Some questions to Dassan Das Ji about marriage.
Question 1
Is having a girlfriend and doing simran (meditation) contradictory? When doing simran you are trying to control the five thieves. But with a girlfriend lust is always present. Should a person break off the relationship to avoid the lust? (But even when you are married you wouldn’t leave your wife because of the sexual element?)
Friendship is not any kind of a sin, the real friendship means sacrifice which promotes true love and peace of mind, it is a relationship between two souls, there is nothing wrong being in love with someone, and if the two are in true love then why don’t they get married and accept each other for life time, if there is any element of doubt and if there are any ifs and buts then the relationship is not true.
If the friendship is only for meeting the bodily needs and desires then that is not true friendship or true love, that is pure lust. Moreover, if the person is doing Naam Simran and has Gur Parsadi Naam and if he is really committed to the Gur and Guru and has full belief, faith and trust in the Naam, Gur and Guru then he should be able to get an answer by himself: Prabh Key Simran Sabh Kich Soojhey (In the remembrance of God, all things are known.), we are sure that he will get an answer by himself by praying to the Almighty.
Question 2
Are all ceremonies rituals? If so and if we do not believe in any kind of rituals, then what do we do at births, marriages, deaths, birthdays?
Anything outside the Divine Wisdom – Gurmatt is a ritual or also can be categorized as a ceremony or the norm of the society we live in, and we do perform these ceremonies on a daily basis. It will be very hard living a family life and not participate in these ceremonies.
Hard-line attitude is also not a good thing to have either. The best thing will be to accept the life as everything happening in God’s Hukam (order), and not forget God while participating any kind of such ceremonies, and just try to be truthful in all your actions and deeds.
Doing Naam Simran, Paath, Kirtan and deeds of kindness and charity will be the best thing to perform on these occasions. The things that are normally performed on such occasions, except on deaths, namely drinking and so on is by no means going to elevate your divinity and spirituality, so if you are looking an answer from that point of view then the answer is obvious.
You should perform in such a way that you should not loose your divinity, your integrity, your character by indulging in such actions and deeds. As far as the death is concerned, crying and weeping is not the right thing to do, being sad should be avoided, the birth and death is under Hukam, and by indulging in crying, weeping and so on we are not accepting the Hukam of Akal Purakh, which is not right.
Everything should be done before the death comes to make the death very calm and peaceful, to make it a success story of the life, nothing that is done after death helps the dead or anybody else in the family.
Question 3
Is being married better than being an unmarried couple? Is being married better than being single all your life?
Under the normal circumstances, it is better to be a married couple than an unmarried couple, what is the reason behind staying unmarried if you are committed to each other and you truly love each other and are sharing the sorrows and happiness of the life.
Question 4
Is there any difference if an unmarried couple is having sex, rather than a married couple? I.e. is sex before marriage wrong? Is sex before marriage LUST, but after marriage it is not?
There is obviously a great deal of difference between desire & lust and a true love, faith, trust, commitment and belief, lust is a “Tamo Birti” – a mental sickness that drags you away from the Almighty and in to the net of Maya, whereas a true love, faith, trust, commitment and belief are divine qualities and bring you closer to the God.
Married or unmarried for both this divine law is applicable, and if there is true love, faith, trust, commitment and belief between the two then why stay unmarried, staying unmarried will lack these divine qualities, which is not a true deed.
Dassan Das