The slavery of marriage

Question 1:

Anil Bharti, the question that you have asked is really complex. A married man certainly can be a rebel, in fact he has all the reasons to be a rebel. An unmarried man may not even think of rebellion, he may be thinking of getting married; but the married man cannot think of anything else except rebellion, although he only thinks of it.

The burden of marriage is too much on him: the burden of children, of parents, social responsibility, honor, and prestige - he has too much to risk. Hence he can think very easily about rebellion, but to take an actual step will need great courage. Marriage in fact is a precaution taken by the society so that nobody becomes a rebel, so that nobody becomes an individual.

Marriage is, in its naked reality, a strategy by the society to keep everybody under control. And it is such a subtle way that nobody thinks - at least in the beginning - that it is going to be an imprisonment, a lifelong slavery. But marriage has been used by all the societies in the world, in all the ages past, as a psychological imprisonment; putting so much burden and responsibility on every individual that he has to kneel down, and in Zarathustra's words, has to become a camel, a beast of burden.

Camels don't rebel. On the contrary, the more burden a camel can carry the more precious he becomes. The same is the situation of the married man: the more burden he carries, of the old parents, of the small children, of the wife, the more respectable, the more honored he becomes in the society. These are the ways, invisible chains, that will prevent a man from becoming a rebel.

But this is only one side. The other side is, if the man has some courage, some intelligence, the very burden, the very imprisonment will become the cause of rebellion. It is just a question of shifting your focus.

In all the religions, there is a way acceptable to the society: that is of renouncing life and escaping into a monastery or into the mountains... it is an escape, and every escape is cowardly. But the escape is acceptable - not only acceptable but very prestigious. In the name of religion, in the name of searching for truth, the society allows the individual to escape and drop all responsibilities. This is a kind of rebelliousness, but the rebelliousness of the coward.

The married man has been doing it for centuries. It is part and parcel of the old civilization. It is just a small outlet. All doors should not be closed, otherwise the situation can be too suffocating, and there is a limit to tolerating suffocation. If too many people become antagonistic to the situation it would bring a revolution, a rebellion. Hence every society gives an honorable escape. And nobody has ever counted how many people have suffered from this honorable strategy.

Thousands of Christian monks, thousands of Buddhist monks, thousands of Jaina monks, thousands of Hindu monks - their total number is in the millions all around the world - have become dropouts, but in a socially acceptable way - religiously, in the name of Jesus Christ, in the name of Gautam Buddha. Because of these millions of monks, sadhus and saints, millions of parents have suffered in their old age, have become beggars; millions of children have become orphans, have become beggars, have become criminals; millions of women have become prostitutes. And the whole responsibility goes to the religions because they honored the escapists.

Just to keep the society under control, they had to give a little outlet so the suffocation does not become too much. And they had to make this escapism prestigious, so nobody condemns it but on the contrary these cowards are being worshipped as great saints, sages. All that they had was a certain rebelliousness in their minds, but they were without guts. And just rebelliousness in the mind is of no use, unless you can act accordingly, unless you can risk, unless you can take the danger.

The married man or unmarried man, the problem is the same: Are you ready to go against the whole past? Are you ready to go against the whole world? Do you have the courage to stand alone? Will you not start feeling dizzy, seeing that the whole world is against you? Will you not start thinking that "Perhaps they are right because they are so many and I am alone? Most probably I am not right."

And the moment you start feeling this you will start losing courage. You will start moving towards the prison again.

The greatest courageous life in the world needs to have the guts to stand alone without ever bothering about the majority of the world and what their opinion is. But this is possible only when your rebellious idea is not borrowed, is not only a thought in the mind but a realization, a deep insight of your own into things.

If your authority is somewhere else, you cannot have that much courage. If your authority is within you, if you feel that what you are fighting for is your experienced truth - and that it is not to destroy the world, but to create a better world, a better humanity, better people, better individuals, better opportunities for growth for all - then you are the majority of one, and the whole world is the minority of five billion people. Then it does not matter how many people are against you. If the truth is yours, then nothing matters; no wavering ever comes to you, not even in your dreams.

And when I am saying this to you, I am saying this out of my own experience. Not for a single moment have I been visited by the thought that "Perhaps I am alone, the whole world is against me; and the whole past, millions and millions of people - if they were alive, they would also be against me."

My being alone has never created a single doubt in me, because I am not fighting for anybody else's truth; I am fighting for my own experienced truth. I feel it in every beat of my heart, that even if the whole universe is against me, then too I will remain unwavering, undisturbed - for the simple reason that truth is with me. They may be a vast crowd, but truth is not with them, and truth is real power.

