If both husband and wife are on the spiritual path, the householder family will progress beautifully and deeply. Their love for one another and their offspring maintains family harmony. However, the nature of their sādhana and unfoldment of the spirit is different from that of the sannyāsin. The family unit itself is an odic-force structure. It is a magnetic-force structure, a material structure, for they are involved in the objects and relationships of the world. It is the family’s effort to be “in the world but not of it” that gives the impetus for insight and the awakening of the soul. The struggle to maintain the responsibilities of the home and children while simultaneously observing the contemplative way, in itself, provides strength and balance, and slowly matures innate wisdom through the years. ¶The successful Hindu householder family is stable, an asset to the larger community in which it lives, an example of joyous, contented relationships. Members of the family are more interested in serving than being served. They accept responsibility for one another. They are pliable, flexible, able to flow freely like water. They worship and meditate daily without fail and strictly observe their individual sādhanas. Their insight is respected and their advice sought. Yet, they do not bring the world into the home, but guard and protect the home vibration as the spiritual center of their life. Their commitments are always first to the family, then to the community. Their home remains sacrosanct, apart from the world, a place of reflection, growing and peace. They intuitively know the complex workings of the world, the forces and motivations of people, and often guide others to perceptive action. Yet, they do not display exclusive spiritual knowledge or put themselves above their fellow man. ¶Problems for them are merely challenges, opportunities for growth. Forgetting themselves in their service to the family and their fellow man, they become the pure channel for love and light. Intuition unfolds naturally. What is unspoken is more tangible than what is said. Their timing is good, and abundance comes. They live simply, guided by real need and not novel desire. They are creative, acquiring and using skills such as making their own clothing, growing food, building their own house and furniture. The inner knowing awakened by their meditations is brought directly into the busy details of everyday life. They use the forces of procreation wisely to produce the next generation and not as instinctive indulgence. They worship profoundly and seek and find spiritual revelation in the midst of life. ¶Within each family, the man is predominantly in the piṅgalā force. The woman is predominantly in the iḍā force. When the energies are the other way around, disharmony is the result. When they live together in harmony and have awakened enough innate knowledge of the relation of their forces to balance them, then both are in the sushumṇā force and can soar into the Divinity within. Children born to such harmonious people come through from the deeper chakras and tend to be highly evolved and well balanced. §
Should the woman become aggressively intellectual and the man become passively physical, then forces in the home are disturbed. The two bicker and argue. Consequently, the children are upset, because they only reflect the vibration of the parents and are guided by their example. Sometimes the parents separate, going their own ways until the conflicting forces quiet down. But when they come back together, if the wife still remains in the piṅgalā channel, and the husband in the iḍā channel, they will generate the same inharmonious conditions. It is always a question of who is the head of the house, he or she? The head is always the one who holds the prāṇas within the piṅgalā. Two piṅgalā spouses in one house, husband and wife, spells conflict. ¶The balancing of the iḍā and piṅgalā into sushumṇā is, in fact, the pre-ordained spiritual sādhana, a built in sādhana, or birth sādhana, of all family persons. To be on the spiritual path, to stay on the spiritual path, to get back on the spiritual path, to keep the children on the spiritual path, to bring them back to the spiritual path, too—as a family, father, mother, sons and daughters living together as humans were ordained to do without the intrusions of uncontrolled instinctive areas of the mind and emotions—it is imperative, it is a virtual command of the soul of each member of the family, that these two forces, the iḍā and piṅgalā, become and remain balanced, first through understanding and then through the actual accomplishment of this sādhana. There can be no better world, no new age, no golden future, no peace, no harmony, no spiritual progress until this happens and is perpetuated far into the future. This is the sādhana of the father. This is the sādhana of the mother. And together they are compelled by divine law to teach this sādhana to their offspring, first by example, then through explanation of their example, as youths mature into adulthood. Those unfortunate couples who neglect or refuse to perform this sādhana—of balancing the iḍā and piṅgalā, and from time to time bringing both into the sushumṇā—are indeed distressed by their own neglect. At the time of death, as their life ebbs into the great unknown, they will, in looking back, see nothing but turmoil, misunderstanding, hurts—physical hurts, emotional hurts, mental hurts. Their subconscious will still be hurting, and they will know the hurt they gave to others will follow them into the next world, then into the next, to be reexperienced. Their pain knows no cure during their last few hours before transition from the physical body into one of the astral worlds they earned access to, as their good deeds, misdeeds and wrongful deeds are gathered together and totalled. Therefore, it is for the wise, the understanding, the hopeful parents to follow the iḍā-piṅgalā-sushumṇā sādhana daily, weekly, monthly, yearly. This is the path for the family persons toward merger with Śiva. It truly is. §
