not an Ending

They married, and lived happily ever after. Isn’t that how most fairy tales end? But then, that’s all they are: fairy tales.

Romantic comedies, too, although they don’t always say it in so many words, usually end with the same beamish promise: unalloyed wedded bliss, descending perpetually, like showers of rose petals, upon couples who, once they have tied the knot, stroll carefree through life down lushly green mossy glades.

People are conditioned from early childhood to look upon marriage as Nature’s solution to the search for happiness. The handsome prince marries the beautiful princess—she of the long, golden tresses. The poor shepherd boy wins the aloof and unapproachable princess. Cinderella, after years of menial labor and of withering contempt from those closest to her, is selected from among the fairest maidens of the land to marry the noble prince.

Such a view of marriage is two-dimensional. It suggests no road disappearing gradually into the distant future, and therefore no future challenges. The couples in this picture do not walk down life’s road together: They merely step into the canvas and disappear. How often has marriage, entered upon with such blithe expectations, proved disappointing!

It is natural to romanticize weddings. Brides want to wear white, and would feel deprived of something precious, if not driven to open rebellion, were it Fashion’s decree that they wear tweeds. Guests want a wedding feast, and would feel cheated if all they got in return for their gifts were tortilla chips and a spiced yogurt dip. The parents want the congratulations (and perhaps the envy?) of their friends. The children want a chance to run amuck among the adults without fear of a scolding. Everybody likes a good time. And the groom—well, yes, the groom: He’ll probably be happy enough, once he can get out of that stiff costume—better suited to an operetta, he thinks—and into something comfortable.

It is perfectly normal that weddings be romanticized. Marriage, however, is another story. It should be viewed realistically.

For marriage is a human state; it can give people no more than they themselves bring to it. The function of marriage is not to lift people up to the stars. Marriage is not a substitute for divine ecstasy. All it can give people is a new recognition of what they are already, in themselves.

Given the unregenerate condition of most human beings, the self-recognition marriage bestows is not always easy to bear.

An Opportunity for Growth

Marriage should not be approached as a beautiful, but motionless, painting. Rather, it should be viewed as an opportunity for ever-further growth and development. It should be recognized as a challenge and an opportunity to make someone else happy, rather than pursue selfishly throughout life one’s own happiness. Marriage should be undertaken creatively, as an art. Couples should seek fresh ways every day to express their love for one another, and to bring out the best in each other, and in themselves.

Creativity is a key word. For marriage is not, in itself, a solution. It simply provides new opportunities for finding solutions to life’s problems. We may say, also, that for every solution marriage provides it also presents fresh problems to be faced, multiplied by two, and then three or more as the blessed events begin piling up.

Any couple who think to live happily ever after once the wedding bells have stopped ringing are destined for a rude awakening. Hardly will the ringing have ceased than other, strident sounds intrude themselves: the bustling traffic of other people’s priorities; the dreary exigencies of bills; life’s daily routine; the growing realization that marriage alone has provided no perfect fusion of two human beings, as diverse expectations manifest themselves, along with diverse tendencies for meeting those expectations.

A Deeper Fulfillment

The mere fact that marriage is not really likely to fulfill the roseate dreams of many romanticists doesn’t mean it cannot offer deep fulfillment—deeper and more valid fulfillment, indeed, than the common two-dimensional expectations of it. What people entering marriage must do is stop dreaming and face their joint adventure not only hand in hand, but open-eyed.

Life’s true fulfillments are never static. Truth itself is not static. Any definition of reality, including the highest truth, should be an attempt to point a direction. Even the greatest human fulfillment can provide only a hint of Ultimate Perfection.

It is a weakness of human nature to want to define things absolutely. Definitions serve a purpose to the extent that they stretch the mind. But they are limiting if, after stretching the mind, they impede further growth.

Years ago I gave a series of lectures in Kuranda, Queensland, in northeast Australia. At the end of the series a man came up to me and said, I didn’t attend all your lectures, but I happened to catch the end of this last one. I’m not familiar with your philosophy, but I noticed that you kept on referring to God. Well, I’m an atheist. What can you say about God that will be relevant to me?

After a moment’s thought I made a suggestion: "Why not think of God as the highest potential you