Why do Couples Fight?

Acharya Prashant: So Dariaus, the night before, the day you were to arrive here in Goa, I was woken up at around 5 am by loud voices. I was in my hotel room, and it was a decent hotel, one expects the decent kind of gentry. And yet at around 5 am, in fact later than 5 am, 6 am, the voices were so loud, they were coming from some room in the hotel, that I got woken up.

And it was a man and a woman quarreling with each other, quite bitterly, quite loudly, of course. And at some point, it got so loud that in my half-awake, half-asleep condition I started thinking of what my duty as a fellow human being is at this moment. It has kind of become violent. Probably the two are on the verge of getting into physical violence, so what do I do? I even thought of calling up the reception and intimating them.

So, that was two days back, three days back rather. And that incident, it happened right in the morning. It stayed with me for a while, for a few hours at least, and I mentioned it to them. And they said they wanted to understand it, they wanted to have a deeper discussion on it. So, that's the reason we are sitting here right now. We want to take this up and understand the entire domain of relationships, particularly man-woman relations. And why do these two fight so much with each other? What do you think?

Questioner: Someone didn’t meet someone's desires. Someone had an expectation that the other couldn't or wouldn’t fulfill.

Acharya Prashant: I mean, why would two adults quarrel at 5 am, of all times. What were they doing, tearing each other away at that hour? Suggests, they both were probably awake the entire night, and awake not in a pleasant way. Surely, things were going on and they were talking or thinking. And then they just couldn't hold themselves back and let themselves lose on the other before even the sun could shine.

I find that interesting in a dreadful way. Think of the condition of the human being who has to keep thinking continuously of someone he doesn't quite like yet has to be with; can't tolerate to look at, and yet cannot get away from.

Questioner:: Sounds pretty terrible!

Acharya Prashant: Sounds quite terrible, doesn't it? I mean, think of a hotel room. There’s a bed and it's at usual, what they call as the king bed where you have double bed. So, the two are there on that bed. And if you are so bitter towards each other, so antagonistic to each other; why do you have to be together in that room, on that bed, in Goa? Why do you travel together? Pretty simple questions. To some, these would sound quite foolish, because most people have very straightforward answers to them.

Questioner:: You are supposed to do this.

Acharya Prashant: Yeah. “What else, what else?” Their response would be, “What else? I mean, man and wife probably, man and wife, or lovers supposedly, and they are supposed to be together.” But I just don't get this. Why are you supposed to be together if you can't bear to look at each other? What is it that keeps these two together?

Questioner:: There is a new stream of spirituality that suggests, at least in the U.S., the relationships are the best way to grow because you are forced to deal with the other’s emotions and the other’s issues. And to me it sounds like you are trying to sugarcoat something that's unpleasant. That you are fundamentally incompatible with this other person, but you don't want to admit that. So, you say, “Well, this is a growth opportunity.”

Acharya Prashant: My question is, are we as human beings, can we be fundamentally compatible with anybody? Are we fundamentally compatible even with ourselves? Are we alright with ourselves? Shubhankar?

Questioner: No.

Acharya Prashant: See, he knows. (smiles)

One is not okay with himself; how can one be okay with somebody else? Even if it's not a man-woman thing, can two women be continuously, have a lifelong compatibility? Or two men? So, what is this thing about sharing life, and sharing room, and sharing bed all about? And I don't know, I think I started off in a dull way.

My apologies to everybody, especially those who would be watching the recording later on; but it was quite horrible to be woken up by a clamor. And especially, the female voice, because it is high pitched when it is loud. It gets shrill and it has a lot of pain, and it's very difficult to hear. And obviously the man's voice as well, the man is shrieking, the woman is yelling, and you have woken up. And you wait for the thing to subside, it doesn't. And you are thinking, what to do?

Questioner: What were they fighting about?

Acharya Prashant: I had no idea.

Questioner: So, they were just yelling?

Acharya Prashant: They were just yelling at each other, and it was continuous. It was continuous. All I remember is that after fifteen-twenty minutes, I got fed up of the continuity and dozed off.

Questioner: Like white sound.

Acharya Prashant: Yeah, like white noise. I got bored of it in fifteen minutes, how come people don't get bored of it in fifteen years? But it was terrible. When I woke up finally, a couple of hours later, it was there, buzzing in the mind and it stayed.

How do people bear to be like that with each other? And obviously it was not a thing, an episode, belonging to that hour particularly. The two would be fighting the same way with each other continuously and when the whole thing would become too much over the top, then they will probably have sex so that they get revitalized for the next bout of fighting.

Questioner: But usually when two individuals are into such kind of a fight, they are very much sure or passionate about the subject that they are really dealing with. And when you look at from the outside, usually those things are not very big. For example, I have seen many a times my parents are fighting for some salt in the curry—it was either too high or it was too low. But that too becomes a subject for a good altercation; for maybe ten-fifteen minutes.

Acharya Prashant: Yeah, I think that in a way sets up the whole discussion quite nicely. The five of us all sitting here, either are in a relationship or have been in relationships; so, we know the whole thing first-hand experientially. Let me just say, the subject is: why do couples fight? Can we zero in on that? ‘Why do couples fight?’ Yes, why do they fight Shubhankar?

Questioner: It’s the man’s fault! (everyone laughs)

Questioner: He has lost a lot of fights, it sounds like.

Acharya Prashant: For the uninitiated ones, that was a sarcasm. And that actually gives us an insight into why do they fight? Somebody is bitter all the time. And when you are bitter, then you use sarcasm not as a literary device, but as a weapon. You hurt.

But that's okay. Why do we fight? Why do couples especially are always seen bickering and pecking at each other?

Questioner: Actually this is quite strange in some way because when the relationship starts, usually two people come together, they start to appreciate things about the other. They would value certain things, would come up with some special stuff, maybe for the other to make it a bit more, you know, not-so-usual kind of an affair. You too start to feel good in each other's company, you enjoy it. Also, why you decide to maybe go ahead together.

And then after some time, it just turns into a very, you know, that fighting kind of an affair. So, it starts in a very sugary way. And then it comes to that, what you call like, the poison part of it.

So, why does that happen? Because one of the reasons I specifically saw, was not the reason specifically, but one characteristic that is there is you stop to appreciate anything that is there. You are filled up with a lot of things inside, you just want to take it outside, and the person is very easily available to you; the person that is around.

Acharya Prashant: So, undervaluing the other, insulting the other as some kind of trash box.

Questioner: Trash box—that's a characteristic, not the reason. I am still figuring it out. But it's the characteristic.

Acharya Prashant: Is it the same way over there in the U.S, Dariaus. Because you spend most of your time in the States, not in India. Is it the same?

Questioner: Couples fight, the divorce rate is higher. So clearly, being in relationships, whether it's woman and man, or man-man, or woman-woman aren’t working out.

Acharya Prashant: So I am asking you, friends don't fight so much with each other, right? Do they?

Questioner: Usually, not.

Acharya Prashant: They usually don't. They do fight with each other, obviously. Strangers even they get entangled. But couples, they necessarily fight with each other.

Questioner: I mean, my experience, if I reflect on why I got annoyed was because I would settle for someone who I would potentially not even consider as a friend. So, someone, who is maybe not motivating me, or is not as driven ,or who is not as well-read, just for the validation of wanting to be in a relationship, or because it was the done thing, or because it seemed like if I was too far into it, and I didn't want to admit defeat. And that built up resentment, I guess, towards me, which I took out on her—that she reminded me of my poor choices.

Acharya Prashant: And she was the poor choice. Was she?

Questioner: That's the way it looks from my perspective. I am sure she thinks the same!

Acharya Prashant: So looking at your partner, be it the man or the woman, reminds you of your several mistakes; the one in front of you being the most intimate and a significant mistake.

Questioner: Yeah. I am reminded of a quote by Elon Musk which resonated with me. He used to tell his ex-wife that if you were my employee, I would fire you. I don't know why I still put up with you. They got divorced.

Acharya Prashant: Yes, and in India even the option of divorce is not so available, or at least it's not smooth. So, if they fight, why don't they just separate? I mean, if you dislike someone so much that you have to beat him up or her up at 5 am in the morning, in the crudest way possible, and you have been so blinded and deafened by bitterness that you don't even realize that the entire hotel is listening to your drama. Why don't you just separate?

