Tuesday, January 29, 2008 at 1:01am
Marriage is a spiritual path
Column: PERFECTBALANCELIFE
Get married! It is the very best way to find enduring satisfaction and fulfillment. It is amazing to me that anyone can think otherwise. Your marriage partner is your very best friend in the whole world. No individual will ever know or understand you better than your spouse. No one else will ever care for you and love you more profoundly than your marriage partner. Experiencing this love relationship day in and day out and year after year is the most intense and rewarding spiritual path to walk.
Walking a spiritual path requires a moment-by-moment awareness of what is happening around you and inside you. This heightened awareness allows us to experience each and every situation we encounter with clarity and understanding. Nothing is more important when it comes to each and every encounter we have with our spouse.
Research reveals that many marriages are experienced without the full engagement of both partners. Dr. Harville Hendricks refers to this phenomenon as the "unconscious marriage," wherein both partners act out behaviors and attitudes learned and ingrained during childhood years. Unfortunately, many of these behaviors and attitudes are detrimental to healthy and mature living for adults — especially in the setting of married life. Hendricks, a divorcee himself, discovered that many marriages progress through levels of growth and development and then, at a certain point, the growth stops. Eventually both partners settle, unconsciously, for a less than possible level of intimacy and love for the rest of their married lives. How tragic and unnecessary. Such behavior can lead to all kinds of problems.
In the case of one partner being unfaithful in the marriage, we know that such a marriage is not being experienced as a walk on the spiritual path. As I mentioned, walking the spiritual path requires one to be fully conscious of what is going on in the world around oneself as well as within one's own inner world. When a man and woman are thinking about entering into the life-long relationship of marriage, they need to deeply consider their motive and purpose for the marriage. Such consideration is part of the spiritual journey they are willing to embark on. The negative implications of a failed marriage relationship are much more far-reaching than that of a failed business partnership or an unsuccessful political alliance.
If more men and women consider that the marriage relationship is a spiritual journey to be walked together, then we can be assured of many more successful marriages. Here are some suggestions to consider that can help ensure that the marriage partnership will remain as a life-long path of spiritual growth development:
Read the Book of Proverbs.
Discover a purpose for married life that transcends physical reality.
Make sure that God is at the center of the marriage.
Understand your own history and that of your partner.
Be humble, at all times.
Never stop learning.
Jack LaValley is a practitioner of the martial arts, physical cultivation exercises, and sitting meditation. Although currently working in the hospitality industry, he spends much of his free time helping and working together with those who are pursuing the spiritual path. Jack and his wife, Wha-ja Oh-LaValley, a native of South Korea, reside in Westchester County, New York, and are the proud parents of three beautiful children. Jack is completing his book manuscript, "A Perfectly Balanced Life: Living Each Day with Wisdom and Strength," and expects publication to be in October 2008. You can reach Jack at: perfectbalance1@optimum.net © Copyright 2008 by Jack LaValley.
Walking a spiritual path requires a moment-by-moment awareness of what is happening around you and inside you. This heightened awareness allows us to experience each and every situation we encounter with clarity and understanding. Nothing is more important when it comes to each and every encounter we have with our spouse.
Research reveals that many marriages are experienced without the full engagement of both partners. Dr. Harville Hendricks refers to this phenomenon as the "unconscious marriage," wherein both partners act out behaviors and attitudes learned and ingrained during childhood years. Unfortunately, many of these behaviors and attitudes are detrimental to healthy and mature living for adults — especially in the setting of married life. Hendricks, a divorcee himself, discovered that many marriages progress through levels of growth and development and then, at a certain point, the growth stops. Eventually both partners settle, unconsciously, for a less than possible level of intimacy and love for the rest of their married lives. How tragic and unnecessary. Such behavior can lead to all kinds of problems.
In the case of one partner being unfaithful in the marriage, we know that such a marriage is not being experienced as a walk on the spiritual path. As I mentioned, walking the spiritual path requires one to be fully conscious of what is going on in the world around oneself as well as within one's own inner world. When a man and woman are thinking about entering into the life-long relationship of marriage, they need to deeply consider their motive and purpose for the marriage. Such consideration is part of the spiritual journey they are willing to embark on. The negative implications of a failed marriage relationship are much more far-reaching than that of a failed business partnership or an unsuccessful political alliance.
If more men and women consider that the marriage relationship is a spiritual journey to be walked together, then we can be assured of many more successful marriages. Here are some suggestions to consider that can help ensure that the marriage partnership will remain as a life-long path of spiritual growth development:
Read the Book of Proverbs.
Discover a purpose for married life that transcends physical reality.
Make sure that God is at the center of the marriage.
Understand your own history and that of your partner.
Be humble, at all times.
Never stop learning.
Jack LaValley is a practitioner of the martial arts, physical cultivation exercises, and sitting meditation. Although currently working in the hospitality industry, he spends much of his free time helping and working together with those who are pursuing the spiritual path. Jack and his wife, Wha-ja Oh-LaValley, a native of South Korea, reside in Westchester County, New York, and are the proud parents of three beautiful children. Jack is completing his book manuscript, "A Perfectly Balanced Life: Living Each Day with Wisdom and Strength," and expects publication to be in October 2008. You can reach Jack at: perfectbalance1@optimum.net © Copyright 2008 by Jack LaValley.