Who is the spiritual leader of the house? The man or the woman? Dancing with Śiva states: “The husband is, first, an equal participant in the procreation and upbringing of the future generation. Second, he is the generator of economic resources necessary for society and the immediate family. The husband must be caring, understanding, masculine, loving, affectionate, and an unselfish provider, to the best of his ability and through honest means. He is well equipped physically and mentally for the stress and demands placed upon him. When he performs his dharma well, the family is materially and emotionally secure. Still, he is not restricted from participation in household chores, remembering that the home is the wife’s domain and she is its mistress.” ¶If this happens, everything works out naturally in the home in a very harmonious way. If this does not occur, then the prāṇic forces do not flow as well for the family. Why? Because the stabilizing influence of the prāṇas, under control and well balanced, has not come to pass. As a result, there can be no effective invoking of God, Gods and guru. Arguments, rude and harsh words fly back and forth, children are maltreated, and backbiting of the husband, relatives, friends and neighbors is not uncommon. Adultery with prostitutes or casual pickups tempts, distracts and burdens the husband with guilt, especially during his wife’s monthly retreat and during pregnancy. The life of a family going through such karmas is chaos. The children, who modern psychiatrists and ancient seers say, are guided by the example of their parents, are thrown overboard, as from a ship they safely boarded with full confidence. Reality points out that there are no, never have been, nor ever will be, delinquent children. Delinquent parents are the culprits; “the parents are what is wrong with society; children are only guilty of being guided by their example.” ¶The wise men of ancient times understood how the prāṇic life forces flow within man and woman. They knew that the family man’s being in the sushumṇā current stabilizes the forces of the home. If he is meditating and going within himself, his wife will not have to meditate as much. She and the children will go within to their Divinity automatically on the power of his meditation. If he radiates peace, Divinity and confidence, they will too, without trying, without even being conscious of it. ¶One thing to remember: the family man is the guru of his household. If he wants to find out how to be a good guru, he just has to observe his own satguru, that is all he has to do. He will learn through observation. Often this is best accomplished by living in the guru’s āśrama periodically to perform sādhana and service. Being head of his home does not mean he is a dominant authority figure, arrogantly commanding unconditional obedience, such as Bollywood and Hollywood portray. No. He must assume full responsibility for his family and guide subtly and wisely, with love always flowing. This means that he must accept the responsibility for the conditions in the home and for the spiritual training and unfoldment of his wife and children. This is his purusha dharma. To not recognize and not follow it is to create much kukarma, bad actions bringing back hurtful results to him in this or another life. §
When the wife has problems in fulfilling her womanly duties, strī dharma, it is often because the husband has not upheld his duty, nor allowed her to fulfill hers. When he does not allow her to or fails to insist that she perform her strī dharma and give her the space and time to do so, she creates kukarmas which are equally shared by him. This is because the purusha karmic duty and obligation of running a proper home naturally falls upon him, as well as upon her. So, there are great penalties to be paid by the man, husband and father for failure to uphold his purusha dharma. ¶Of course, when the children “go wrong” and are corrected by the society at large, both husband and wife suffer and equally share in the kukarmas created by their offspring. In summary, the husband took the wife into his home and is therefore responsible for her well-being. Together they bring the children into their home and are responsible for them, spiritually, socially, culturally, economically, as well as for their education. ¶What does it mean to be the spiritual head of the house? He is responsible for stabilizing the prāṇic forces, both positive, negative and mixed. When the magnetic, materialistic forces become too strong in the home, or out of proper balance with the others, he has to work within himself in early morning sādhana and deep meditation to bring through the spiritual forces of happiness, contentment, love and trust. By going deep within himself, into his soul nature, by living with Śiva, he uplifts the spiritual awareness of the entire family into one of the higher chakras. How does he accomplish this? Simply by moving his own awareness into a chakra higher than theirs. The awareness of his family follows his living example. ¶The family woman has to be a good mother. To achieve this, she has to learn to flow her awareness with the awareness of the children. She has been through the same series of experiences the children are going through. She intuits what to do next. As a mother, she fails only if she neglects the children, takes her awareness completely away, leaving the children to flounder. But if she stays close, attends to each child’s needs, is there when he or she cries or comes home from school, everything is fine. The child is raised perfectly. This occurs if the wife stays in the home, stabilizing the domestic force field, where she is needed most, allowing the husband to be the breadwinner and stabilizer of the external force field, which is his natural domain.§
