Love, Marriage & Happiness: Why Society Shouldn't Decide Your Life
Society has a role in practical matters, but it should never decide love, marriage, happiness, or the purpose of life. Real freedom begins when personal choices are guided by understanding instead of social pressure. While social norms help maintain order, they become harmful when they dictate relationships, career, or inner values. True happiness and love arise from freedom, not conformity, making every love story meaningful only when it is authentically one's own.
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Questioner: Acharya Ji, behaving by cultural norms, societal norms is truth or false?
Acharya Prashant: See, things have their respective places. The question is: if you behave as well, social norms, what about you? You arranged a place for me, and I am sitting here. It is a social arrangement. But my answer to you is not social. So both have their place. Whatever is peripheral and unimportant can be left to the society, but whatever is intimate, really valuable, really important, really significant, must not be touched by the society.
This place that you are, according to me, the social place, the welcome that you gave me, is more or less a social welcome because that's what you give to every visitor. It's the norm, is it not? You didn't especially reserve it for me. It's a social thing.
But even if you don't give me this sofa, I am sure me and Dusan would comfortably sit here, as we have been sitting most of this last week. Our answers won't really change because the answers are not social. And if our responses, our relationships, start becoming social, then it's a tragedy.