Questioner: Because probably doing that would mean a totally different life, totally different surroundings and everything. And usually, we tend to stay in our known positions, maybe even with our sub-optimal choices.

Acharya Prashant:: So, what we are seeing is: I am with someone, I don't like that someone, I continuously fight with that someone, but I don't get away from that someone. I like to remain associated, rather entangled. So, there would be a lot of haggling, continuous friction but not separation.

Questioner: Sir, it's a lot of investment over there, emotional investment.

Acharya Prashant: But wait, we are saying that the other is a poor choice. So, the investment is a poor investment, right? So, how come there is an investment?

Questioner: I think, the more scarier part of the decision is that if that person is not in life, then what to do? Because either way, whether you are having a good time or whether you are having a bad time, your time is passed, your time is consumed. You have a reason to spend your time around, to occupy yourself.

Because a lot of people are not really wanting to take that step into the unknown—that if not this, then what? So, a lot of people keep hanging to the same set of relationships, be it with the woman, the same kind of structure, the household and everything. Just because, if you decide that, you know, I don't want this; then a bigger question is now what do you want? Because naturally one needs to find something to go ahead.

Acharya Prashant: I don't find that very intuitive or obvious. There is somebody I actively hate. And a lot of people do obviously hate their partners, hate is not an exaggerated word here. A lot of people do actually hate their partners. So, why don't you just drop the relationship? I mean the justification or explanation here is that then there would be a certain void and you don't want to bear that void, so you carry on with the hate, and the disgust, and the tension. But I don't quite understand. I mean, if I actively hate someone, how do I not think of getting rid of them?

Questioner: I think, maybe people fantasize a lot about getting rid of their partners, maybe she will disappear.

Questioner: Because that is why there are extramarital relationships.

Acharya Prashant: No, extramarital has marital at the center, right? Why do you still want to remain married and have an extramarital affair outside the house?

Questioner: I think, it's the social stigma.

Questioner: The kids.

Questioner: It keeps things together.

Questioner: And the kids. Often, they say, “Oh, we are doing it just for the children.”

Questioner: Yes.

Questioner: And we are just roommates living in the same house.

Questioner: We are in an open relationship nowadays.

Questioner: Also, is it really clear to people that they actually hate each other? Because most of the times it's about like proving some point.

Acharya Prashant: You are not allowed to think in terms of that word.

Questioner: Right, right.

Acharya Prashant: You would rather use some other word to describe the relationship. You would say, “I am hurt”, but you would not say, “I hate.” You would say, “Oh, I am hurting. I am hurting within.” But you will not say, “I am hating.” You are not allowed to use that word culturally, that's the thing. The thing is, yes, there is a lot of hate. So, if there is a lot of hate…

Questioner: And it's also a complex structure. Because at times you feel like hating, the other time the thing just turns around and you feel like loving.

Questioner: Yeah.

Questioner: And then there is attachment. Then there is maybe emotional investment, maybe financial investment, maybe some responsibilities. So, it's a bit of a complex structure. Like, is it really just the hate part that exists?

Acharya Prashant: I am open to that, right? Now obviously, there has to be something beyond hate, otherwise the two can't stick together for so long.

Questioner: Had it been just hate, it's more easy to just, you know…

Acharya Prashant: Right, right.

Questioner: I notice for me sometimes, maybe often, it's easy for me to assume the worst in someone's behavior. So, that makes me angry, and it helps me validate myself, my ego likes it. And then I sometimes discover, often discover, that ‘that assumption’ I had was wrong, or there was a reason for why she or he did that, and…

Acharya Prashant: No, something more fundamental. As human beings, are we built to be tied for long, indefinitely long durations to another human being? Is that the nature of this creature?

Questioner: I don’t think so, not in my personal experience.

Questioner: And I think, this question has been raised many a times in discussions. But usually what they do is, they keep it in just the periphery of monogamy and polygamy. But they never really talk of completely free individual.

Acharya Prashant: ‘No’gamy.

Questioner: ‘No’gamy, ‘Zero’gamy—that is just not considered in the discussion.

Acharya Prashant: It's a very, very interesting side of the thing. We talk of polygamy, polyandry, or whatever, as alternatives to monogamy; but nobody ever said that the obvious alternative is ‘No’gamy.

Questioner: Now, that looks very abstract. Because…

Questioner: ‘Gamy’ you must. (laughs)

Acharya Prashant: How is that abstract?

Questioner: For people who are like watching, so it might really appear a bit abstract. So, what is ‘No’gamy?

Acharya Prashant: ‘No’gamy basically means, why do you have to be tied to somebody? It beats me every time I think of it. Why do I necessarily have to have somebody tied to my back, or to my chest, or to my head, or to whatever place? I mean all the time, my entire life.

Questioner: Sir, generally for people, it’s a way to deal with their insecurity or their fear.

Acharya Prashant: How are you insecure when you were not married? You got married at, let's say twenty-eight. At twenty-six, were you trembling with insecurity all the time? Or has the relationship, the institutionalized relationship rather made you insecure? I am asking.

Questioner: I think, the relationship makes us more insecure.

Questioner: I think society tells you that, you go to school, you go to college, you get the job, you get married, you have kids.

Questioner: The script.

Questioner: The script, whether it's in the U.S. or whether it's here. The appearance of the script differs.

Questioner: More than that, when according to the script, you think that when you get married the whole relationship will be permanent. There will be a certain permanency, because when you are with somebody without the marriage title, you still think that the other one has a door to just get out.

But before one becomes a girlfriend, she is a friend. Then also you are thinking that she might just go, so you make her a girlfriend. When she is a girlfriend then you are thinking that she might just go, so she becomes your wife.

Questioner: With each progression you think, you are getting more secure.

Questioner: More secure. But the more you get into it, the more you invest, the more you find that it is never certain that the other will be loyal to you. So, it keeps rumbling in your head that whether the other is even there.

Acharya Prashant: A question I want to ask, you have had girlfriends, right?

Questioner: Right.

Acharya Prashant: Did you ever want to have them all the time? That's the nature of the institution of marriage.

Questioner: Not for me.

Acharya Prashant: You want, you must, you are obliged to have someone at your head.

Questioner: No.

Acharya Prashant: By your side, over you, under you, somewhere all the time.

Questioner: But I have seen this ‘possessive kind of a lover’ kind of a thing. Usually that is there in those who are very insecure or very fearful regarding their partner. And then they have all kind of, you know…

Acharya Prashant: Then what you are saying is that the very institution of this enforced togetherness arises out of insecurity.

Questioner: And they have been fed right from their childhood, that's how couples are supposed to be—they are for each other.

Questioner: Just another toy, right?

Questioner: ‘I won't like to share you with your mom’ or this and that. These kind of dialogues and things have been fed right from…

Questioner: It is just another ‘thing’ in my life.

Questioner: Yes.

Questioner: It's not a person, it's a thing in my life that I want, that it behaves according to my whims and fancies.

Acharya Prashant: No, had it been just another thing in my life, even that could have been passable. It’s not just another thing in your life, it’s ‘the thing’ in your life.

Questioner: Yeah, ‘the thing’ in your life.

Acharya Prashant: The central thing in your life

Questioner: Albeit, a thing, because you want them to…

Acharya Prashant: Surely a thing, something of consumption.

Questioner: Yes, yes.

Questioner: Maybe, this is because of bad education. No one taught us in school, at least no one taught me in school that you choose a partner not based on her looks. So, you will be attracted to her looks, but look beyond that.

Acharya Prashant: No, what is this concept of partner? Dariaus, that's the question, not what the criteria for choosing a partner should be. Why even a partner? Why does one need a partner at all?

Questioner: That they definitely didn’t teach in school.

Acharya Prashant: So, we are going back to that ‘Zero’gamy. ‘Zero’gamy means not needing a partner. Partner in the sense of a permanent partner who has to be by your side all the while.

Questioner: I think our Prakṛti at least, wants us…

Acharya Prashant: Is that Prakṛti ? When you were relatively young, I remember from my hostel days, I don't think anybody was dying to get married.

