Hi! What is the way to choose a right life partner? Are our life partners pre-destined from our karma of previous incarnations? Yoganandji emphasizes a lot on not getting carried away by attraction. While that is true, is it wise to go ahead with a marriage where there is absolutely no chemistry and only because the guy has less vices (adultery, ill-temper etc). How important should be financial position of the guy?
—Suman Banrjee, India
Since you live in India I would imagine that your question is a little more involved with the opinions of others than it would be in the United States.
If it is your choice, the best way to choose a life partner is to begin developing a deeper spiritual life through daily meditation, service, and God remembrance. In this way you can begin increasing your spiritual energy and magnetism. It is through your own magnetism that you can attract to yourself others with a similar magnetism. Using this spiritual magnetism is much more important than past karma in determining who is a good partner.
Yogananda also emphasized doing this. In addition he emphasized not getting carried away by emotional attractions. If the connection with another person is mostly about their outward appearance — how they look, the kind of job and money they have, the clothes they wear, their personality, etc. — then you may end up with someone that you don’t have much in common with spiritually.
If you are on a spiritual path, then you want to be looking for that person’s spiritual qualities. Are they kind, loving, joyful, compassionate, sensitive to the feelings of others, expansive in their thinking, and somewhat impersonal about themselves? Also, would you like having them as a friend?
Friendship is the basis of any good relationship. If you think you can have a deepening friendship with another person, then perhaps you can live with them through all the ups and downs that life will bring you. Through friendship you also develop other very important qualities over time, one of them being trust.
I hope this will be of help to you. It also might be helpful for you to connect with one of the Ananda acharyas living in India for further advice. If you don’t know them, you can check the www.anandaindia.org website to see the locations for the Ananda Centres in India.
Many blessings to you,
Nayaswami Parvati
Ananda Village
