The impact of tradition on marriage.

Before we can talk about tradition and know their impact on our marriage, we must first understand the meaning of tradition and it purposes. Then after, we will understand and know what tradition is made of.  For the fact is, what you understand is what you know. And what you know is what you can manifest at will. Sometimes, we express or manifest things unconsciously, without our own conscious will because the things get a hold of our being.

Tradition in a very simple way means “the hand over or passed down of the doingness within a society or a community from generation to the next”. This hand over may vary from one society to another, and can have different characters. Regardless of all it characters, tradition has for sole purpose to guide the society it belongs to.

They are like the doingness hat prepared in advance for the community. This doingness is nothing else but the beliefs of a society. Maybe traditions are dedicated to be the guarantor of survival of it society. Traditions are like virtual guidance book of a community. Wherever the individual may be, this virtual book is working in him. The beliefs were passed on from generation to the next through family, community nation and world.

Our parents passed on to us the beliefs they have received from their parents and so on. The beliefs we’ve received are the shaper of our today’s life. The moment those beliefs or traditions shape our life, that imply that our life is not free in it own.

Our destiny was set by those traditions before we were born. Now let look what a belief is made of. Belief is made of thought and emotion. Emotion is the life force or the driven force of the thought in belief. Emotion in it own does not have any nature. It is the thought that gives its nature. That’s why we have bad as good as well traditions. Emotion can be compared to water.

 When you put salt in water, the water will become salty through the taste. And the same thing happen when you put sugar in water, the water will become sweet. Even though you don’t see the salt or the sugar in the water, but they changed the nature of the water. In the same way, thought gives it nature to emotion when it express. So thoughts are the nature giver to emotion at any given moment. The experiences of good and bad tradition depend on the thoughts of the tradition.  

Thought without emotion is nothing, useless and emotion without thought is emptiness. The evidence of this truth is proving in human body. There is no emotion within human body if there is no thought. It is impossible to have emotion without any thought in your mind. Before your body can react, there has to be a thought. We do things because there is a thought of that thing in our mind. Without any thought we cannot act nor do things.

Thought in reality is the ensemble of idea that conveys one reality. We use word to express the thought we have in our mind. Without thought, no word will be express. Different ideas on the same subject are combined to make thought of the subject. It is clear that the traditions passed on to us are nothing else but bunch of ideas to shape our life. These ideas are only information. Information can be wrong or true. Meaning, traditions are subject to false information.

Let use this illustration to explain very well the idea convey in this article. Sam is a gentleman born in Africa. After some school years of study, he came to America to finish his school. The traditions passed on to him become a strong belief in him. He perceives any circumstances of life through those beliefs.

Even though Sam left his country his traditions are with him, leading his life. In one of his tradition, it’s said: “man cannot express his full loving emotion to his lover. Woman job in the house is to have children, do the house shore and cook for her husband while the husband sits in the living room doing nothing. Husband cannot help his wife in the kitchen etc.”

Sam came to America while going to school met Jennifer. He loves deeply Jennifer and is willing to marry her. But his traditions are holding him back to express his emotions to Jennifer. Not the traditions alone are holding him back, but also all the data he recorded within himself about certain behaviors of some women in America. He is afraid. Sam will be in that condition as long as he will dwell in his beliefs.

Sam’s beliefs become the decision makers of his life. Nothing is possible unless the beliefs in him allow that to happen. It is his traditions which are describing in his mind the reactions of his family back home about get married here. The traditions became a person in Sam’s mind leading Sam’s own life. His beliefs become a personality in him, telling him what to do and what not to. He is not free at his own. Sam is in deep prison of his traditions.

Sam can think that he is a free man and living is free country but actually he is not. He is possessed by the beliefs of his community. If Sam want to tell Jennifer how he loves her, the voice of his “beliefs-personality” will tell him to not. If he dare do that, he will be tormented for a long period of time.

Before Sam can act freely, he needs higher ideas capable of taking down the veil that cover his face. The veil named beliefs-personality causing him unnecessary pain. Sam needs a help but he does not know that he is sick.

