________________
74
Harmony in Marriage
weak and all your joints are creaking she will take revenge. So watch out. I have witnessed this a lot. That is why I give advice to people, 'don't fight, you fool, don't fight with your wife. Do not bind any vengeance with your wife. Otherwise you will create grave difficulties. (328)
By their true nature our women are like goddesses. The worldly interactions defile their true nature, and they become dangerous. There is the potential in her to go into an explosive rage if she is instigated or hurt excessively. Hence, the saying, it is easy to play with and please a woman, but when she gets angry, she is a terror. When she gets angry she is like a lioness. We should not take things this far. We should look at the limitations. If you keep harassing the poor woman, where will she go? That is why she gets angry. Her anger response is of varying intensity from mild to extreme. (332)
When a woman is in a state of explosive rage, then your intellect will not help you. Your intellect will not be able to control her. So speak to her in a manner that does not aggravate her. Keep real love in your eyes. If at any time she says the wrong things, still she is a woman, and you need to let it go. So have total love in one eye and in the other you need to maintain a little sternness. You should live in this manner. Use either, according to the circumstances. You cannot be completely strict all day long. In one eye you maintain strictness and with the other eye view her as a goddess. Like a goddess, do you understand?
Questioner: Strictness in one eye and a goddess in the other eye, how can you keep it this way at the same time?
Dadashri: A man is capable of all that. When I was about thirty years old, whenever I came home, Hiraba will be visiting with other ladies. Not only Hiraba but also all the
Harmony in Marriage
other ladies would see in my eyes, strictness in one and reverence in the other. The ladies would be sitting with their faces in a veil. But they would all stiffen up. Even Hiraba, she would be scared even before I entered the home. The minute she heard my shoes, she became scared. Maintain strictness in one eye and love in the other eye. A woman cannot live without this control and love from a man. That is why Hiraba used to say 'Goodness, just look at what Dada is like!'
75
Questioner: Very hot tempered.
Dadashri Show of a hot temper. Always I used to keep this up. But you don't have to scare her unnecessarily. As soon as I entered, everything became quiet. Everything cools down, the instant my footsteps are heard.
Why the strictness? It is to prevent her from falling in life. That is why you should have the look of control in one eye and love in the other. (336)
I am often accused of taking the side of the wife. Now what I am trying to say is that you praise a woman, but that does not mean that you need to do her aarti (devotional ritual) in the morning. If you do that then she will tear and wear you down. What do I mean by this? I tell you to have sternness in one eye and love in the other eye. Don't put her on a pedestal. She does not have those qualities. Praise her with your mind. (343)
Questioner: You have spoken about the men, but what should the women do, what should the women have in their two eyes?
Dadashri : For the women, whatever her husband is like, she has to accept him as her own account. It is not by
