The Secret of a Durable Union

To unite your physical existences and your material interests,
to associate yourselves so as to face together the difficulties and successes,
the defeats and victories of life - this is the very basis of marriage -
but you know already that it does not suffice.

To be united in feelings,
to have the same tastes and same aesthetic pleasures,
to vibrate together in a common response to the same things,
one by the other and one for the other
- it is good, it is necessary
- but it is not enough.

To be one in profound sentiments,
your affection, your feelings of tenderness for each other
not varying in spite of all the shocks of existence;
withstanding weariness, nervous irritations and disappointments,
to be always and in every case happy, most happy to be together;
to find, under all circumstances, one in the presence of the other, rest, peace and joy
- it is good, it is very good, it is indispensable
- but it is not enough.

To unite your mentalities,
your thoughts harmonizing and becoming complementary to each other, your intellectual preoccupations and discoveries shared between you;
in a word, to make your spheres of mental activity identical
through a broadening and an enrichment acquired by the two at the same time
- it is good, it is absolutely necessary
- but it is not enough.

Beyond it all, at the bottom, at the centre, at the summit of the being,
there is the Supreme Truth of the being, an Eternal Light,
independent of all circumstances
of birth, of country, of environment, of education;
the origin, cause and master of our spiritual development
- it is That that gives a definite orientation to our existence;
it is That that decides our destiny;
it is in the consciousness of this that you should unite.

To be one in aspiration and ascension,
to advance with the same step on the spiritual path
- such is the secret of a durable union."

- Sri Aurobindo