Odic force is magnetic force. Actinic force comes from the central source of life itself, from Lord Śiva. It is spiritual force, the spirit, pure life. The blend of these two forces, the actinodic, is the magnetic force that holds a home together and keeps everything going along smoothly. If a family man and woman are both flowing through the aggressive-intellectual current, the magnetic-odic forces become strong and congested in the atmosphere of the home, and inharmonious conditions result. They argue. The arguments are never resolved, but it is a way of dissipating the odic forces. If the man and the woman are flowing through the passive-physical current, the magnetic odic forces are not balanced. They become physically too attracted to one another. They become unreasonable with each other, full of fear, anger, jealousy, resentment, and they fight or, worse, take their frustrations out by beating, calling names and hurting, in many other ways, each other and their own children who came trustingly into their family. True, it is within the child’s prārabdha karmas to experience this torment, but it is the duty of the parents to protect him from it, creating an environment in which unseemly seeds will not germinate. True, it may be the child’s karma to experience torment, yet the parents do not have to deliver it. Wise parents find loving means of discipline and protect themselves from earning and reaping the unseemly karmas through improper hiṁsā methods of punishment. ¶However, if each understands—or at least the family man understands, for it is his home—how the forces have to be worked within it, and realizes that he, as a man, flows through a different area of the mind than does his wife in fulfilling their respective, but very different, birth karmas, then everything remains harmonious. He thinks; she feels. He reasons and intellectualizes, while she reasons and emotionalizes. He is in his realm. She is in her realm. He is not trying to make her adjust to the same area of the mind that he is flowing through. And, of course, if she is in her realm, she will not expect him to flow through her area of the mind, because women just do not do this. ¶Usually, it is the man who does not want to, or understand how to, become the spiritual head of his house. Often he wants the woman to flow through his area of the mind, to be something of a brother and pal or partner to him. Therefore, he experiences everything that goes along with brothers and pals and partners: arguments, fights, scraps and good times. In an equal relationship of this kind, the forces of the home are not building or becoming strong, for such a home is not a sanctified place in which they can bring inner-plane beings into reincarnation from the higher celestial realms. If they do have children under these conditions, they simply take “potluck” off the lower astral plane, or Pretaloka. ¶A man goes through his intellectual cycles in facing the problems of the external world. A woman has to be strong enough, understanding enough, to allow him to go through those cycles. A woman goes through emotional cycles and feeling cycles as she lives within the home, raises the family and takes care of her husband. He has to be confident enough to understand and allow her to go through those cycles. ¶The piṅgalā force takes man through the creative, intellectual cycles. Man brings through creativity from inner planes. He invents, discovers, foresees. We normally consider it as all having been created within his external mind, but it is done through his piṅgalā force operating on inner planes of consciousness. He is not going to be smooth always and living in superconscious states, for he has to go through experiential cycles. He must be inspired one day and empty the next. He must succeed and fail. He is living his destiny and working out karmas. §
A woman living in the iḍā current goes through her emotional cycles, too. Her moods change regularly. She laughs, cries, sulks, enjoys. He has to be wise enough to allow her to have these ups and downs and neither criticize nor correct her when she does. If conditions become strained within the home, the man of the house becomes the example by feeling the power of his spine and the spiritual force of Śiva within it. He finds that he remains calm and can enjoy the bliss of his own energy. He finds ways and means to create joy and happiness and make odic forces that may have gone into a heavy condition beautiful, buoyant and lovely again. ¶Rather than arguing or talking about their cycles, the man who is spiritual head of his house meditates to stabilize the forces within himself. He withdraws the physical energies from the piṅgalā and the iḍā currents into sushumṇā in his spine and head. He breathes regularly, sitting motionless until the forces adjust to his inner command. When he comes out of his meditation, if it really was a meditation, she sees him as a different being, and a new atmosphere and relationship are created in the home immediately. ¶The children grow up as young disciples of the mother and the father. As they mature, they learn of inner things. It is the duty of the mother and the father to give to the child at a very early age his first religious training and his education in attention, concentration, observation and meditation. ¶The parents must be fully knowledgeable