Questioner: Not married, but some woman by my side.

Questioner: Yes, to many people it brings a very strong psychological support.

Acharya Prashant: From?

Questioner: Just by the presence of a person in your life.

Acharya Prashant: Seriously? Someone of your own age, someone of your own maturity, your own IQ level, usually a lower IQ level. Many a times the one you call as your partner is just as good or bad as you are, a mediocre human being. What kind of security are you expecting from him?

Questioner: This is more cultural conditioning that you need to have a partner at some point in your life, otherwise you will die alone.

Questioner: Is there anything that tells us don't have a partner? The advertisements, the stories, your parents’ example, grandparents’, teachers’...

Questioner: No, no.

Questioner: I am just bringing this aspect as well—because if there's no partner, there is not going to be any marriage, no kids, and then the whole economic structure that has been built by the society, how will it run?

Acharya Prashant: It will run in a different way, right? Not that people will not need things or services if they are not welded to each other. People will still need stuff, right? Why will I not need a mobile phone if I am not married? I am not married, I still use phones, I carry a lot of phones. I still need gadgets, right? Nobody over here is married, but we still need the tripods and the cameras and stuff. So, industry would still run, in fact run more efficiently because a lot of needless and wasteful products and services will no longer be needed.

So, who keeps feeding it to us that we necessarily compulsorily have to be with someone? And then the two are in each other's face all the time. How can you—just asking—how can you continuously bear to look at one face? I can't bear to look at my own face, I admit. How can I tolerate looking at somebody else's face, twenty-four hours and without respite, without an alternative? And by alternative, I do not mean that from one woman I have to go to another woman. Why do I have to look at a human face…

Questioner: Shoved into.

Questioner: Why a human being is such a central part of my life, in some way? Yes. It brings us to the same question that he had put up at the start of it. That we do not know, if not this, then what?

Acharya Prashant: Life, what else? There is life! What you are saying is, “We don't know how to live.”

Questioner: Life is scary. Life is scary…

Acharya Prashant: I mean, if you are not married, does the Sun not rise for you? Does the Moon not illuminate your nights? Do the stars don't twinkle for you? Does the sea not wave for you? What changes if you are not married? I am asking.

Questioner: No Big Bazaar discounts! (laughs)

Questioner: Usually, it looks very scary for people when they are alone in it. So, be it the night, be it the sea, be it…

Acharya Prashant: You are born alone.

Questioner: Secondly, you know, we don't celebrate being single. If you go out…

Acharya Prashant: I am asking you: why does being single mean being lonely? Please, I want to understand. You are sketching a black and white kind of image, which is very exclusive. What you are saying is, if you are married you have company, you have colors, you have cheers; if you are single, you are alone and gloomy. How is that so?

I mean nobody over here is married, right? Yet there are five individuals sitting and talking, with I suppose a certain honesty, probably also a certain intimacy. What's the problem? Who is lonely here? Nobody is married and nobody is lonely. So, how is ‘Zero’gamy loneliness?

Questioner: A part of it is the environment that you live in, because we are sitting in ‘Zero’gamists so we feel at ease. If you have two couples coming in, or you go by the beach and if you see couples walking by the beachside, then the one who doesn't have anything, something more attractive to look forward to—which usually most people don't—they look at that couple and they think that, maybe that is what I am missing. And you see all the movies…

Acharya Prashant: No, who has the time to look at couples? And why should you have the opportunity or the mental space to gawk at couples?

Questioner: But isn't it in your field of view? You can't avoid not looking at it, right?

Acharya Prashant: No, it's in front of your eyes, how does it have to be in your mind? I am not being an idealist, I am just…

Questioner: I guess, if I'm being honest, I would say, “Well, I'm not trying to look at Shubhankar or the cameras or the chair, but it's just coming in and it's registering.”

Acharya Prashant: At this moment, are you really thinking of the camera?

Questioner: I guess, I see it, I am not thinking of it.

Acharya Prashant: That's what I am saying. You can see but you don't have to think about that. If you don't think about it, it doesn't affect you.

Questioner: Yes, yes, definitely. But I mean to think about, for the lack of a better word, if you go by the beach, you are there, you look at the sand, you look at the waves, fine. You can have something to drink, eat, and spend a couple of hours there. After that, after a point, the beach doesn't hold that value anymore. And then you know…

Acharya Prashant: Go and sit in a shack.

Questioner: Yes, yes, exactly.

Acharya Prashant: After ten minutes, he says the beach doesn't hold any value for you. But the so-called partner keeps holding value for you even after ten years? Your mind is such that nothing attracts it even for a period of ten minutes, then how do you tolerate being with someone continuously for ten years?

Questioner: I don't think you can without lying to yourself or without suppressing all those feelings…

Acharya Prashant: And without being violent to the other.

Questioner: Definitely.

Acharya Prashant: If you have to tolerate someone, obviously you are going to be violent towards that person.

Questioner: Yeah.

Acharya Prashant: And that's the reason why the institution of marriage is the mother of the most fundamental kind of violence in the world. Or is it not? I am just asking.

Questioner: Hidden violence, nobody comes to really see how much depth. Because it's an everyday, small needles being pricked at each other.

Questioner: Even if you look at the criminal cases or civil cases that are in the court, homicides or anything else, most of them are just because of relationships, and there's nothing else.

Questioner: Acharya ji, what is the biological, psychological, and social aspect of two people living together, not just living together, sticking together and also from which the institution of marriage is born, that is forced compatibility, that you have to be together. So, what are the impacts of all of these? Why does it happen?

Acharya Prashant: See, biological is obvious. There is the sexual need—man wants the woman's body; the woman wants the man's body and together they procreate. So, kids come from physical union; so that's obvious, that's biology.

Then you said psychological. Psychologically, we feel as if we are not okay and if the other is there, then there is an assured supply of comfort, security and sex. So, we feel, “Right, now the thing is settled, now I can breathe, and freedom. The things that I want are all nicely arranged. Sex is at my beck and call, the day, the moment I want it, I can have it.” What is the third one?

Questioner: Social.

Acharya Prashant: The institution of marriage provides a certain order to society. It is feared that if people are not married, then there will be chaos and anarchy. That men will be chasing women all the time, and women will be chasing men.

Questioner: Who is going to raise the kid?

Acharya Prashant: Yes. So, that is economics, right? That's an economical aspect of the thing. So, society is afraid of that kind of anarchy, right? There will be no peace; all the time people will be quarreling over each other, “Oh, she is my woman, she is my woman.” And the two of them are insisting, and they have a shared claim over her. And she is interested in some third man, for the while. And a week later, she finds a fourth and a fifth one. And then there is constant conflict.

Questioner: Also it's said that it helps one to evade responsibility as well, in some way.

Acharya Prashant: Yes, because the man is fundamentally a biological animal. He is an animal, so he will not want to take care of the kid. Sooner than later, the woman is going to get pregnant. And the man went to her just because he wanted to have sex. And she gets pregnant, he runs away. He finds someone else; and the pregnant woman is anyway no more attractive in terms of sex. So, that's the social utility that marriage has.

But you see, all these utilities exist to cover up for something very lowly, very negative, very animalistic within us.

Questioner: A way to tame the animal, in some way?

Acharya Prashant: Yes, not a way to transform the animal, but a way to tame the animal. And that's the thing. If you tame an animal, it still remains an animal, right? In fact, by putting a collar around its neck, you have simply excluded any possibility of the animal graduating to become human being. Are you getting it? So, obviously there are utilities. So, there is a social utility, there are psychological utility, there is a biological utility, and there is an economic utility.

But there is a very strong spiritual disutility. Man is fundamentally his self, his mind, his ego, that is at the center of the mind; that's who we are. And the purpose of life is to bring that self to some kind of completion. Why am I saying that's the purpose of life? Because you don't live with a society all the time, right? Not all the time you are with the society. Not all the time are you looking at your body or thinking about your body. Not all the time are you thinking about economics, that's money. Not all the time you even have thoughts and feelings. But you are with yourself all the time.