Truth is the seed of final victory, however long it may take. But truth is going to win.

The Upanishads have a tremendously beautiful statement, satyame jayate - "Truth is always victorious." It is possible it may take a long time, you may not be able to see the victory in your own life... perhaps your children, or children's children; but one day, truth is going to win. Lies can win small battles here and there, but the final victory is going to be of the truth.

This conviction is not a belief. If it is a belief you will start doubting when you encounter condemnation from every side, from everywhere. This truth has to be a conviction of your own being. Then it does not matter - even if God stands before you and is against you, it will not make any change, because truth is higher than any hypothesis of God.

There is no religion higher than truth, and there is no power higher than truth; but it has to be your own. Its authority should be derived from your own experience. Then married or unmarried does not make any difference. The married man may have a bit more difficulty. When you are facing the whole world, does it matter that in that whole world your wife also joins against you? When you are fighting against the whole past, does it matter that your own parents also join in opposing you?

When you are fighting for the future, a better and more human one, it is worth risking everything.

Perhaps you will have to risk your own life, but it will be a joy, it will be a blissful experience; because you are dying for life to become more beautiful, for love to become more free, for man's soul to come out of all prison cells.

It will be just like a prayer for you, a gratefulness to existence. Existence has given so much to you, you can do at least this much, you can fight for a better world.

Anil Bharti, perhaps you are a married man; and naturally, you will be more afraid of your wife than you would be afraid of the whole world and the whole past. Who cares about all the graveyards of the world? What can that long history of dead people do to you? But that small woman, she will create trouble. If you are truly in love, not just married, then you can help her to understand. You can help her to raise her consciousness to the same experience, you can bring her to the same conclusions. And she can be a great support to you.

It is not absolutely necessary that she should go against you. It all depends on you. If your love has any value, she will be standing by your side - more closely, more intimately. When the whole world goes against you, when you are in trouble, when you are in a dark night, when you are in difficulties, you will find her a tremendous source of strength, a help that cannot come from anywhere else.

So don't take it for granted that your woman will create trouble for you. This is a suspicion about your own love; you don't trust your love. If you trust your love, you will also trust the alchemy of your love - that the woman can be changed, transformed, and you can be rebellious together.

And a middle-class life, a comfortable life, is not much of a life; but a life of rebellion is a life of adventure every moment. And once you have tasted the joys of adventure, and the unknown opening up every moment, unpredictable, your life becomes a constant thrill and a dance.

For my people, I will suggest that you need not renounce your wife or your husband to be rebellious.

You have to hold each other's hands more tightly, because the fight is going to be tough; and you will need someone who loves and understands you to support, to encourage. The same woman you think can create hindrances, can also create stepping-stones.

It all depends on the purity and meditativeness of your love, on the uplifting force of your love. If you love totally and intensely, the person you love will be the first to be converted to your truth.

I am reminded of Mohammed. He was an uneducated man, he was a shepherd. But he was very sincere and very honest, very truthful and very kind. One very rich woman, who was a widow, and who was far older than Mohammed...

Mohammed was only twenty-six, and he was so poor that he could not manage to get married - it was difficult for him even to survive. To take a burden of a woman, and then children, was inconceivable for him. But this widow was very rich; she was forty years old and he was twenty-six.

She fell in love with Mohammed.

He used to take care of her sheep and other animals; he used to take them to the mountains. His sincerity and his truthfulness was the cause of her falling in love with the man; otherwise the man had nothing. And the woman was very rich, she could have married any rich man, any prince.

Mohammed was surprised when she proposed, he could not believe it. He said, "But I don't have anything - for what reason are you marrying me?"

She said, "You have everything, because you have a sincerity, a truthfulness, a deep honesty. You can be trusted. And these are the qualities I have fallen in love with."

The first experience of Mohammed... he himself could not believe that he had experienced the ultimate peak of consciousness. Because he was a poor man, and he had never even thought himself worthy... that existence would be so kind to his poor self! He became so afraid, seeing the light, that he came back home. He had a high fever, the experience had been such a shock.

Although it had happened, he could not believe it; it had shaken him to the very roots, he was a transformed man.

The first person to recognize that something great had happened was his wife; because there was a light all around him, and there was a different vibe that had never been there before. But he was trembling with fever, so she took him inside the house, dropped over him all the blankets that she had, and still he was trembling.

She said, "What is the matter? Why you are so much afraid? What have you seen?"

He said, "Don't tell anybody, perhaps it is what people call God. I am not worthy of it, but what I have seen has shaken me from the very roots. I am a totally different man. I don't see myself continuous with my past; suddenly a new man, a rebirth."

