Marriage Isn’t the Problem, the Mind's Search for Security Is
Questioner: Sir, whenever I see towards my mama’s life and towards my parents’ life or so-called married couples and then I discuss with my friends; they told me that, “This happens. Life is led like this and whatever is happening is a good thing.”
I mean that I don’t understand this and the way of life being led. There is nothing lacking, there is no problem as such. Just that I am unable to understand this.
Acharya Prashant: Why do you often talk of marriage? As such, I have nothing against two people committing to stay together. But, why do I often talk of it?
I talk of it because of the mind, that is so eagerly wanting marriage. It's often a mind that wants the marriage due to its insecurity, its dullness, and its inability to see what it is wanting and doing. That darkness, that ignorance reflects in all the actions of that mind, all the actions of that individual. But it reflects most starkly in the institution of marriage because it is so very permanent.
At least, relative to the other things in life. You can buy a shirt and you can do away with it. That’s not what you can do with your wife or husband.
That’s why I talk so often of it. I have nothing against marriage. I have a lot to do with the mind of man. The mind that rushes towards security. The mind that wants to possess and hold captive, another living being. I want to talk of that mind.
But, when it comes to marriage, that mind acts almost in a suicidal way because now you have gone into something, which given your current state, would be extremely irreversible for you. Not only it would be irreversible, it would be spawning a series of actions from here.
Marriage will decide the kind of work that you will do, it will decide your relationship with the kids that you will breed. It will decide practically everything about your life now. That’s why I talk about marriage. Otherwise, why must I bother?
Two fellows can comfortably live with each other all their life and it can be very beautiful as well. But, what if both of them have come to each other in sheer darkness? What if they do not know what they are doing? What if they are getting into an irreversible trap? What if the mistake is final, incorrigible. That’s why I talk about it.
But, a Buddha entering marriage would be so very alright. Why would one bother, even Buddha! In his Buddhahood, whatever he does is beautiful. As an awakened one, in your wisdom, whatever you do would be beautiful. You may decide to marry. You may decide not to marry. You may decide to live with one man. You may decide to live with three men. You may decide to have no kids. You may decide to have ten kids. Whatever you do would be wonderful. Who am I to talk about your intimate and individual decisions then. Whatever you do, in your awakened state, is just the right thing that you must do. Why must I or anybody talk about it? So, I have nothing as such against the institution of marriage.
But, I very well know why this institution is so all-pervasive. Why one may not, why one may skip anything else in life but does not skip marriage. Because it pertains to our deepest darkness. And the deepest desire of the ego with the sense of incompleteness is to permanently latch on to somebody else.
Love is the one thing that can redeem. And marriage acts as a very profane substitute for that. What should have been the avenue for your redemption becomes your permanent enslavement. Love can sublimate. Love can help you break out from your regular patterns but love withheld by marriage becomes a pattern in itself. Instead of showing up as dynamite, as something that can revolutionize your life, it becomes something that strangulates your life. You see this. You know the utter power of love, don’t you? You know what it can do.
Then you must also know that when this power is socialized, when this power is given a name, a shape, a pattern, a uniform, then you have lost that which was your only possibility of redemption. It’s like having an axe that can break all your chains and using that axe instead, to strike at your own legs.
Love would have helped you fly. And now you have captivated love within four walls. As wise men and women, if you are married, wonderful. As wise men and women, if you are not married, wonderful. The point is not really marriage. The point is wisdom. You get this?
I am not crusading against a social evil. My one and only concern is the mind of man. Society and other things come way later.