So, that's the reason taking care of the self is the most important and fundamental prerogative, duty, function, call it whichever way. And that duty, that important function is obstructed by this institution. If you really want to take care of your inner incompleteness, then you cannot fill it up with something random, something that's just a proxy, right? That doesn’t work.

Questioner: This also makes me curious in a way. We know that the usual relationships, they are based on comforts that the other provide. But what would a spiritual relationship look like? ‘Look like’, I mean, like what are the characteristics of that?

Acharya Prashant: In a spiritual relationship, all dimensions of your existence, they are present. So, there is a social dimension, there is a biological dimension, economics too might play a role.

Questioner: So, it doesn't negate it all.

Acharya Prashant: They are part of your existence, right? Because you are corporal, therefore you require money. So, economics has to be there as long as there is the body. Because you are the body, so there would be the bodily urges—you want food, drink, if you are young, you also want to have sex. So, that's there. Those things are there in a spiritual relationship, but at the center is the self; that's the difference.

So, economics is there to take care of the self. By self, I mean the I, the ego. The biology is channelized to take care of the self, right? The society exists to liberate the self. The social institutions are designed in a way that assists the liberation. So, that's how a spiritual relationship looks, right?

If two people are spiritually related to each other, not that one cannot lend money to the other. So, there is economics, right? Not that one cannot borrow money, not that, I mean any kind of economic transaction. Not that they cannot be related in a social way. They could even be related in a biological way, there could be a sexual component to their relationship as well. All that is okay. But whatever be the dimension in which they are connected to each other, the central thing will be the health of the self.

We exist with each other for whatever time, in whichever way, so that we remain inwardly healthy, so that we gain in fulfillment. And ultimately, we are liberated of all the nonsense that comes with taking birth. That's what a spiritual relationship is like.

A spiritual relationship, I am saying, does not exclude the other dimensions in which people relate to each other. So, you could still be a seller and a customer. It's okay, economics going on. I am the seller, he is the customer and yet we could have a spiritual relationship, right? The great Saint poet Raidas, for example, was a cobbler by profession. Obviously, he was charging money, or was he not? So, there is economics, and yet the relationship is deeply spiritual. Saint Kabir, weaver!

So, it's not as if you cannot have other dimensions of existence or other ways in which to relate with the world, with other human beings. But at the center, you are always with the question, how is being with the other useful to my spiritual growth? And spiritual growth is not some kind of fancy indulgement, right?

Questioner: It's not a selfish, selfish in the way we know.

Acharya Prashant: It's not optional! Spiritual growth is what you are born for. If you are doing this, that, growing in whichever dimension, but not growing in the spiritual dimension, then you are simply wasting your life.

Questioner: But we are not told that right from our childhood. We are always told about our duties as maybe a family member, as a citizen, or maybe as an employee. But we never are told about this responsibility that I hold towards myself, you know, my own development, and my own inner growth.

Acharya Prashant: Yeah. Either the ones who set the curricula are so innocent that they think that this thing is so obvious that it is just naturally understood. They take this thing for granted that any three-year-old obviously knows that he is born for liberation, or they don't value Liberation at all. Only these two alternatives are there. They are afraid of Liberation, maybe; the third alternative.

Questioner: Because as a young boy, maybe in my school and every place, I have seen that the ones who were engaged in some kind of a hobby or maybe some sport, they were less, you know, keeping such thoughts in their head that they are looking for a girl, or this or that. But the ones who never had such kind of occupations in their lives, maybe somebody's not excelling in academia, or maybe somebody is not excelling in sports, then they used to have these urges in their head a lot.

Acharya Prashant: Basically the more jobless you are, may I say, may I risk saying, the more worthless you are, the more you are occupied with thoughts of having relationships, permanent relationships. Otherwise, why would you? It just makes no sense.

Questioner: It becomes a point of proving yourself for a lot of guys. “I have a girlfriend and that is why I am successful in the society.”

Acharya Prashant: No, having a girlfriend is wonderful. One is not talking of keeping the other gender at an arm's length. We started off by saying, “Why do you still have to be together if you find yourself fighting? Why do couples’ fight?” So, it's all right to have a girlfriend. But why must that girlfriend become a liability, a compulsion? For that matter, a boyfriend. What is this imperative to be sticky, to be welded to each other.

Questioner: We seek, again I think, we seek some kind of a social validation with all such things. For example, even right now we are in a hotel, so it is very customary to click selfies with your partner or with your family, just to show to the world that, you know, I am with someone.

Acharya Prashant: No, it's all right to click selfies. But having clicked the selfie, why can't you let the other go? “Ma'am the selfie is done. And you could go that way and I could go that way.”

Questioner: That looks very utilitarian, you know. “We are just here to maybe shot a few clicks and then move apart.”

Acharya Prashant: But I see a lot of compassion in that. I am liberating you of my needless presence. Why do I have to be at your head all the time? Kindly enjoy your solitude. You are by the sea, the beach is beautiful, the sand is there, who am I to compete with the Sun, and the surf, and the sand?

I can't be so arrogant as to say that you look at me, rather than the setting sun. The sunset is obviously of far greater charm than anything I can offer you. So, I liberate you of my presence, kindly go. Kindly go, and after a few hours or a few days, if there is a way I can be of help or if there is a way the two of us can offer mutual pleasure to each other, we will meet. We will meet.

But I can't be selfish enough to throttle you, to put blinders on your eyes and say, “Look only at me, don't look anywhere else. The sun is beautiful, don't look at the Sun. The sea is beautiful, don't look at the sea; look at me. The world is beautiful, don't look at the world. Look only at me.”

“Oh hell! That man over there is glorious. He is a better human being compared to me in all ways, right? He is intellectually sharp, he is spiritually higher, bodily he looks far more charming than I do. But you please do not look at him, look only at me.” Now is this not violent? I am asking you.

Okay, an example for you to consider. You cook something for your friend, right? At your home. And you are a bad cook. And whatever you cooked up that has been totally spoiled. So spoiled, it's actually got toxic, right? Would you serve this thing to your partner, or rather order something from the restaurant? If I know that I am not good enough for him or her, why would I still insist to just latch on.

Questioner: But there is probably a lack of inner sureness. Because somewhere, because one is not totally sure within himself, that's why they get into a relationship. And after getting into a relationship when they don't have that self-worth in themselves, they are not very really open to let the other be with any…

Questioner: Also you get married with all that affair you put in, you know. You are calling a lot of people; you show that we are together, and we are so happy. You have all those pre-wedding photos, post-wedding photos, during wedding photos.

Questioner: The Great Indian Fat Wedding!

Questioner: Yeah. You had all that show of love and affection and hoo-ha. And now it is a bit embarrassing to go out in the world, and say, “That was wrong, let’s do it again.”

Questioner: “Things fell apart.”

Questioner: But I think, with such kind of a relationship, would that even happen in the first place?

Acharya Prashant: The wedding? No, let the wedding happen, fine. You are in a mood to just spend and burn money. A mind wave and you did all that, right. You burnt fifty lakh rupees or two crores or whatever, you did that, fine. The day is over, the night is gone. It's been five months now, come on, liberate her.

And by that I do not mean you turn her into an enemy. I am just saying liberate her. Ppen the door of the cage. That does not mean you have forbidden her from returning. But please, please, you know, unlock that door. There is no need to cage her. If you cage her, there will be fights. That's all.

Questioner: Maybe it's because relationships are so transactional, right?

Acharya Prashant: So transactional…

Questioner: Someone's attracted to someone for the resources. Someone's attracted to someone for looks. And you have to give the other what they want, so that you get what you want.

Acharya Prashant: But then, you know, when the two of us are fighting, obviously I am not getting anything from you, nor are you getting anything from me. So, even the logic that because both of us exploit each other and gain a lot from each other, that's why we are sitting together; even that logic doesn't hold. The thing is, the two of us add no value to each other's life. In fact, we take away value from each other's life.

Questioner: But to think about it, like they are fighting in Cidade…

Acharya Prashant: That's the name of the hotel, right?

Questioner: Yes, yes, the name of the hotel is Cidade. So, if they are fighting there, then first of all they need to check in. Now a lot of couples are there because, you know, the man is earning, the woman has forgotten to earn, and they have been there for ten years. Plus, the man is not attractive anymore, it will be a very long and harsh fight to find another woman for him. So, they sort of you know…

Acharya Prashant: And he hates himself for that, right?

