Excerpts . . .

Getting What We Want Is the Wrong Peace
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"Marriage changes things. It is the exact opposite of flying free because both people have to compromise their way of behaving and even their convictions. In other words, the real struggle is with ourselves, not with our partner. We cannot change anyone else. The only war worth fighting takes place in the battlefield of the heart. "

What has taken place before a person walks down the aisle? What do we bring to this union? What is the mind-set of people entering marriage? In essence, why are we the way we are? What has conditioned us and how?

We are all alike in one sense. We all want the same thing peace. Most of us never find it because we are looking for it in the wrong place. Free will is for many the summum bonnum. If we can do what we want, we think this will guarantee happiness. The idea seems to be that happiness is a gold ring to grab as we go round and round on the carousel of life.

We have been conditioned to win. We are taught from an early age that winning is a great thing. Just watch parents at a little league contest! And look at our society today with the enormous importance placed on winning and gaining control. Vince Lombardi, the great NFL football coach said, "Winning isn't everythingit's the only thing!" We often take this saying to heart, as if it were a heavenly pronouncement. Rarely does a day pass in the average household that the husband isn't glued to the TV, savoring the triumph or cursing the defeat of his favorite team. Elated investors watch their stock rise as a big company takes over a smaller company.

The extent to which we go to insure our rights, our privileges and our wants is amazing. Anything that interferes with or threatens our way of life is the enemy and must be dispensed with quickly. Look at what happens on the highway. People drive like maniacs, determined to stay at the head of the pack. At the same time, a person who disrespects another's rights in traffic may be in for a frightening encounter. People have even been shot and killed for violating another driver's space. Observe also the recent rash of teenage mothers disposing of their newborns in trash bins. Our egos have been inflated and indulged to an extreme.

Children naturally want to get their way, so their parents curb them and set limits. As they approach adolescence, children who previously had no power and no ability to determine their own lives begin to sense new strengths, even the ability to procreate. Children test these new strengths and all the boundaries that have been set up by their parents. They yearn for autonomy and begin to stretch parental boundaries to the breaking point. Free will exerts itself and constantly repeats the mantra, "This is my right. I can do what I please. Don't interfere with me."

This attitude metamorphoses gradually into ego, and ego tends to expand, solidifying its gains much like an advancing army.

Out of this cauldron of urges and rebellion comes the average young adult who one day decides to get married. Many young adults are woefully unfit for marriage. They have become accustomed through their upbringing or lack of it to getting their own way. They have seen little or no tolerance or compassion in their families of origin. Their driving motivation is to escape pain and experience pleasure. "Life owes me a living. Look what it's done to me." Seeking and experiencing pleasure has subtly and gradually replaced seeking and practicing goodness.

To one degree or another, this is the mind-set most of us bring into marriage. We are flying free, young adults who have broken out of the cocoon of parental conditioning and influence. We cherish our new freedoms, and we are eager to perpetuate and strengthen them. We are flying, and we value highly our right to fly where we will, stop where we will and do as we please.

Marriage changes things. It is the exact opposite of flying free because both people have to compromise their way of behaving and even their convictions. In other words, the real struggle is with ourselves, not with our partner. We cannot change anyone else. The only war worth fighting takes place in the battlefield of the heart.

You have probably heard the Arabic word jihad in the news. It is also and probably more commonly called holy war. Even in Islamic countries, jihad is usually taken to mean a war of believer against infidel. The true meaning of this word has been forgotten. Jihad does indeed mean war, but in the Q'uran, jihad was used to refer to the war that is fought inside the heart, the war of good qualities against bad qualities.

What does this mean?

I have talked about how our conditioning affects our marriages, specifically the extreme focus on winning and getting our own way. Another important aspect of our conditioning has to do with childhood experiences of abandonment, rejection and blame. Such experiences are universal because most parents are unskilled and, what is more, most are struggling with their own childhood wounds while they are raising their children. Deep inside, we carry resentments and even anger because of parental neglect or abuse, but we are largely unaware of these feelings and how they are affecting our marriages and our lives.