How many people in nowadays are like Sam without knowing? How many of them are treating their life partner as slave or prisoner without knowing? For the fact they are themselves in the prison of beliefs.  

Jennifer, a beautiful young lady born in America, finds herself attracted by Sam. She found herself loving Sam without any explanation. Can we explain why we love someone? I don’t think so. Jennifer is willing to settle with Sam. But there is a belief that is tormenting her. According to certain beliefs in Jennifer’s living environment, “man from Africa always has many wives waiting for him. A man from Africa is not a man you can trust. If you dare marry such man you are cursed.  For one day he will leave you for his country”.

Believing that belief alone is a curse. Jennifer is willing to be with Sam but her belief is creating a fear in her mind. She is scrutiny Sam to see if what she believe is right. Some of Sam behaviors are not help her to transcend the insecurity in her. Sometime Sam can be distant like someone who is in deep thinking. The drama of being alone left behind one day by Sam started already playing in her mind. Can you imagine, Jennifer saw herself in her mind dumped by Sam and leave for his country? She is in pain for what is not true.

Now as you can see it, Sam and Jennifer are victims of what normally suppose to guide or lead them. Their own beliefs are creating chaos in their life now. They are oppressed by their own beliefs. The question is: are we really free as we proclaim it? Even though Sam and Jennifer are living in a free country, they are still slave for the beliefs that are running their life.

However, Sam and Jennifer get married. Through some circumstances, they decided to be together. What is happening here is that Sam as Jennifer as well never dealt properly with the beliefs each one has. They received some advices from left and right and thinking the problem is over. Not at all, because what they have pressed down will rise up again to torment them. The issue of life must handle with and overcome by the truth for that issue to not come back.

After the la la land (the moment of joy), the drama of their beliefs will come back. Anytime Sam will be on the phone with his family back home, Jennifer will be very anxious. Her anxiety will have many assumptions such as:

v Maybe his family is not completely agree with him about the marriage

v Maybe they are proposing him another woman from his home community

v Maybe they are telling him the bad behaviors they have heard about women in her country

v Maybe they are oppressing him and proposing to him to send someone capable of breaking their marriage.

So after the call, Jennifer will try to know what the conversation was. If Sam dare not telling his wife the reason of the phone call, Jennifer will start living a nightmare. The insecurity created by the beliefs is coming more alive.

More assumptions will come to her mind. She will start notice a change in Sam behaviors. Sam needs to tell her every moment how he loves her, how they will stay together forever. At this point, Jennifer is not enjoying her marriage and Sam either.

In other side, Sam will observe Jennifer to see if she will display the behaviors to confirm his own beliefs. They forgot the existence of the universal law: “what you fear the most is what you attract”. Sam will try to find the way to resist the pressing of his family. Is Jennifer like the other women that he has heard about?

The traumatism of being betrayed by Jennifer will be his daily struggles. Here we see two peoples loving each other but cannot live freely, they are afraid to do so. They escape the now, the present time to live in the past. They have put on another jacket which does not fit this moment.

The only way to overcome their beliefs is to confront them. Put them on the table to discuss about it. Be open and honest with each other. Then, they have to doubt on their beliefs and seek the true meaning of marriage. They have to find the truth about marriage if they really want to enjoy each other. Marriage cannot be built on assumptions. Marriage is a personality that needs to be explored. Some questions need to be answered such as:

Ø Why do we get married?

Ø What is the purpose of marriage?

Ø Who do we get married with?

Ø What is the true meaning of being husband and wife?

Ø What is the difference between man and woman?

 Sam and Jennifer have to understand and know the answers of these questions. The moment they will understand the reason we get married and the purpose of life partner, they will instantly overcome their beliefs. They will know without any shadow of doubt that what they have stored up within themselves was a lie. And it is impossible to live with lie. They will become a family of experience and no argument or comment of that belief will overcome them anymore.  Sam and Jennifer will become a reference, an inspirational for many that are willing but are afraid to take their path.