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The Wedding
Jain philosophy explains complex human nature completely, explicitly, and perfectly. We witness this philosophy in our lives every day, but even more so during the big events of our lives such as these three days. The emotions of connection and renunciation are profound during a wedding.
Wedding and renunciation! Sounds strange! Is a wedding an event of only connections, connections between two souls, two bodies, and two families? Or is it much more than that?
For the wedding, the parents commit their wealth, health and time to make the celebration the best. After the celebration, my son or daughter is not going to come running to us for every discussion or call us every evening either. My child has found a lifelong partner to depend upon and be happy with. The first lifelong partners, the parents, are displaced by the second lifelong partner. Is this connection and renunciation in one? When we make new connections, the old ones take a back burner.
We spend a life time maintaining the bonds provided to us by birth or life coincidences. In the present case, the first connection with parents was given by birth and second was made on Shadi.com. A quite wonderful, profound lifelong connection of two doctors, with similar thinking and nature, was established. A solemn puja will be performed before the wedding to remind us that we are here to enjoy the celebrations of connections, fully knowing the fragility, delicacy, pain, and tears that come with them.
Can we be bonded to our connections and free from them at the same time? We experience strong bonds only if we also understand the freedom hidden in the bonds. For wedding dresses, one buys the best fabric. Then the tailor has to cut the fabric. For a
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