Questioner: Yeah, yeah.

Acharya Prashant: He hates himself for coming to a stage where he will surely not be able to find a good woman for himself, right?

Questioner: Exactly.

Acharya Prashant: And he also hates himself for bringing his wife to a stage where no man wants to look at his wife.

Questioner: Yeah, totally.

Acharya Prashant: Neither of them are left with actually any options. So, they fight with each other?

Questioner: Because if they say no to this, then what? Then they have nothing to look. It is such a different life waiting out there behind that cage door. And a lot of people are saying that maybe there are fights, there is blood, there is splatter, but the darkness outside, I think that this world is fine.

Questioner: The hope is still alive somewhere.

Questioner: Better the devil you know, than the devil you don't.

Questioner: Yeah, yeah. Better the devil you know.

Questioner: Acharya ji, you said that the spiritual relationship has the self at its core. But when it comes to the usual relationships, generally insecurities are at the core. So, it is the insecurity that brings you together…

Acharya Prashant: No, even the spiritual relationship has insecurity at its core, but the intention is to heal the insecurity, not cover it up. See, anything that we do, we do from our limited center obviously. The question is of intention. There is fear obviously, we are born with fear. What are we trying to do with the fear? Are we trying to just cover it up? Or are we trying to boldly challenge it? Understand it and challenge it. That's the…the question is of intention.

Questioner: Also like, this is about obviously the spiritual relationship. But with the usual relationships, it's the insecurity that brings two people together.

Acharya Prashant: And the intention to just remain insecure and pretend as if you are less insecure by holding the other person.

Questioner: And then it is also insecurity that makes you stay with the other person. So, it's just the same thing that brought you together, that maybe is resulting into fights and everything; because it's the insecurity. And then again it is the insecurity that is making you stick together. Because…

Questioner: Yeah. If somebody gives you surety that you know, maybe when the other person is not there so you can have such a such life with full surety, then I think a lot of people would opt for. But the insecurity of having nothing in hand, you know, something is better than nothing, it's sort of that. That you know, what guarantee do you give me that after I leave this man or woman, then I have something good waiting for me? Just because I don't have something to look forward to, so I better keep what I have. Otherwise, I am gonna lose on both ends.

Acharya Prashant: So, what it basically means is that because we have created a world for ourselves, especially in places like India, where the opportunities and possibilities of a life devoted to self-development are just too few, therefore one says, “If not the familiar kind of married life, then what?” People don't see an alternative.

Obviously, that doesn't justify what they are doing. One could still turn around and ask, “If you don't have an alternative, would that mean that you continue living in and generating toxicity?” Drop the toxic thing. And whatsoever is available as an alternative, would probably be better than the toxicity you are enduring and creating all the time.

But that's a bold alternative and a bold thing to say. Most people just don't have much to do in life when it comes to the direction of self-realization. Therefore, that's what they fall back upon.

Questioner: And at the center of it is basically laziness. Basically, being single is a lot of hard work.

Acharya Prashant: That's very well put, I suppose. Being single is a lot of hard work. A lot of hard inner and outer work.

Questioner: Exactly. You are constantly in a battle. You don't have some small spot, black spot to rest upon.

Questioner: Yeah, socially it's very hard in a way. Because, like, let me share a recent experience. So, I am a bachelor and I had to rent a flat for myself recently, and I couldn't get one easily. Society, you know, it punishes you.

Questioner: If you go to a good fine dining restaurant on, let's say, a New Year's Eve, or Christmas, or Diwali, any festival. You won't get a seat if you are single. As simple as that.

Questioner: Yes.

Questioner: Stags entry not allowed.

Questioner: Stags are not allowed; I mean this still has some respite for women. I don't know women's perspective. But for men it's like the way, the moment they hear a stag, a man, the first reaction is, “Only couples allowed”. So constantly, you are also getting that signal, “Boss! If you have to have those good experiences that are behind those walls on a good day, then being a couple is a good idea.”

Questioner: That's not even that. I have seen this thing even, for example, if you look at an architecture of a bedroom, the sockets are there for a double bed, right? And a double bed is meant to be for two people. So, very small cues that we see around in our everyday life, they are telling you…

Questioner: Boss! Big bazaar, You don't get discounts. ‘Discounts on two’. You are gonna get discounts…

Acharya Prashant: Yeah, it's always a two-wheeler...

Questioner: Yes, yes.

Acharya Prashant: It's always, it's never a three-wheeler. When I say two-wheeler, what I intend to say is that it's supposed to carry two people as well.

Questioner: Exactly.

Acharya Prashant: Two-seater.

Questioner: It is never a single seater.

Acharya Prashant: Never a single seater, except in a few cases. So yeah, right.

Questioner: Those don’t sell very well. (laughs)

Acharya Prashant: You have very elite two-seater cars as well. People fancy them.

Questioner: Actually a moped should be a single seater, right?

Acharya Prashant: Right.

Questioner: But it's not!

Questioner: I think a lot of people will be more scared of deciding every day to what to do with their time, where to put it?

Acharya Prashant: Yeah, being single is hard work. You have not subjected yourself to the blind flow of life, right?

Questioner: Yes.

Acharya Prashant: You have to decide every morning, how to spend the day?

Questioner: Yeah.

Questioner: Exactly.

Acharya Prashant: It's not that you are married so there is a lot that you anyway have to do. So, decision making is no more needed.

Questioner: It feels much more freeing to me that way, that I get to choose what I want.

Questioner: Only if you want to hold that responsibility.

Questioner: Yeah.

Acharya Prashant: Because freedom is responsibility.

Questioner: Yes.

Acharya Prashant: Freedom is responsibility. Which is very interesting because they say that marriage induces responsibility in you. What we rather see actually, when you go to the depths of it, is that real responsibility is needed when you are not married.

Questioner: Yeah.

Acharya Prashant: Because then you have to be really responsible for your life, you have to figure out what to do? You don't have somebody you take care of; you don't have somebody who will take care of you. You don't have lots of those small and big obligations and liabilities to take care of. So, you have to figure out how to live.

Questioner: Sir, lot of time just passes in fights and all those small talks. Now you have to figure out how to…

Acharya Prashant: Right, right. As a couple, as a married couple you are relieved that you don't really have to think how to spend your time. Recurrent small talks and gossip take away so much time that you don't have to think about how to spend your time.

Questioner: The other person is an end in itself.

Acharya Prashant: Right.

Questioner: Yeah, it’s like TV…

Acharya Prashant: So, you don't have to have, you don't have to think about a purpose of life. The wife is the purpose of life, or the husband is the purpose of life. So basically, marriage gives you a pseudo purpose of life.

Questioner: Also the basic maintenance responsibilities that you have with regards to being a human being—your clothes, your food, the economics and everything. When there are two people they are dividing those things. One won't look at the economics, you know. In usual households, the wives don't even know the password of their accounts, it's the man dealing with the money part. Similarly, the man won't know what food is being cooked, what kind of vegetables are there.

But if you are single, you have to take on both sides of the world. You have to see that there is vegetable in the fridge, as well as there is money in your bank to buy that vegetable. So, you have to carry the whole spectrum with you. So, in the end it's hard work.

Questioner: I would think it's easier, right? I get to budget; I get to spend the money. I don't find that there are no vegetables because someone bought a new bed sheet, isn't it? I am in control, I am in charge of my destiny, right?

Acharya Prashant: That's what. To be in control, is to bear responsibility, is to enjoy all the great things that life gives you, and also bear punishment in equal measure when you fail your responsibility. People don't want to be in that position. They say, “We don't want to bear the punishment. And if the cost of avoidance of punishment is avoidance of Joy, we are prepared to give up on Joy.” That's the deal people make.

Questioner: Yes.

Questioner: That's true, because I know I have gone to bed without food, there wasn't food in the house.

Acharya Prashant: So, you have to then, you know, accept that deal. You say, “It's all right to go to bed without food, but it's not all right to go to bed with someone you can't bear to look at.”

Questioner: But with a filled stomach.

