4.1.4 relationships

Marriage Vows and Divorcing without Just Cause

November 30, 1996

     Now, vows of marriage are again sacred but they are not to guru. So the binding power is less but they are from human being to human being and still there is binding force. When sincere vows are taken, there is binding in that of consciousness, of mind for commitment is made. This is a serious matter, making commitment. It should be taken seriously, but when those vows are absolved due to difficulty situations where they cannot be fulfilled, then, though it may pain the person, generally there is recovery. If out of whim let us say a man has a wife but he meets a very fascinating woman and he wants to go with that woman so he leaves his wife and three children and the vows he has taken to honor and to care for her he leaves behind, deep in his psyche there will be guilt, there will be reaction. He will feel, "I have committed with sincerity to a task and to another human being. Then I have left that person in a bad situation." In the mind there will be a guilt. He will try to overcome it, he will do so many things to make himself feel better, to forget the guilt and he may succeed for one year, five years, twenty years, he might not remember. But it is within him, the reaction to his action remains with him and due to this reaction deep in his mind he will feel shabby and over time this shabbiness will overcome him and in order to straighten the score he himself may find that he is abandoned by another so that he feels the score is evened. You see, it is like this, sanskara. What you do to others comes back to you. If you treat them badly, it will remain in you and it will come back to you. Such is the breaking of vows in this way that harms another.     

     But let us say that the man is married to a woman and she has cheated on him many times and she does not care at all for his welfare and she has misused him and used him for her own ends. If he leaves her and breaks the vows, what is the karmic debt to be paid? He has been victimized. She has really broken the vows with him. If he attempts to harm her, reaction will be there in him, but if he merely goes, good and well. "I understand you are no longer wanting me, I will go my way. I do not try to hurt you as I have taken vows to care for you, but my care is not wanted so I will go my way." Then he is absolved from those vows. Do you understand? It is like this, in marriage. But in vows to guru, it is quite another matter. The vows taken in deep sadhana to guru are just as binding as those vows taken by avadhutas and avadhutikas, Vows to guru are binding be they to his subtle form or his physical form. Do you understand? When vows are taken and guru is not physically present for avadhutas and avadhutikas, they are still to guru in his subtle form. Because he is no longer in physical form, he takes the vows in subtle form and he holds those people to those vows. If they are broken, then there must be absolution in order to properly go forward. Otherwise the vow will remain binding and there will be the net reaction. Alright?