If a devotee can’t find an astrologically compatible match can they pursue astrologically incompatible matches where other things match?

Answer Podcast

Transcript

This is an AI-generated transcript and may contain some errors.
so say for a young boy or a young girl no as possible compatible match is coming up and there is a devotee boy and a devotee girl they like each other but it’s not as possible compatible should they just reject it or should they go ahead in spite of astrology I don’t know how I became a marriage counsellor I don’t know how I became a marriage counsellor see astrology is meant to be profound it is not meant to be controlled because there is also the element of Shraddha by Shraddha by faith what I mean is that suppose a couple astrologically in company and somehow they like each other very much and they want to get married and the parents say no then later on they may go into some other marriage but then that will be at the back of our mind and they will be half hearted in that relationship and even if that relationship could have worked out, it may not work because see astrology is a tool but ultimately it’s individual effort that is going to determine the relationship so if the not just the parents but the boy and girl also and they also recognize astrology as important and they also feel that the astrological aspect should be given importance then then the astrology because of astrological incompatibility that relationship can be avoided but it’s that the important point is that ultimately those two people who have to decide what they want to get astrology can be an A it can be a very valuable A neglecting that A can even be very disastrous but it is not that just by acting according to that A all problems will be avoided because it’s ultimately the two individuals because when we give guidance to anyone it’s the see Krishna also guides Arjuna after Arjuna Arjuna seeks guidance so first Krishna talks to Arjuna as a friend in 2.2 and 2.3 but in 2.7 when Krishna, Arjuna surrenders then Krishna makes up a mood of guiding so like that same way when we are guiding anyone even if it’s our own children at that time when they know we are of a particular age we can’t control and it has to be decided based on mutual consultation mutual agreement so we are living in a we are not living in a traditional society and because we are living in a very different society so we all get different kinds of upbringing different kinds of influences different kinds of examples we see around us so the point of bhakti is not to turn back the clock it’s not to turn back the clock and start living the way people were living 500 years ago or 5000 years ago the point of bhakti is to turn on the compass turn on the compass means it is our own inner wisdom our own inner guiding we connect with that mode of bhakti so as we come to Krishna Prabhupada in his nectar of instruction introduction he writes that once we come to the mode of goodness then how to advance further will be revealed from within so this doesn’t mean that we don’t need a spiritual master but it is that ultimately how much can we depend on anyone else how much is the spiritual master or spiritual guide available for us see if if we decision we is a matter of shared responsibility even in a situation where there is guidance because what happens is we may tell somebody to do something because we feel it is not good for them but we tell them to do something else and if that doesn’t work out they will come and believe us because of you it didn’t work so in some situations letting people make a bad decision may actually help the relationship in the long run and sometimes stopping people from making a bad decision may create so much bitter feeling that that becomes a resentment that continues throughout the relationship so I am not saying it is necessarily this way or that way we do have to give guidance to others but just trying to force anything on anyone based on some authority then they don’t accept that authority it can be very counter productive in the long run that’s why it’s ultimately whoever is having that relationship let us see how much is there impetus to make things work and one good system I found is when I was in New Zealand in Australia I was talking with the Amrit Maharaj because in the west there is no system of parents arranging for marriages and if a girl becomes a devotee or a boy becomes a devotee then they want to marry a devotee but their parents are not going to help them in that kind of marriage so what he has done is and there is other system also basically if a boy and a girl they like each other and they want to marry he says you should have a courting period of 18 months 18 months you will meet each other under a chaperone for the first 6 months, 10 months, 11 months and then you can meet each other individually also alone but for 18 months just see how the relationship goes and then what happens by that time is when we interact with another person for more than one year then all the romance induced illusions that are there they dissipate after some time and then we start seeing the other person as they actually are and then after that also the relationship persists and there is a certain amount of stability in that relationship and then it is likely to go on more and more and according to some brain scientists also they say romance has a bench life of 9 months that means the hormones that get secreted in the body because of which people feel when I touch you I got electric hold or electric current or whatever those hormones get secreted for a particular amount of time and after the hormones go down then actual relationship how it is gets defined so that could be one way in which if people feel attracted to each other but still how do you know if it is impulsive or not be patient be patient and don’t act on the relationship wait and let the relationship evolve so we have to actually find out what works it’s ultimately when we are living in the world the point of astrology or any tool is to help us function in the world and whether it is astrology or whether it is psychology or whatever it is we have to see how we can make relationships work so if astrological compatible match is not informed and some other match is working out to be at least emotionally they feel that they are compatible then if they want to go ahead just because of astrology to stop it that may not be advisable so it’s best to generally whenever the mind takes control the mind wants easy answers yes or no so a good way to go off the mental platform is to press a pause button neither yes nor no let’s wait and then the mind’s emotions the mind’s emotionality all goes down and afterwards when we can see things more clearly and then make a decision so of course this is not that easy in Indian culture when I was talking with Nirmal Maharaj I was telling him that in India if a boy and a girl are courting for 12 months or 15 months and after that they break apart it’s going to be a disgrace so yeah that is a problem but then that has to be dealt with I think in the younger generation people understand that it’s better that we don’t form a relationship rather than form a relationship and then regret it lifelong so how that will work out as I said this is see the principle is that you have to form a stable relationship in practice how it’s going to work out that will vary but the broad principle is that relationships they will be primarily driven by who are going to drive the relationship why it is like that you may say in the past when the parents would form the marriage and that’s how it would go on why can’t it go on like that now there are many reasons for that the main reason I would say is that now we are not living in a joint family system so what happens in the past because of the joint family the nourishment in relationships came from many sources you had your cousins, you had your brothers sisters, parents, uncles, aunties so the pressure on the male-female relationship to fulfill the human need for relationship was not that much but now when there is a nuclear family all the pressure of the human need for relationship is concentrated on this one relationship and then that’s why in the past even if the husband and wife is completely arranged marriage and they didn’t even know each other before because of the social structure they could go on but now when that social structure is not there when the level of emotional dependence or emotional then they don’t get emotional nourishment from anywhere else then the expectation from this relationship has also become very high and that’s why we can’t simplistically apply practices, principles remain the same but practices we can’t just we can’t just take those practices and impose them in another sociocultural context we have to transplant them see how they are how they can be applied so that actually there is growth in the relationship Thank you Hare Krishna