of what their child is experiencing. During the first seven years, the child will go through the chakra of memory. He will be learning, absorbing, observing. The second seven years will be dedicated to the development of reason, as the second chakra unfolds. If theirs is a boy child, he is going through the piṅgalā. If a girl child, she is going through the iḍā current and will go through emotional cycles. By both spouses’ respecting the differences between them and understanding where each one is flowing in consciousness, there is a give and take in the family, a beautiful flow of the forces. ¶The āchāryas and swāmīs work with the family man and woman to bring them into inner states of being so that they can bring through to the Earth a generation of great inner souls. It is a well-ordered cycle. Each one plays a part in the cycle, and if it is done through wisdom and understanding, a family home is created that has the same vibration as the temple or a contemplative monastery. ¶In summary, woman is in the iḍā current predominantly and does not think or flow through the same areas of thought strata as the man does. If he expects her to think the same way that he is thinking, he is mistaken. Once they have a balance of the forces in the home, she is not going to be analytical. She will be in thought, of course, but she will not indulge in his ramified thinking. She is naturally too wise for this. If he wants to have discussions with her or use her as a sounding board, he is inadvisedly guiding her into the piṅgalā current. And if she is going through one of her emotional cycles at the time, she will become upset with him for apparently no reason at all. He has to realize that her intuition is keen, and that she will have, from time to time, profound intuitive flashes. She might explain to him spontaneously the answer to something he has been thinking about for days, without his having verbally expressed to her what was on his mind. This happens quite often in the positive, harmonious home. §
Tremendous confusion can exist within the family if the man and the woman think that they are the same and are flowing through the same areas of the external mind. The only area that they should flow through together is the sushumṇā, the spiritual. And when they are both intently in the intuitive mind, they will unravel deep and profound things together. She is in the home, making things nice for him. When he returns from his mental involvements in the world, it is up to him to get out of the intellectual mind and into the spiritual currents of his superconsciousness in order to communicate with her at all, other than on a subconscious, physical or materialistic level. ¶For harmony to prevail between a man and a woman, he has to live fully within his own nature, and she has to live fully within her own nature. Each is king and queen of their respective realms. If each respects the uniqueness of the other, then a harmonious condition in the home exists. ¶A good rule to remember: the man does not discuss his intellectual business problems with his wife, and she does not work outside the home. He solves his problems within himself or discusses them with other men. When he has a problem, he should go to an expert to solve it, not bring it home to talk over. If he does, the forces in the home become congested. The children yell and scream and cry. ¶A contemplative home where the family can meditate has to have that uplifting, temple-like vibration. In just approaching it, the sushumṇā current of the man should withdraw awareness from the piṅgalā current deep within. That is what the man can do when he is the spiritual head of the home. ¶A woman depends on a man for physical and emotional security. She depends on herself for her inner security. He is the guide and the example. A man creates this security by setting a positive spiritual example. When she sees him in meditation, and sees light around his head and light within his spine, she feels secure. She knows that his intuition is going to direct his intellect. She knows he will be decisive, fair, clear-minded in the external world. She knows that when he is at home, he turns to inner and more spiritual things. He controls his emotional nature and he does not scold her if she has a hard time controlling her emotional nature, because he realizes that she lives more in the iḍā force and goes through emotional cycles. In the same way, she does not scold him if he is having a terrible time intellectually solving several business problems, because she knows he is in the intellectual force, and that is what happens in that realm of the mind. She devotes her thought and energies to making the home comfortable and pleasant for him and for the children. He devotes his thought and energies to providing sustenance and security for that home. ¶The man seeks understanding through observation. The woman seeks harmony through devotion. He must observe what is going on within the home, not talk too much about it, other than to make small suggestions, with much praise and virtually no criticism. He must remember that his wife is making a home for him, and he should appreciate the vibration she creates. If he is doing well in his inner life, is steady and strong, and she is devoted, she will flow along in inner life happily also. She must strive to be one with him, to back him up in his desires and his ambitions and what he wants to accomplish in the outside world. This makes him feel strong and stand straight with head up. She can create a successful man of her husband very easily by using her wonderful intuitive powers. Together they make a contemplative life by building the home into a temple-like vibration, so blissful, so uplifting. §