Acharya Prashant: But with a filled stomach. Yeah, the stomach is full of food and the mind is full of hate. And you are okay with the deal. You need to be someone who says, “No, I am not okay with this deal.”

Questioner: That's a bad trade.

Questioner: It’s like lifting weights. So, if you have the muscles for it, you cherish it. And if you don't have it, nobody likes the weights.

Questioner: Also it seems that people are so much fed with, you know, ‘living by that script’, that after a point in time it looks like that this is the purpose of their life. So, even if you ask a fifty-year-old or sixty-year-old in India that what are you living for? Their first direct answer is, “We are living for our kids.”

Acharya Prashant: For our kids. So that's what marriage gives you a fake, a very cheap substitute to the real purpose of life.

Questioner: And basically the family system in whole.

Acharya Prashant: Right. If you are not married, then you have to figure out what life is for? If you are married, you are given a ready-made purpose to live for. And feel good, and responsible, and respectable about it.

Questioner: Yes, yes, exactly.

Questioner: Also, the kid is in some way a hope to the person, to the parents that maybe this life can be something different.

Questioner: Yeah.

Acharya Prashant: The kid actually keeps the two people together.

Questioner: Yeah.

Acharya Prashant: The marriage would collapse if the kid does not come in due time. So, the kid definitely, in most cases has to come by the third or fourth year of marriage, otherwise these two people will have no option but to drift apart.

Questioner: It also happens with couples, with married couples especially that if they do not go for kids in like two-three years, they get a lot of social pressure.

Questioner: Yeah.

Questioner: People start speculating that there is something not right.

Acharya Prashant: Because the ones who are speculating, the ones who are throwing jibes, they are the ones who have already suffered at the hands of this entire system. They have suffered and they are so vile that they cannot see others not suffering. “I had to go through the grind, how can you escape it?”

Questioner: Yeah.

Questioner: Because for them that's how life is.

Questioner: Yeah.

Questioner: Not even that, i's that they just hate the fact that how come the other escaped.

Acharya Prashant: Having chosen bondage, they cannot bear to see somebody living freely.

Questioner: But in their worldview, does that Liberation even for them is possible?

Acharya Prashant: Yes, yes, yes, obviously! Because inwardly they are suffering in their bondage every day, and that makes them very bitter about life. So, they hate people who have not subjugated to bondages. They really hate them.

Questioner: Because I think that they take the last bit of their salvation that, see, everybody is…

Acharya Prashant: Because that's the excuse or justification they offer to themselves, “We were helpless. What we did is something inevitable and universal. There are no exceptions. There can be no exception, so I didn't become an exception.” But when a real exception comes forth…

Questioner: It's just, slap on their face.

Acharya Prashant: It's a slap on their face, and it just calls out their bluff, right? It exposes that they have been lying to themselves all the time. That an alternative was possible, that exceptions can exist, it's just that they never had the guts to be the exception. And that's a slap in the face. It sounds very humiliating.

Questioner: But that would really mean that it will make things even harder for the single ones.

Acharya Prashant: Yes, yes. Because the society will become vengeful.

Questioner: Yes.

Acharya Prashant: Society will become vengeful; yes, that's true.

Questioner: So, it is vengeful right now. I mean you don't really are accepted as a single man in your forties. Nobody looks you…

Questioner: Not even in your friend circle.

Questioner: Yeah, nobody looks at you the right way.

Questioner: Yes.

Questioner: The friends don't…

Questioner: Maybe you need new friends.

Questioner: Yeah, you need new friends.

Questioner: Single friends.

Questioner: Yeah.

Acharya Prashant: That tells, that's a commentary on the quality of friendship. You know, because we had friends like those, therefore now I have a spouse like this. I have been bad at relationships right since my birth, maybe. I was choosing all the wrong kinds of friends. And the result of those continuous bad choices accumulated to give me this spouse now.

Questioner: Most of the times, the kind of people people agree to, is because they want to show to their friends, you know, that she is my better half.

Acharya Prashant: I just cannot relate to this. I just can't even imagine how one can get married just to show off to friends. It is too much for me to, but maybe it's happening.

Questioner: I think all this Bollywood movies about that Big Fat Indian family living together, eating together, sitting together…

Questioner: Having the other in your life being the central thing in the life. Because all movies have been…

Acharya Prashant: Those who are listening to you will say, “It's not just the other who is the central purpose of life. You also have the social responsibility to bear kids and take the human race forward.” They are saying, “If you are not married, what happens to the kid?” A lot of people would be, you know, quite uncomfortable by this time when they will be looking at this recording. They will be saying, “They are talking of everything but the kid. What happens to the kid if people are not married?”

Questioner: Yes, there will be…

Questioner: Then still have kids!

Acharya Prashant: Obviously, then still have kids if you're not married.

Questioner: That's a very ‘uncultured' option.

Acharya Prashant: Uncultured option, and they will say, “Also impractical.” They will say, “Impractical!”

Questioner: Unstable! I think, the stability will be a big point.

Acharya Prashant: Stability of what?

Questioner: Stability of the normal, the social fabric that we have in front of us. Because right now the structure helps protect the child.

Acharya Prashant: Does it protect the child? Or is it producing just the wrong kind of children, with just the wrong kind of upbringing and mentality?

Questioner: When I say, ‘protect the child’, I only mean by the body. There is roof on the head, there is clothes on your body, there is food to intake.

Questioner: There is someone to pay.

Acharya Prashant: How is marriage providing the kid with a roof and food?

Questioner: Because the social fabric tells us that the father takes care of the upbringing of the child in the terms of…

Acharya Prashant: Why can't the mother take care of the child?

Questioner: Or you can do what they do in the U.S. You live apart, but the father provides child support.

Acharya Prashant: The father has to provide child support. Or you can have an even more evolved and enlightened society, where the child is taken care of by the state. Irrespective of who is the father and who is the mother, two things: health care and education, will be taken care of by the state. Now tell me, how do you really require these two fighters coming together to raise the kid?

Questioner: And I guess that's probably very true because in Scandinavian countries, in Norway, in Finland, in Sweden; they have both of these things being funded by the government. And people are actually seeing marriage rates getting low thereby.

Acharya Prashant: Think of this. Think of this, it's such a beautiful thing. What would happen to Nations, if the most fundamental duty of the State were to take care of the kids?

That should have been the most important portfolio, the most important Ministry. The wisest, the most experienced, the most brilliant of ministers would have been assigned to this ministry of raising kids.

The moment the kid is born, the kid is adopted by the State. The kid belongs to the State. And the State is now accountable, you have to take care of the kid's health, and you have to take care of the kid's education right till graduation, post-graduation, whatsoever.

Questioner: But if I actually look at this thing on the ground, what we have seen is, for example, Indian government has given a lot of ‘Right to education’, ‘midday meals', and all of these things. Now these things, they are trying to provide all of these things for last seventy-five years, on the ground level in the entire nooks and corners of the country. But we see that it's still not working.

Even when it is not taking a lot of responsibility, it is just taking care of the primary education and the midday meals. They are not able to do it even then.

Acharya Prashant: Then the reason for that is the same kind of people who get into a wedlock, are also the kind of people who get into the Parliament and in the Ministries and become the Presidents and the Prime ministers. Just the same pool of people, right? So, just as they are shabby as spouses, they are equally shabby and inefficient and incompetent as ministers. That's what. There's no great secret to that.

But won't it be a great world in which the child is not left to the whims and the caprices of the parents? The child becomes the State's responsibility, and the best minds of the country are devoted to the upkeep of the child, upbringing the child, keeping the child healthy. Of course, detractors would still say, “But what about the emotional warmth that the kid gets from the father?” Well, if the father is worth giving the emotional warmth, the father would give it.

And if the father is a scoundrel, a recluse who is running away after impregnating the mother, then anyway what kind of emotional warmth would he give? Think of a man and a woman. The man is of such a poor quality within, that had he not been married he would have run away and never shown his face again; but he stays put with the woman only because he's married.

Now even if he is with the woman, even if he has not run away, still he is the same person of the same poor quality. But now he has not run away, so he says, “I am raising the kid.” What is the quality of care, and education, and upbringing that he will be providing to the kid? So, no point having such fathers. Far better than having such fathers, is having State as the father.

