Marriage * Graha

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Who Will I Marry?

Arranged Marriage vs. "Falling in Love"?

Surya's Romantic Poetic Divine Love

vs.

Shukra's Diplomatic Human Marriage Alliance

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Raffaello Sanzio c. 1504: Spozalizio (The Engagement of Virgin Mary).

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Raffaello_-_Spozalizio_-_Web_Gallery_of_Art.jpg

Pinacoteca di Brera, Milan

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Singular and Plural

Love is different from Trust

'I' is different from 'We'

• Love = "I am in the Center of the Light"

  • the experience of Love is self-validating and personally energizing

  • ego-rewards and applause = lovely and delightful!

  • = fame, glamour, getting attention, sparkle, charisma, bright lights, radiance, confidence, inner truth, divine intelligence, delight, children, romance, poetry, magnificence, royalty, celebrity, genius

  Trust = "We are joined by agreement"

  • the experience of Trust is partner-validating and socially energizing

  • wealth-acquisition and mutual appreciation = pleasurable and satisfying!

  • = promise-keeping, vow-maintaining, duty-fulfilling, partnership, alliance, agreement, completion, pairing, mutual respect and regard, material fruitfulness, sensual experience

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  Shukra = karaka Balance

  • Shukra, lord of yuvati bhava, is the graha of contracts, agreements, architectural design, balance, diplomacy, and pleasure. Naturally, Shukra is the karaka for marriage, but Shukra is also the karaka for business partnership, and also Shukra represents material wealth.

  • In a male nativity, Shukra = karaka for the wife, and for attraction to women in general. In a female nativity, Shukra represents the woman's own beauty, and her relationships with others of her sex.

  • In both genders, Shukra determines the overall Agreement Of components in the physical appearance and bodily health. Shukra especially signifies the hair, eyes, and face (bhava-2) and the paired internal organs throughout the body (7) including ovaries, testicles, kidneys, pancreas, ears, tonsils, lungs, the two hemispheres of the brain, etc.

  Surya = karaka Romance

  • Surya, lord of romantic putra bhava, is the graha of "falling in love". In western cultures, the term "Romance" has come to signify the elegant, idealistic, poetic culture of courtly love. The concept and practice of "falling in love" involves the explicit idealization practices of courtly love, which emerged from the depths of cultural darkness in European medieval times.

  • In these brutal and disease-ridden days, a thousand years after the collapse of the Roman Empire, a few scraps of poetic and philosophical intelligence were still known. The easiest and most popular expression of intellect in "Romance" culture was to memorize and recite Latin love poetry. Only court nobles, a tiny fraction of all people, were literate; therefore knowledge of Latin poetry was a sign of rare privilege and superior education. Courtly love became a cult of intelligence, creativity, and self-definition. Although popular literary is now widespread and the court system is long gone, "Romance" is still seen as proof of "perfect" (idealized) love.

  • In the physical body, Surya = karaka for the Heart: the singular center of the body, upon which all other parts depend for blood nourishment. (Surya is exalted in Mesha which rules the human brain, but Surya shares control of the brain with animal-instinct Kuja.)

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  Romance vs. Marriage

  Romance is in many ways the very antithesis of marriage! Surya and Shukra are enemy graha!

  One-Centered Love

  • Surya celebrates the individual ego, the speculative intelligence, entertainments, games, and especially winning at games through intelligence! Surya's portfolio includes all expressions of the divine intelligence which channel through individual human creativity, such as children, performance art, politics-theatre, costume arts, gambling, and literature. Regal and blazingly self-centered, Surya encourages the development of human civilization toward the ideals of the gods.

  • Ravi represents the divine ideal within human life: creative genius, children, perfect love. Ravi is a singular graha, whose geniusoperates through one single person at a time.

  Two-Centered Love

  • Shukra represents the balancing scales. Shukra operates in pairs.

  • There are times when the balance-point is shifting and there are times when the balance-point is perfectly still, yet Shukra always requires "parts" to cooperate and relate. Shukra represents dual functionality.

