Excerpt of full Ananda Wedding Ceremony by Swami Kriyananda
(After a brief period of prayer and meditation, the bride and bridegroom offer roses to each other and say:)
Dear beloved, I offer you this rose
As a symbol of my love for you;
A love inspired by God,
And offered to you as a channel of His love.
SONG:
Where He dwells, the earth in gladness
Puts forth sweet herbs, shading trees.
Gay streams bound through summer meadows;
Fragrance blows on every breeze.
They with happiness are blessed
Who the Lord have made their Guest–
Who the Lord have made their Guest.
Minister:
In all things, see the hand of God;
And seek, through them, His blessing on your union.
From rocks and earth, seek steadfastness in love;
(Minister places a touch of earth on the forehead of each, at a point between the eyebrows.)
From water and all liquid things:
the grace to flow through life in harmony, without attachment, in a spirit of acceptance and cooperation;
(Minister sprinkles a littler water on their heads.)
From air and sweet fragrances:
pure freedom from all thought of “I” or “mine”;
(Minister holds steadily before them a few sticks of burning incense.)
And from rising fire, the understanding that human love must ever aspire toward the heights of perfect, divine love.
(Minister lights a fire in a metal bowl. Once the flames begin to rise they say:)
In fire we see also a symbol of the unifying power of God’s love, uniting your separate flames of life in His one, infinite light. Offer yourselves mentally into the fire of that love.
Repeat after me:
O Infinite love,
I offer myself up to Thee.
Burn up and purify my limitations.
(Bride and groom each offer a stick of wood into the flames.)
Destroy in me the seeds of earthly desire.
(They each cast a handful of rice into the fire.)
Accept my pure aspiration to be one with Thee.
(They pour a little clarified butter into the flames.)
Holy Vows at Marriage
(Expressed first by the couple to God:)
Beloved Lord,
We dedicate to Thee our lives, our service, and the love we share.
May the communion we find with one another lead us to inner communion with Thee.
May the service we render one another perfect in us our service of Thee.
May we behold Thee always enshrined in one another’s forms.
May we always remember that it is above all Thee we love.
In every test of love, may we see Thy loving hand.
In any disagreement, may we see Thy hidden guidance.
May our love not be confined by selfish needs,
But give us strength ever to expand our hearts
Until we see all human beings, all creatures as our own.
Teach us to love all beings equally, in Thee.
(The couple then speaks these vows to each other:)
Dear Beloved,
I will be true to you as I pray always to be true to God.
I will love you without condition, as I would be loved by you
And as we are ever loved by God.
I will never compete with you; I will cooperate always for our own good, and for all others’, highest good.
I will forgive you always, and under all circumstances.
I will respect your right to see truth as you perceive it,
And to be guided as you feel deeply within yourself,
And I will work with you always, in freedom, to arrive at a common misunderstanding.
All that we do, may we do for God’s glory.
May we live and grow together in His love and joy.
And may the offspring of our union
Whether human children, or creative deeds
Be doorways for the inspiration that we feel from Him,
Through each other.
May our love grow ever deeper, purer, more expansive,
Until, in our perfected love,
We find the perfect love of God.