Think of it. Most crimes towards kids are happening within the family, right? The family is the place where the maximum murders take place. If you take murder cases, it would be shocking to most people, but especially women, seventy percent of murders of women are by their own family members or lovers, whatever. It's all happening within the household.

Questioner: But this also brings us to the question that discretion to give birth to a kid is with two individuals. If they decide to give birth, they are doing it. But the prerogative of raising that kid is with the State. Now, is this not a very disconnected situation?

Acharya Prashant: No, it is not. Because the two who are giving birth to the kid, they themselves have been raised by the State. So, it's not as if they have suddenly come and thrown the kid at the State and said, “We have produced the kid, now you take care of it.”

If the two are behaving irresponsibly, the father and the mother, the state has to answer. “Why did you raise them in such a way that they are still behaving irresponsibly? And irresponsibly they have produced this kid.”

Questioner: The value system would be very evolved of that…

Acharya Prashant: Of course, of course.

Questioner: I mean, just to think about it. You are giving driving licenses to prove that you are fit enough to drive a vehicle. But you don't have any kind of proof that you are fit enough to be a father, which is a far more responsible situation.

I mean you just cannot say that because of your whims, and fancies, and your tendencies, you brought somebody…

Acharya Prashant: The most important function in this entire world is being left to blind biological forces. For everything else, we have intelligence, and discretion, and technology, and what not? And regulations, everything, right? For everything else, every little thing is regulated. What is not regulated is childbirth. Any damn fool can come and father a kid, or mother a kid, whatever.

Questioner: Human rights.

Acharya Prashant: And then you wonder why the world is going to the dogs.

Questioner: Yeah.

Questioner: Basically this is the most primitive method that the man invented for his own survival. And we have kept it totally…

Acharya Prashant: Unchanged, totally unchanged. Totally unchanged. It's the most tribal thing that's existing since so long, that's coming from our animalistic roots.

Questioner: Yes.

Acharya Prashant: And we have kept this institution intact thinking that it is sacred, and it brooks no change.

Questioner: A superstition so old that we think it is essential to us.

Acharya Prashant: Yes. A superstition so old that we think of it as a truth, as something sacred, inviolable, unchangeable.

Questioner: Because if we just look at it, I was born into a family, so I always saw that there is a lady who is dependent on a man. Then as we grow up, we have to go to all these family functions, this and that. Basically, wherever you go, you are fed with some kind of information which tells that this is how you are supposed to live life. A very deep-rooted superstition!

Questioner: This whole thing, deal, is a little more scarier than we think. If the responsibility and the marriage, the sacredness of the institution of marriage is taken away, then people won't value marriage. They won't associate the words like ‘Love’ to marriage, and everybody wants love, so they would have to ask themselves then, “Boss, what is Love?” And that is a very scary situation.

Questioner: But I have seen that people are very much open nowadays, that they say that marriage is a social contract. A lot of people even have…what do they call that?

Questioner: Prenups.

Questioner: Prenups. So, before marriage they have a list of demands. The bride has a list of demands, the groom has a list of demands, and they sign to those documents.

Acharya Prashant: I find that relatively honest. At least you are acknowledging that it is just a contract. And if it is a contract, then it is man-made. And if it is man-made, it can be man unmade.

Questioner: Yes.

Acharya Prashant: So that has to be acknowledged that there is hardly any sacredness to this thing. The only thing that is sacred is human consciousness. The only thing that is really sacred is the urge of consciousness for Liberation. Nothing else can be sacred.

We are not born to remain tied to another human being of whatever gender. Liberation basically means ‘getting liberated even of yourself’. The ‘I’ is the final thing that you have to be liberated of. So, liberation basically means that you cannot continue to be with even yourself. Then how can you continue to be with somebody else?

Questioner: But somewhere we have been told that you know, all the primitive desires that one has and all the emotionality that one lives with, that is very sacred. So, somehow you have a soft corner for all of these things.

Acharya Prashant: The primitive desires and the basic animalistic tendencies, they are not sacred. No, no, they are not.

Questioner: People say that that's so natural, you know. Acharya Prashant: The ‘natural’ is not sacred. Natural is simply prakṛtik . ‘Natural’ is simply animalistic. So, defending something by saying, “Oh, but it is natural,” that is very foolhardy. That is as good as saying, “I am an animal, therefore it is all right.” The ‘natural’ is the animal. And people defend all kinds of things by saying, “Oh, but it is natural…but it is natural…but it is natural…” Only the jungle is natural, go to the jungle then. If you value natural stuff so much, why are you wearing clothes? Why are you using gadgets? Why are you using languages? Why are you even thinking? Thought is not natural. But people don't understand that. When it comes to defending all their nonsense, they start saying, “Oh, but it is natural. Envy is natural. Greed is natural. Violence is natural. Killing animals for food is natural because it is happening in the jungle.” The ‘natural’ is not sacred. We exist to transcend the natural, that's the purpose of human life. So, something being natural cannot be quoted as a defense or justification. No! Questioner: But then they say, you know, that these small joys and small things of life, these are the spice of life, and one should cherish them, and this and that.

Acharya Prashant: Yeah, like the couple that were… It's alright if you cherish that, kindly don't make me…

Questioner: cherish it!

(everyone laughs)

Questioner: “We fought well!” “Yeah, they fought well!”

Questioner: But can anyone really cherish that? Or is that what you say to avoid conceding defeat?

Acharya Prashant: That’s what.

Questioner: “I would have missed the shot, but my glasses slipped, couldn't see.”

Questioner: But it was worth the attempt.”

Questioner: Yeah.

Acharya Prashant: Such a poor veil.

Questioner: “Yeah, if my glasses were there, of course I would hit it straight on you.”

Questioner: You know, this makes you humble. If you go out and accept that, “Oh! I did a mistake. And I did a hefty mistake, a fifty lakh one!”

Questioner: Yeah.

Acharya Prashant: See as this species, as humans, we need to figure out healthy ways of coexisting. We need to figure out healthy ways of living with each other; whether it is man and man, or man and woman, or woman and woman, or man and animal, or man and trees. We need to see how to lovingly be with the other, how to beautifully be with the other without dragging the other down, without letting the other become a cage for me. That's what we need to figure out.

We are not talking keeping the institution of marriage at the center. We started off by discussing, ‘why do couples fight?’ So, our problem is violence, that's what we are addressing. We want to figure out why can't we live in love? Why can't we understand what love really is? Why must harmony and Joy be so unavailable to us? Why must we constantly be at each other's throat?

Questioner: I think a lot of people are not even wanting that sort of life. They are here to just pass their time off. They are happy, just whiling away their time. You know, because every time…

Acharya Prashant: Don't think they are happy.

Questioner: I wouldn't say ‘happy’, it's just lovelessness for oneself. They're like kat raha hai na samay .

Questioner: Maybe they haven’t been told what the options are, right? So, they've just been told, “There's this one option, which is, you stick with someone else, and you should get some happiness out of it.” They haven't been told that there's a potential elsewhere.

Questioner: See, what I think is that if somebody is genuinely troubled, then the trouble itself makes you move in a different direction, makes you at least explore. You won't wait for somebody to tell you. But what I have seen is, people are genuinely not really troubled and not really happy. It's sort of in the middle…

Acharya Prashant: Passable.

Questioner: Passable. If I go to a couple and I ask them, you know, “So genuinely tell me, how is your husband?”

“Not too good but not too bad either. He has some minus points, he beats me and this; but he gets me jewelry.”

Questioner: We should do this.

Questioner: A small survey.

Questioner: Yeah, consumer research.

Questioner: Yeah. And similarly with the woman. They are like, “Yeah, sometimes she is just over my thought over not putting the toilet seat down. But then at night it's fine.” So, both have their reasons to be there and not to be there. So, it's sort of this lull that they get used to.

Questioner: This entire discussion on relationships reminded me of a quotation by J. Krishnamurti. He used to say a lot that, you know, “You know yourself, when you relate to the other.” So, he kept a relationship with anything, maybe an object or maybe…

Acharya Prashant: There is a difference between relating to the other, and sealing of the relationship in such a way that there is no possibility any more of relating to the other. Are you getting it?

