The following is an excerpt from Cleveland Couples: 40 Inspiring Stories of Love and Commitment, written by Kathy Dawson, published by Gray & Company, Cleveland, reprinted with permission. The book may be purchased from the Store at www.dzfi.org
Krsnanandini Devi Dasi & Tariq Saleem Ziyad
“On paper, we have every reason for getting divorced,” says Tariq.
His wife, Krsnanandini, chuckles and nods her head in agreement. “God must have a really good sense of humor.”
Married 13 years—a second marriage for both of them—this couple started life together with extraordinary challenges. Blending two families from previous marriages is not an unusual scenario upon beginning a second marriage. Blending two families to create one with 16 children, however, is unusual, especially when you have 3 more children together, bringing the tally up to a grand total of 19.
And this couple has had not only to raise a large family, but to do so in a household where two very different religions are practiced. Tariq is Muslim, and Krsnanandini is a devotee of the Hare Krishna movement.
“People couldn’t understand how with two such different religions, we would be able to make our relationship work,” says Tariq.
“It really doesn’t matter that in the Islamic religion there are no images of God, for example, but that in the Hare Krishna religion, divine personalities are depicted in scriptures,” asserts Krsnanandini. “What matters is that we both worship the same God.”
Their dedication to living a spiritual life is the axis around which their marriage turns.
“It is so important to have some spiritual principle you subscribe to in your marriage,” says Krsnanandini. “Because when the storm comes, and storms are going to come, you need to be committed to more than physical and material needs.”
Tariq agrees. “If couples have a sense that there’s a spiritual value in all that they are struggling to do, and if they are patient, have faith, and wait for the nectar, the nectar will come.”
The nectar that Tariq speaks of is a state of grace in which two people build a life together based on trust, respect, and the knowledge that there is a divine purpose to their lives and their marriage.
The state of grace that Tariq and Krsnanandini so often find themselves in was not always present in their marriage, however. During their first two years of matrimony, this couple came very close to separating. In fact, Krsnanandini went so far as to pack up Tariq’s belongings and put them in his mother’s backyard.
“Tariq had a lot of issues from his past relationship that haunted us,” remembers Krsnanandini. “We tried to work through the issues but couldn’t do it alone.”
In a final effort to make the marriage work, Krsnanandini contacted a friend who was a minister and asked him to meet with both of them. Unbeknownst to her, Tariq had made the exact same phone call to the exact same friend, a coincidence they now look upon as divine intervention.
“I remember driving to the meeting,” says Krsnanandini. “I was crying and praying, ‘Lord, I think you’re asking too much of me.’ Suddenly, I felt a sense of deep peace and I heard a voice say to me, ‘You can go ahead and leave Tariq and it will be justified but better than that would be to work with your husband.’ I knew then that Tariq needed me and that we were going to work out our problems.”
“Don’t think that just because negative things happened in your marriage that that’s enough to give up,” says Tariq. “You’ve got to wait and keep stirring the pot until you get the nectar. It takes faith and trust. Even if you’re not real good at being a spiritual person, if you keep trying, you’re going to get to that sweet stuff.”
On top of their commitment to their own marriage, Tariq and Krsnanandini are also on a mission to help other couples drink this marital mead. This couple, both of whom have degrees in psychology, education, and business, founded the Dasi-Ziyad Family Institute in 1997 in Cleveland. The dedicated this organization to the utilization of spiritual principles, techniques and skills to support the healthy development of marriage, family, and community.
Whether they are conducting marriage-enrichment workshops, writing a curriculum for a school youth project, or counseling couples in their home, Tariq and Krsnanandini recognize that their marriage is part of a divine arrangement designed to help keep communities and families healthy.
The inspiration to do the work they do as a couple came to Krsnanandinini at an early age. “I was 19 when I was initiated into the Hare Krishna movement,” explains Krsnanandini. “My spiritual teacher, my swami, inspired me for the rest of my life. After he passed in 1977, I had a dream in which he gave me an instruction to show people how to have God conscious marriages. Because of the respect I had for my spiritual teacher, I would never have questioned his guidance, even though I wasn’t married at the time.”
Krsnanandini held on to that dream and waited for the right time and for the right person to help realize her vision. The right time was 12 years later. The right person was Tariq.
“I was actually reintroduced to Tariq by my ex-husband,” says Krsnanandini. “Tariq’s father had been a mentor to him.”
Years later, after her divorce, Krsnanandini read a book that mentioned how important it was for single mothers to find someone they respected to mentor their sons. Krsnanandini had spent enough time with Tariq to know that he was the one she wanted as a mentor for her boys.
“Up until that point, we were just seeing each other occasionally,” recalls Tariq. “But when Krsnanandini asked me to be a mentor to her sons, I knew that meant I would be seeing her more often.”
Shortly after that, Tariq invited Krsnanandini to a Christmas party, which she went to even though, at the time, she rarely socialized because of her busy school schedule. Attending a social gathering together led them to perceive each other in a different light, and consider their relationship as potentially more than purely platonic.
After the party, Tariq and Krsnanandini started seeing more of each other. One of the outings was a trip to Detroit to see and inspirational speaker. While there, Krsnanandini stayed with her brother, who put her through an exercise that changed her life.
“My brother and I sat up all night talking,” recalls Krsnanandini. “He asked me to make a list of qualities that I would want in a husband. I made that list and we prayed over it. As I looked over the list of qualities, I realized that Tariq had every one of them.”
Although Tariq was quick to come up with reasons not to commit himself to Krsnanandini, one fact was undeniable. They were kindred spirits. Their devotion to their own spirituality and to encouraging spirituality in others has made them realize they meant to be a couple.
