Question: I am a 23-year old girl from Mumbai. I have read almost all books of Swami Vivekananda & I am greatly fascinated by him. Actually, I am kind of a girl who gets involved in anything easily & gets out of it also very easily. I don’t understand what to do with my life as I’m in a way confused between: a. If I should marry, have kids, lead a normal life & make my parents & everyone happy. Then after my all duties towards family are over, I should come & join Ashrama. Till then visit whenever possible, join Vivekanand Kendra & take part in activities. OR, b. Leave everything behind & come & join Ashrama. I know that if determined, I can use all my strenght, love & devotion for good cause which will benefit more people.
I always wanted to be a nurse. But due to my parents’ influenece, now I am in computer field working in a company. Somehow, I feel that everyone here just expects from me & no one really loves me enough. I try to overcome the feeling, but it is always there due to lack of consistency & emotional security. Everyday, it’s like life shows me that I shouldn’t take anything granted. It’s very difficult & frustrating. I try to calm myself by telling myself – Life keeps changing & we should accept changes as they come & cope with them. But it’s easy to say, difficult to practise. I always try not to expect anything from anyone & do as much as possible for others. But I just can’t stop expecting some things even if I know that Swamiji has told – work for the sake of work & not for fruit & love without expectation. I try my best to implement these things in everyday life. But it’s kind of a hard struggle & sometimes I feel like giving up the fight.
I have very small expectations from life – like if I get married, the man should love me, give me his time instead of running after money & there should be consistency in life. I have a man who loves me very much & I also love him a lot. He says that he will marry me if his parents agree. But I don’t know if they will agree or not. My parents agree. But I’m already cheated in this matter of marriage once before (it was just wrong choice). Now sometimes I feel like such things happen to me because God wants me to leave everything & do some good work for others. So, this time, I have decided that if he doesn’t marry me, I shall never try again for marriage & come & join Ashrama – not running away from problems in life; just because I’m really interested in spiritual matters. I find myself having peace of mind whenever I get involved in any spiritual things like Yoga, chanting mantras, discussing ideas about life & everything. I have attended some camps where I was really glad to follow the routine activities of Yoga, meditation, learning Gita, etc. Plese guide me as to what to do. Regards.
Answer: You need not be worried about your present state, since all the girls who have a little inclination towards Spiritual Life, face this same problem. Please note – jumping to Ashrama life – is no solution for it. Since you are unable to decide yourself, best thing for you is to depend on your parents to arrange marriage. As you are their daughter, they will definitely be able to understand you better and guide you in this matter. Please remember, the world is full of selfish people and they all like to cheat innocent earning good girls towards their selfish interest. Rarely you will find a person who will love you unselfishly. Since you are not aware of this fact, you get cheated from them. Married life & spiritual life can go together if you are sincere and if you get a like minded husband to live with. Since you are an educated girl, you can understand the motive of the people. Till you get settled in life, try to spend your leisure time in studying Swami Vivekananda’s works and also have some good girl friends who are interested in such matters. It is better to avoid boy friends as much as possible.