Increasingly these days, we turn to various therapies for help. Therapists point out these underlying feelings. We learn how our early conditioning has affected us. We uncover child abuse, abandonment, suppressed anger, and so forth. Too often, we come to derive a certain sense of comfort about our negative conditioning. We may use it as an excuse. "Of course I have trouble dealing with people and life! Look at the awful things that have happened to me."

In reality, equal to our conditioning, if not far more important, is the fact that genetically we carry all the good and bad traits that must be worked out to achieve peace in life. These good and bad traits are the two sides of our nature. It is crucial to remember, however, that we should never feel guilty about having negative traits. They are an inevitable part of the human condition, and we should strive to view them as objectively as possible. I feel that I must emphasize this point because so many couples I have counseled are guilt-ridden, which is absolutely useless.

Our physical constitution is made of five elements, the elements of the world: earth, fire, water, air and ether. Each element spawns specific base desires in the human being. Fire, for example, begets anger. The base desires are part of our human nature, and they become manifest in our thoughts and actions as anger, arrogance, greed, lust, deceit, cruelty and impatience, to name only a few.

These negative qualities are inherent; we were born with them and we cannot escape them, no matter how noble our lineage, how fine our parents or how skillfully we were parented. Because we are not aware of this, we tend to blame all of our present misery on either our marriage partner or our negative childhood experiences or both. It is true, of course, that some of these developmental and environmental factors contribute to our problems, but they are not the primary causethe elements out of which we are formed are the primary source of our unhappiness.

Since we cannot escape them, how can we deal with these elements and the fundamental desires connected with them? Here we come to the other side of our dual nature. God in all His wisdom provided antidotes, neutralizers, erasers to help us cope with the destructive forces that are part of our animal nature. These antidotes are known as the beautiful qualities of God. There are many Godly qualities, among them patience, tolerance, forgiveness, compassion, wisdom, surrender, understanding and conscience. These Godly qualities, which are also inherent in our nature, are the only effective tools for coping with the darker side of our nature (our negative genetic or karmic predisposition).

This is an extremely important understanding. We will never find happiness if we go through life blaming our discontent on the world, on our marriage partners, on what is being done to us or on what has been done to us. If, on the other hand, we identify the dark qualities inside of us that generate discontent as the true villains, it will be possible to find a way out of our dilemma if we choose to do so. As the saying goes, in the darkness we have a choice: we can either curse the darkness or light a light.

The difficult part is clearing away or neutralizing the base desires so that we can see the Godly side of our nature.

Much misery in life could be averted if parents would teach their children about these elements and why and how we must control them. Ideally, our upbringing instills in us the value of morality, but focus on God and virtue is becoming increasingly rare. In olden days, children were taught to love and respect God. They were encouraged to believe that He is always here watching and responding to our prayers. This message is rarely given more than lip service today, and sometimes not even that. Oh, we may turn to God in moments of despair and grief or in fear of our lives, but daily practice of remembrance of God and the practice of good qualities is fairly rare.

I am reminded of a story I heard once. A small boy was fascinated by the newborn in his family. One day, when the boy thought he was alone with the infant, he leaned over the cradle and said softly, "Tell me what God is like. I've almost forgotten." Consciousness of God is natural to the newborn infant, but it fades quickly into the far background as our conditioning takes hold.

If we accept marriage as an excellent vehicle for spiritual progress, we have already made a big step, for we will then begin to see everything differently. We will not take things so personallyinstead we will be aware that marriage is a barometer of our inner struggle, a call to our own jihad. For it is a jihad; true marriage involves intense, quiet inner warfaregood against bad, good qualities as opposed to bad onesa true spiritual exercise.

Most people, however, certainly do take the trials of marriage very personally. When marriage is not seen for its potential or spiritual significance, it quickly lapses into a struggle between two people, one that is bound to produce frustration and despair. A power struggle emerges, and winning becomes paramount. The battle must be won; surrender is unthinkable. And yet, while winning the battle we may end up losing the war. Letting go and surrendering may mean losing the battle, but it also may mean winning the war to save the marriage. So often, gracious surrender brings about the most unexpected results. In my own marriage, my wife's acts of kindness and surrender have been far more healing than fighting to see who wins. "

- The True Marriage (p. 17-24)