"Administration of the Home" - Part II

Zélia de Toledo Piza

Marriage & Happiness

 We will consider the home before being home, the home in potential, that is, the problems that precede the formation of the home.

         The first problem that appears is the one of the choice or the companion. The natural tendency is to value the factor personal appearance. Although the physical beauty is something pleasant to the view, it would not have to be important point in the choice of a companion. The one who is firm in this external factor is confusing the matrimonial life with a pleasure that the senses can give.

         There is also the danger of the hurried choice, because of one of the interested parties to be desirous of liberating of an unpleasant situation - control of the Parents, boredom inside of the house, solitude. They are dangerous psychological states because they can take to a precipitate decision.

         For a right choice, it is indispensable coexistence, much colloquy to the foot of the fire. It is necessary that there is likeness and interests in common, mental and emotional level equivalent. A short coexistence can take to mistakes, because the human being doesn't let his interior nature to appear in a ceremony atmosphere. And that is done without cruelty, without second intentions, unconsciously, because it is inherent factor to the human nature to present as a respectable being to the fellow creatures' eyes. The man and the woman get to control, to give an appearance of tolerance and captivating calm, qualities those that won't resist to collisions of the life.

         If after the marriage, the couple will live permanently together, it is necessary that before they know each other as well as possible in that real situation, that is, as much as possible, sharing long moments of a common life, to avoid concepts falsely built.

         In this coexistence previous to the marriage it is necessary, above all, authenticity - to be that which really we are, of open heart, without trying to sanctify to the eyes of the other. Then there will be opportunity for a true knowledge and consequently an acceptance of the other like he is really and not how each one would want the other to be. It is necessary to remind that each one brings inside of himself the same desire of getting right.

         All the actions of the life should be considered as experiences whose only objective is the man's interior development, in other words, an increase of the state of conscience. Therefore, the couple should love each other in the intention of helping mutually in this spiritual escalade.

         After the marriage, the first times nothing says of the developing of an union. The more real and objective was the coexistence previous, larger the probabilities. The more fictitious, illusory, imaginative and unreal is the coexistence previous, smaller the probabilities.

         A natural tendency exists in both parts for the exercise of the monopoly. In a high percentage of cases, the girl when she marries, she thinks that all the life will be a honeymoon. She wants to continue being white of the attentions, the center of the companion's life and she refuses categorically to enter in the reality of the routine life. She refuses to accept that, although she occupies the largest space inside of the heart, though, there only remain for her, few daily moments, because the means of living absorbs the companion's time. There is also, without a doubt, husbands that try to absorb all the attention of the wife, forcing her to live only for him, prohibiting her of external activities out of the home etc.

         It is necessary to marry knowing that, after the honeymoon, the life will be a routine life, hard for both and that the great wisdom will be exactly the one of appeasing the most possible the aridity of the material life of every day with the priceless values hidden inside of each one. It will be to know how to take advantage to the maximum of the minima moments that the life allows the both enjoy together.

         And we arrived, then, to the largest of all the interrogations of the marriage. How to maintain this conquered happiness? Countless factors exist, but we can mention some of the most important.

         l. Emotional ripening. The self-centeredness is the outline of the immature. The outline of that which thinks about the other ones is the one of the matured psychologically. The key of the happiness, in any coexistence and, above all in the matrimonial it is in the balanced renouncement. The dream of happiness, which is so natural in the youth's soul, has a price - that price is the one of the balanced renouncement that includes the sense of justice in all of the situations. Without mutual renouncement there won't be happiness. See that I said mutual, because the matrimonial happiness needs to be built by two, it is the type of the work that cannot be done by one. If just one resigns, that one will be unhappy, because it will interrupt the spirit of justice. And where one is unhappy, the happiness of the other will turn false, artificial.

