Wife as a mother & sister

I was just thinking around two days back about the relation of man and woman, in various forms, how they differ and why still, they're same at the root. I was thinking of blogging about it, but some more things happened then. For one, I've a call from Arunachala at Tiruvannamalai over this weekend. For another, after knowing which, the first one will make sense is that I stumbled upon a story thats linked at the end of this entry.

What is a conicidence is that I find something common between the story & my thoughts I mentioned of earlier. I was thinking of how a wife is different to a man than his mother or sister? Oh! it seems like a stupid question... does it? Read on. But for some cravings at one level for a short period of time between the two, there's nothing different in a married relation. A mother, sister or wife is equally a Goddess at other times. Perhaps, thats why Ramakrishna worshipped his wife always. Maybe, today we can't relate to such things, even as Sw. Sivananda talked of maintaining brahmacharya within marriage and of wife being a sister or mother after the birth of a child.

Even if we leave that part of a Goddess, leaving the sexual attraction for a short period in the entire span of married life and even in the earlier phase, small durations of actual sexual relation, the wife cares for her husband as a mother does for a child and the husband cares for his wife as he would do so for his sister. So from my angle, I feel that if sex is ignored, the married relation is no different than the other two. If this is understood, it should help us see what Ramakrishna and Sivananda talked of. Another way of looking at things is seeing the relation at three levels. First and the most basic level is where people see the relation as a mere sexual relation. This is, lets say, the body/mind craving each other. At a subtler level, the relation is similar to a brother-sister, mother-child relation. At the subtlest level, it is advaitic, wherein, the husband, wife, mother, sister, all are but one.

And now, its surprising that I'd to stumble today upon the story about Arunagirinatha... check the first five paras, atleast. It really made me cry.

yaa devi sarva bhUteshu kaamarupeNa saMsthithaa
namastasyai namastasyai namastasyai namO namaH