Why do you want to get married? || Acharya Prashant (2018)
Questioner (Q): Acharya Ji, Pranaam. Currently there is a lot of pressure on me to get married. I am completely confused about this decision, I am not mentally prepared for it right now. I feel incompleteness in my life, and I want to settle things in my life.
There is a lot of pressure, but I am still holding on. This issue is taking lot of my time and attention. What to do?
Acharya Prashant: Companionship is wonderful. Be with one person, ten persons, with anybody who helps your mind be centered. Being with such a person, or a group of persons is wonderful.
If marriage is another name for beautiful companionship, wonderful. But what matters is not the social institution of marriage, but the fact that you are with someone.
When you are with someone, the presence of that someone will necessarily have an effect on you, and vice-versa.
You must know the effect that the other’s presence have upon you.
If someone’s effect has a becalming effect on your mind, soothing effect on your mind, illuminating effect on your mind, liberating effect on your mind, go ahead and boldly be with that person or persons, as much as you want to.
But be with them only as long as their effect on you is liberating, and be with them only as long as you do not become dependent on them, neither they become dependent on you.
It has to be a mutually healthy relationship, not a relationship in which you enter because of sexuality, or loneliness, or social pressure.
You already have enough troubles, right? You don’t want to invite another trouble into your house, into your bedroom. Do you? But yes, if someone can bring Joy and Truth to you, invite them right into your heart, and then marriage is inconsequential.
With the right person—you marry, wonderful. You don’t marry, wonderful. With the wrong person—you marry, bad luck. You don’t marry, bad luck.
What do you think that only married people have troubles? You might be single, you might be a bachelor, and still you may have very bad company. And then you are equally troubled, as a husband and as a wife is.
It’s not a matter of being in that institution. The question is: What brings you that institution? Look around, see why people marry. Do they marry because it’s an affirmation of their divine love? Is that how it happens? Seriously?
In our country (India), most people marry because that’s the only way to get some good sex, good and assured sex. Otherwise, the fellow would have to spend a lot of money, or a lot of time, or both, and may then still return empty-handed. Isn’t that so?
Now if one marries for such a reason, or many other prevalent reasons –
“I will have someone to look after me when I grow old.”
“Muma needs someone to share her daily chores.”
“Grandpa is very fond of kids.”
“All my friends have married, now I have nobody to watch the movies with. They don’t take me along. I feel like a left-out if I am single.”
“These days they don’t allow me entry into night-clubs and pubs. Stag-entry is expensive.”
If these are your reasons, then look at your mind.
Sort out your mind, and with a sorted mind whatever you do, would be right. There have been liberated ones who have married, and there have been liberated ones who haven’t married.
It doesn’t matter.
What matters is—Liberation.
If you are sorted and liberated, go ahead and do whatever you want to. And if you aren’t sorted and liberated, whatever you do would be wrong. An action that arises from fear will only lead to more fear. An action that arises from conformity and deprivation cannot lead to Freedom.
Q1: Currently my feeling is that I am in the process of sorting my mind. I don’t know whether I am right or not, but the current feeling is that if I take some more time, my mind will get sorted out and things will be clearer to me. That’s the current state of my mind.
AP: People who are recuperating in a hospital can avoid discotheque for a few days.
Q1: Acharya Ji, I want to ask one more question on relationships.
Some people gang-up, and when you identify that it’s a ‘gang’, you clearly avoid it. But sometimes there are one or two people in that gang who respect you, and you too respect them genuinely.
What should be our response to them?
AP: When they are ganging-up, in that moment they are not respectable. ‘Respect’ is not a permanent tag that you give to someone. When they are in a frame of mind that is worthy of respect, respect them. And when they have ganged-up with unworthy ones, with debauched ones, in that moment are they still worthy of respect? No.
So don’t label people as ‘respectable’ or ‘not-respectable’. Look at their actions.
Q2: Acharya Ji, one of my friends pushes my pain-buttons all the time. He is the most irritating person around.
AP: And he is your friend.
(laughter)
Q2: He cares for me.
AP: By pushing your buttons?
Please sort this out.
A fellow who irritates you, and keeps your mind agitated, why is he present in your life as a ‘friend’? How exactly is he taking care of you if his presence leads to an unsettled mind? What are these ‘tags’?
The only definition of a friend is: Someone who brings you back to yourself, to your Serenity, to your Peace. That is the only ‘friendship’ possible. And that is also the definition of ‘Love’. Isn’t it?
