OM Namo Bhagavate

Can a wife be an obstacle to yoga?
From: SR -99.

Blessed Gurudev,

For long time I have thought that I am trapped by my wife. She doesn’t allow me to do my sadhana and very often makes me feel irritated due to her senseless actions. What should I do to get rid of this problem? You have said that yoga for the modern man is absolutely possible in a family environment but here I feel it is impossible.

Answer

You are not alone to think like this.

The majority of husbands think like you, and many wives also think in the similar ways. This feeling is the symptom of one who is stuck-up in yoga, one who actually does not want to put effort into yoga. I have no hesitation to say that your determination to succeed in yoga has weakened. Otherwise you will not blame your wife for your inability to do yoga. Modern-day husbands many a time pass on the blame to wives.

Yoga is not a battle between husband and wife. It is an inner battle to overcome all samskaras. Patanjali, the father of Ashtanga yoga, has explained this in the very beginning of his yoga sutras: “Athah yoganusasanam,” which means yoga is an anusasana, self-imposed discipline. (Sutra 1.) It should not be a sasana, or externally imposed discipline.  Submitting to external discipline is slavery where as submitting to anusasana is the beginning of self-mastery.

Now I will tell you about my experience when I was in your stage of sadhana. To be very truthful I do not recollect a single instance when my wife was irritated with me because I was doing yoga. Rather it was just the opposite. She was irritated when I was deviating from the path of yoga. For me yoga was not sitting silently for meditation or visiting temples or listening to discourses or bhajans. Yoga for me was a constant striving to be truthful, sincere and dedicated to my ordained duties and responsibilities. Yoga for me was my daily Gita chanting and maintaining my state of equanimity. I have found that my wife was never getting irritated when I was struggling with this sadhana.

Please look within and find out what it is in you that causes irritation in you. I am sure you will find out soon it is not your wife but your attachments to your notions of yoga that might be the cause of your irritations.

Love and Blessings,
Gurudev

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