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  Falling in Love vs. Being Married

  • The experience of "falling in love" can be psychologically, spiritually, and even physically transformative. Romance fills the Heart with divine intelligence. One sees an image of the Divine in the Other, a perfect Ideal apparently manifest in human form! It is unspeakably wonderful, and miraculous, and ecstatic to fall in love.

  • But what is the prognosis for human beings to maintain that brilliant illumination? How long before spiritual illumination become psychological illusion, and valorous ideals become rationally invalid idealization?

  • Eventually, the brilliant light of idealization begins to fade, and the more basic human traits will emerge on the field of psychic projection. At this point "the honeymoon is over" - and the need for balancing skills, partnership conversations, cultural agreement, etc. becomes obvious.

  • If the Sun stayed high in the sky all day, perhaps humans would have no need of Shukra's pleasuring, designing, re-balancing behaviors. But day turns into night, and only after the long night can humans see their Divine Sun again. In marriage partnership, there is Day and Night, pleasure and pain, conflict and resolution - rather continuously. Without balancing skills, no marriage could survive.

  Perfect Love vs. Balanced Appreciation

  • Romance, under auspice of Surya's genius, is naturally solipsistic. Romance does not involve any level of partnership, except one's relationship to one's own ethical and aesthetic ideals. Romance a projection of one's own interior perfect ideal, one's own divine intelligence, upon the image of another person. The practice of Romance is wonderfully inspirational for poets, creative artists, authors, politicians, actors, game-players, enjoyers of entertainment and others engaged with the Muse. But romance does not provide much practical guidance to actual daily relationships between two human beings.

  • Parents quite naturally feel a deep romantic love for their children. Children inspire a brilliant, unconditional, perfect love which begins in absolute purity, then matures into deeper awareness of the child's karma. Yet an authentic parent will never lose pure-heart love for their perfect child, who was born fresh from God, in an act of breath-taking creativity.

  • However the parent-child relationship is not a marriage of two equals! The parent's job is to extract genius from the child, to support the child's intelligence and regal glamour to the fullest! (Naturally this only happens when the significations of domains 5 and 9 are truly excellent - but this is the ideal!)

  • The parent-child relationship is not balanced: it is greatly privileged toward the child, with assets and attention focused on the singular and central purpose of bringing out all that is best in the beloved.

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  To arrange, or not to arrange?

  • Should parents, or other senior guardians who are experienced in cultural negotiations, be charged with arranging marriages for their beloved offspring? There is a compelling Jyotisha reason for arranged or "suggested" marriage guidance as a natural effect of Shukra, if the nativity shows good will from parental protectors.

  • The realities of marriage are quite different than schoolgirl fantasy; marriage must be based on shared values if it is to succeed. Shared cultural background and admirable character of the spouse are very important, and in the throes of romantic projection the person "in love" often can't see the longer term consequences of their psycho-emotionally desirous choices. That is why arranged marriages are often better for sheltered offspring; and why Mother is no doubt convinced that she knows what's best.

  • Naturally, parents understand the cultural values possessed by their children. Parents have been supervising the child's indoctrination in language, religion, morality, knowledge of history and philosophy, attitudes toward material wealth and property ownership, etc. for the child's entire life. Who would be in a better position to estimate the easiest partner match for the package of cultural values that each child carries into adulthood?

  Quality of Parents

  • On the other hand, impure parents can manipulate a child for their own ego-advantage. If bandhu bhava is weak or damaged, the parents may be ethically handicapped or socially incompetent.

  • Manipulating a marriage for parental profit, whether gain of money, social position, or political advantage, is really a malfunction of the parent-child relationship, and will be indicated by damage to Surya, Shukra, and Guru.

  Modern Cult of Individualism

  • In modern westernized cultures, the emphasis on individuality has become quite extreme. In these cultures, the entitlement to Romance and the belief that projecting one's interior ideals upon another person will actually cause that person to behave in an ideal way (!) are well established. Moderns will not be swayed from the very questionable belief that romantic love, which is often no more than a narcissistic infatuation with one's own "best self" facade, is a necessary stepping-stone toward socially balanced interactive equitable and mutually supportive partnership.