To relate to the other is to be actively and consciously ‘know’. It has to be a live process, when you relate to the other. When you turn the thing into a relationship, you have frozen the thing off. Now there is nothing new, alive, or warm in it. Uncertainty is gone. Possibilities are gone. Whatsoever there is, is simply frozen and settled, and concluded, and final. “I am the husband; she is the wife.” Now tell me what newness is left in the whole thing?

So, of course JK was very right when he said, “You discover yourself in relationship.” But for relationship to exist, there must be two conscious entities relating to each other in their freedom. If there is no freedom in the relationship, is it a relationship at all? Or is it just bondage? There is no relationship left.

Questioner: That's what they call it in Hindi, Bandhan .

Acharya Prashant: Bandhan!

Questioner: This also takes me to Kahlil Gibran. There is a passage in ‘The Prophet’ regarding marriage. So, he says that a couple is like two pillars of a building, to stand apart they should have a distance in between them.

Acharya Prashant: In fact it's very, very important to not to stick to the other. If you want to get married, go ahead and get married. But don't stick to the spouse. Don't stick to anything.

Questioner: Yeah, personal space has some value.

Questioner: I mean, it sounds so illogical to assume that one person is going to be the smartest, the fittest, the most intellectually curious, the one who brings you the best of what the world has to offer. It just doesn't make any sense.

Questioner: Cannot happen, it just cannot happen. There is a lot of expectation from a person.

Acharya Prashant: See, there is the entire world. How can you give so much importance to one person? Full stop. The entire world is there, how are you randomly assigning so much importance to one random person, right?

Questioner: Person who gets the authority to ask you questions.

Acharya Prashant: I am not talking nonsense. I mean, most murders happen this way. It's not armies that are assaulting each other.

Questioner: Yeah.

Acharya Prashant: If we can be comfortable with ourselves, it's alright I suppose to be in a relationship. You want to give it a social tag, fine. If that's what makes it more convenient to you, call it a marriage, fine. But to make the other person your psychological center, to make the other person your life, to make the other person the very purpose of your life is simply an insult to your existence, and a threat to his existence.

Questioner: A great takeaway from the entire discussion I think, would be this—that a person cannot be the center of your life.

Acharya Prashant: Full stop. No person can be the center of your life. Get rid of that romantic notion.

Anything? Want to add or?

Questioner: And finding ‘the right one’ is not the purpose of your life.

Acharya Prashant: There is nobody called ‘the right one’ or ‘the final thing’. All that is…

Questioner: That's marketing; that's a good marketing!

Questioner: Yeah, yeah.

Acharya Prashant: Marketing, childish nonsense.

Questioner: Good for economics! Keep finding the right one, give the right gifts.

Questioner: You would think people would realize that if I was bad at finding the right one once, twice, thrice, four times; how many girlfriends or boyfriends do you go through before you find the one, right? If I was bad in all those tried instances, why is this one gonna be different?

Questioner: Depends on a lot of things in India, but yeah.

Acharya Prashant: Basic arithmetic. There would be what, in a population of four hundred crore males and an equal number of females, let's say, there would be at least fifty crore individuals of your own age group. To find the right one, if you spend even five minutes with each of them, you are finished!

Questioner: Yeah.

Questioner: By the time you choose, it's the grave!

Acharya Prashant: So basically, you are never finding the right one; you are just finding some random convenient, or inconvenient person to be with. And then you start saying, “The person is my life,” which is all just fully nonsense.

Questioner: Yeah.

Acharya Prashant: Respect life. Respect the other. Respect yourself. Relate to the other, but in freedom.

Questioner: And ‘Zero’gamy is not that bad.

Acharya Prashant: Yeah, ‘Zero’gamy is not all that bad. Be free, help the other be free.

Questioner: In fact, after you are single, the way you look at a woman also changes. When you want to be into the ‘Gamy’ business, the way you are looking at the opposite sex is very different than when you are not really looking for the ‘Gamy’ business. I have seen that change, at least in my approach towards women.

Questioner: When you are in the ‘Gamy’ business, you strategize, and you attack; you don’t relate.

Questioner: Yeah, yeah. You are trying to, you know, acquisition is happening. You are always looking at the other and rejecting the other.

Acharya Prashant: Every single woman is somebody to be considered as an option, a target.

Questioner: Exactly.

Acharya Prashant: But when you have opted out of that nonsense, then you can relate to women even if they are attractive glamorous women of your own age, and all that; you can still look at them as individuals and have a healthy relationship.

Questioner: It sounds like to really relate, you have to be single. So perceived as entirely wrong.

Acharya Prashant: Right. Only single people are free to relate. Those in relationships cannot relate.

Questioner: You can just, you know, without thinking whether the other one will accept you, or reject you, or do anything; you have no such stakes at hand. You can, you know, either you end up having a very good time or it's not; either way doesn't leave an impression.

Acharya Prashant: Because you are not obliged to carry it over.

Questioner: Yes. But if you have somebody that you have stakes in, every new happening becomes a bearing upon your mind. So, you know, you are actually putting a lot of violence when you are governed by others' whims and fancies. Tomorrow, she says, “I have an off day,” means your day is also off now.

Questioner: But I also want to assess this part as well that we very well said that a person cannot be center of your life. But then what should be the center of my life?

Acharya Prashant: You are the center of your life. You are not born with a wife or a husband. You were born to cry alone, to live alone. And in this journey of aloneness, obviously you can have co-passengers. Be friends with them, have great relationships, be loving, be compassionate. But after all the love, all the compassion, all the friendliness, the fact of your solitude remains; you better acknowledge and honor it.

Questioner: Yes, yes.

Acharya Prashant: Full stop. You will die alone.

Questioner: Talking about dying alone. I think, one of the reasons I have heard of people when they find out that I am single will say, “Well, what happens when you are sick or what happens when you are old?”

Acharya Prashant: I go to a hospital when I am sick. The home is not the place for me, I go to hospital.

Questioner: With all their crying and chest-beating, that doesn't heal…

Acharya Prashant: Have medical insurance. Have medical insurance and…

Questioner: You know, that’s true. Logically, I would have decades of more happiness and more joy before I met that supposed ‘unhappy ending’.

Acharya Prashant: Right.

Questioner: That’s a very good point.

Acharya Prashant: Yeah. I am prepared to face inconvenience in the last three months or three years of my life, if I have really have had a great fifty or seventy years. Fine, last three years I am prepared to face all the nonsense.

Questioner: But still I think for the common folk, maybe who are watching the video or maybe thinking over this; our minds need to have a lot of cleansing. Because for decades that we have lived on this planet all of our our lives, we have been fed so much…

For example, a very small thought experiment: if we think of a single man sitting on a beach looking at the sunset, that's one image, and a couple sitting on the beach looking at a sunset. Most of the people will find one gloomy and one very romantic.

Questioner: Yeah.

Questioner: And that has become very much ingrained.

Questioner: What we need is daring. To dare to be single. It's not even something that I think is needing for, it is out there, it's a fact. You go through a lot of pain in a relationship. Just that courage to say that, well…

Questioner: Once Acharya ji said very rightly that bachelorhood is something you earn.

Questioner: It is, it is right.

Acharya Prashant: Oh, I am still thinking of those three people on the beach—one sitting all by himself and the couple. And I am thinking, how two of them are envious of the third one. Figure out which two?

(everyone laughs)

Questioner: Another thing I have noticed about couples that annoys me is that they just keep on… So, if I am by myself on the beach looking at the sunset. This couple will suddenly come, and they will keep talking about the most mundane thing, when there's something so beautiful and majestic in front of them. It happens in trains, it happens in…

Acharya Prashant: How can you enjoy the Sun, when your world is supposed to be the person next to you, right? So, you then obviously have to close your eyes to all the beauty that life and existence have to offer.

Questioner: You become insensitive. You are like, “Just another Sun. I need to change diapers.”

Questioner: Yeah.

Acharya Prashant: Alright, let's check out the beach and count the number of singles. And see how they feel. (laughs)

Questioner: Yeah, a lot of people here are in their honeymoon phase. They all be doing the poems of love.

Acharya Prashant: Alright.

show_less