         2. Important factor - preservation of the individual independence, from there the importance of the previous reciprocal knowledge, the real authentic one. Never somebody should get married thinking that will give one of Pygmalion. Only Shakespeare managed to do that, nobody plus, nobody never got or will get. If in his future companion there is something that really displeases, don't think with their buttons - that I get to modify with the time. That is illusion of the illusions. Nobody transforms anybody. Each one can change him, but we will never transform another person. In this attempt to transform, the tension goes on accumulating. The one who corrects becomes frustrated because it doesn't get anything and the one who is corrected feels depressed and upset, because after all he got married to have companion and not to have new Father or new Mother.

         Then, before the marriage the engaged couple should be observed mutually, to observe consciously and after married, each one should leave the other to be, exactly as he was before, in all his fullness, trying to love their small defects, same because if there are great defects, that are the one of moral order, then the willpower should already have acted, taking to a breaking before the marriage, because moral defects, sooner or later, undermine any union.

         As consequence of this to "leave the other be what he is" the third item appears.

         3. Mutual respect.

         The couple should be respected as if, to every new day, they met as people that never saw each other before. The technique of the respect is to intend that you are eternally unknown people. It is easy to be polite, kind, helpful to the strangers and every it time is going to be more difficult to be all this for somebody with whom you live together daily. The couple should engender tricks in the sense of preserving the flavor of this respect, vital for the happiness.

         Among people that live together daily, sharing the arduous problems of the life, besides the natural personal divergences, there are misunderstandings unavoidably. The solution of these misunderstandings is key point. If there is need, have divergences, but act with respect. Never let to escape any humiliating declaration of which later you could repent. They are those small things that kill the love. As well as they are the small gestures, the small memories, the small respect demonstrations that build and maintain the love. Instead of the couple to be permanently discussing small problems, we would advise the habit of a periodic meeting, official, to discuss problems calmly of any nature, even mentioning small twitches that have been disturbing.

         The couple should be open to the dialogue. A calm dialogue solves ninety percent of the matrimonial problems, because in general the problems are the result of bad interpretations of the reciprocal attitudes and that goes on adding until taking a gigantic figure. If the tension be not interrupted by a dialogue, the revenge attitudes begin being put in practice and nothing mote saves the marriage. And we are going to the fourth requirement.

         4. Sense of humor.

         The good mood is an ally of the happiness. A permanent smile in the lips softens any coexistence. Here the power of the positive thought would be included so extolled nowadays and so extraordinarily true and effective.

         The art of living in function of the happiness of the other, in other words, the matrimonial happiness is the largest school of interior accomplishment, of personal refinement, because that coexistence makes possible the application of the positive internal values that, little by little, goes on turning the man similar to his Creator. The long and happy marriage is the largest challenge placed to the man in his life on the face of the earth.

        The one, who has the opportunity to study theosophy, will see that the Universe is the result of a polarization, of the emergence of an Universal duality, duality that is present in everything and sharply apparent in the man - in his Will, in his Mental one, in his Emotional one and in his sexual aspect. Now, from this evolutionary apprenticeship on, there will happen the opposite, that is, the coalition of the polar principles in a balanced state that will result in the androgynies of all the values, not only of the sexual point of view, but of the mental and emotional point of view - the evolution seeks to reach the most perfect balance in all of the aspects. Then the mission that the happy marriage acts before the human being's evolutionary process. The home has all of the indispensable conditions to accomplish that which the Cosmic Law demands. But it is necessary that the elements that compose it are beings with fiber, endowed with a strong Will in the sense of collaborating for the wanted success, high endowed capacity of discernment and be determined in an united effort in the sense of the refinement of the human personality.

         I leave here registered, for meditation, two key points for the matrimonial happiness:

 - The monster of the jealousy;

 - It is necessary to maintain the politics of the affectionate conquest. Before the marriage each one gives the maximum of itself for that. It is necessary to use the Creativity. The mechanism of emotional reaction is by the surprise. The unexpected gestures are those who more touch.