  • It doesn't make sense, but this belief is deeply embedded in the culture of individualistic self-determination. So, in cases where the native has a strong Jyotisha placement for Surya and the native is also immersed in the individuality-worshipping culture, the arranged marriage alternative is quite unthinkable. That's just the way it is in many parts of the world.

  • If one considering marriage has at lest the option to seek advice on long-term compatibility from those senior in age, those who are aware of the need to reduce cultural conflict in marriage, and who understand the true nature of mutual lifetime support, then by all means seek Shukra-balance (7) advicefrom elders! Similar cultural backgrounds including social class attitudes to money and speech style (2) (e.g., is shouting allowed? accusations? harsh speech?) can be a major buffer against violent conflict of idealistic expectations in marriage.

  Navamsha, Past-life Expectations

  • Also, of course, look honestly at the navamsha of each party. What are the implicit expectations of marriage which are carried into each incarnation, from past lives?

  • If one expects considerable conflict and disagreement, as might be indicated by malefics in navamsha lagna, then no amount of external advising or arranging will make much improvement.

  Re-balancing in the Current Lifetime

  • However, in the end, the responsibility for re-balancing the conflicts of marriage does lie with the native oneself. While a beneficially arranged alliance might reduce much of the "crash and burn" effect of the collapse of exaggeratedly idealized expectations of the perfection of the spouse which can attend a Love Marriage, the constant interference of the parental arrangers can be almost as damaging as the anger one feels from disappointment in non-ideal spousal behavior.

  • Marriage is ultimately a spiritual practice, and interpersonal communication problems much be understood as externalizing expressions of conflicts within the self. It is indeed good social practice to allow Shukra to guide marriage choices while Surya is best suited to arrange romantic love experience. These are two different categories of human relationship experience, each with their own requirements and opportunities.

  • Fame and adoration (one focus) vs. deep abiding balance (two foci)

  • The English word "love" was originally 'lufa' -- and 'lufa" in its original sense meant "fame". Love in the idealistic sense that is exploited so virulently by worldwide commercial advertising media, is still mainly about admiration, appreciation, and celebrity - getting attention, getting "fame".

  Yet love as the word is commonly used now, and as it is understood in the spiritual context, is about deep abiding in partnership, within a union that contains shared pleasuresand mutual regard.

  • It is important not to confuse Ravi's realm with Shukra's. Shukra and Shani are friends; Surya and Shani are enemies.

  • Surya creates the brilliant and rare incarnation of the divine into human royalty (Simha). Surya creates unconditional love (the king is above human law) such as a parent feels toward a child, or such as an idealistic adolescent (5) who knows little of human nature might project upon a beloved sweetheart.

  • Shukra the diplomatic balancer (Thula) and acquisitive sense-pleasurer (Vrishabha) has a much different impact on human life. Shukra-dictated decisions require a different set of information about long-term compatibility. Long term = Shani. Elders may indeed know better!

  Elder advice - Shani and Shukra

  • Shukra-partnership decisions should involve careful material considerations of cultural value legacies (2) of each partner [e.g., wealth, language, knowledge] and also the typical divisionof labor and other equity-achievementstrategies (2) which are embedded into the cultural value system.

  • Even if parents do not explicitly arrange one's marriage, it is strongly recommended to receive some elder advice and assessment before plunging into marriage on the basis of "lufa".

  Surya does not like either Shani or Shukra. However, Surya knows nothing about long-term partnership or mutual alliance!

  Realism and Planning

  • Even if you're "crazy in love", try to over-ride Surya's "certainty" about "what love is" when making a marriage decision. In truth, the distinction between "love", versus adult narcissistic projection or simple adolescent infatuation (adolescence is inherently narcissistic), is very difficult for the mind to accomplish when one is feeling super-charged with divine imagery of immortal perfection.

  • Inevitably for the mere human, however, day will turn into night. The brilliant illumination of Surya will fade. And when it does, you will want the well-designed structural compatibility of Shani and Shukra to sustain the material partnership of the marriage - to "get you through the night".

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  May all beings venerate life as a state of deep spiritual intimacy.