It was his wife who became the first Mohammedan. She touched his feet, and she said, "You don't be worried. You don't understand because you are not educated. You are so innocent that you are not aware of your worth, of your sincerity, of your truthfulness, of your honesty. God has chosen you for the same reason that I have chosen you. And initiate me to be your first disciple. Don't say no just because I am rich and old, and I am your wife - and before that I had been your master, your boss. Don't say no, just accept me. And many more will be coming, but don't let me miss the chance to be the first Mohammedan. Love has its own ways, truth has its own ways, sincerity has its own ways."

She was his first convert, although he himself was not yet certain what had happened; it was too much for him, too overwhelming, beyond his capacities of understanding. But that woman was well-educated, well-cultured, and she spread the message of Mohammed in the beginning days of Islam.

And when people saw that she had become a convert... it was a rare thing that a woman became a convert by her own husband. First, it was a shock to the people that an educated, a super-rich woman, had fallen in love with one of her servants - uneducated, almost a beggar. And now, a second surprise: that she had become a convert to the servant.

It all depends on you. In life never throw responsibilities on others. If you are sincere and your rebelliousness has your heartbeat in it, then nobody can prevent you; particularly those who are close to you will be the first to join hands with you.

But, Anil Bharti, love is needed - and not ordinary love, but the love that I talk about.

A wild and daring pilot was selling rides in his open cockpit biplane. A Scotsman asked him if he would give him and his wife a ride for the price of one. The pilot agreed to do so on one condition:

"I will take you both up for the price of one, if you promise not to utter a sound. One peep, and I will double the price," the pilot said.

They climbed aboard, and the plane took off. The pilot executed some death-defying stunts, but the Scotsman and his wife remained totally silent. Finally the pilot gave up and landed the plane. "I don't believe it," the pilot called back as he taxied the plane to a halt. "You are a very brave man."

"Thank you," the Scot replied, "but I can't deny there was a time when you almost had me."

"When was that?" asked the pilot.

"When my wife fell out," replied the Scotsman.

If your love is like that - that the wife is less valuable than double tickets - that is a different matter.

But if your love is a deep spiritual intimacy, a friendship that knows only to give and never asks for anything in return, a spirit that simply enjoys seeing the loved person being happy... When the happiness of your wife is your happiness, when her pain is your pain, when you start functioning almost as one soul between two bodies, then only can you think of calling it love.

Question 2:

Sadhan, the ordinary connotation of rebellion will be easier with "no" than with "yes"; will be easier with disobedience than with obedience, will be easier with doubt than with trust. But that is the ordinary connotation of the word.

The rebellion I am talking about is certainly a "no" to the past - to all that is superstitious, to all that has harmed humanity, to all that has hindered the growth of human consciousness, to all that has made the world a hell. But this is not the basic part of rebellion.

The fundamental part of the rebellion is, "yes." Yes to a new man, yes to a new woman, yes to a new kind of love relationship, yes to a new world without families, without nations, without religions. Yes to a whole humanity as one family. Yes to a world of peace, love, joy - which to me are the basic components of religiousness. Yes to a world full of songs and music and dance and creativity.

The no part is very small. The no part is just like demolishing an old building which is dangerous to live in, which can fall at any moment, which is not going to remain for long and it is better to demolish it, otherwise it will kill people. The no part is just the way the sculptor works on the stone, cutting pieces away from the rock - that is the no part.

But the yes part is the creation of a beautiful Gautam Buddha, or a Jesus Christ. Every creation needs, as a preparation, some destruction - some destruction of the wild weeds to create a garden of roses. That much no is absolutely essential. But it is in the service of yes.

You say, "One of the most beautiful and relaxing spaces I know is the one of 'yes'." But you should not forget that a yes cannot exist without a no preparing the way for it. This is the dialectics of life:

to create something, something else has to be destroyed. You cannot create something without destroying something else.

I have heard about an old church: it was so ancient that people had stopped going in, because even a strong wind and the church would start swaying. It was so fragile, any moment it could fall. Even the priest had started giving his sermons outside the church, far away in the open ground.

Finally, the board of trustees had a meeting; something had to be done. But the trouble was that the church was very ancient - it was the glory of the town. Their town was famous far and wide because of the old church; perhaps it was the oldest church in the world. It was not possible to demolish it and to make a new one. But it was also dangerous to let it remain as it was - it was going to kill a few people. And nobody had been going in for years - even the priest was not courageous enough to go in, because who knew at what moment the church would simply collapse? So something had to be done.

And the board was in a very great dilemma: something had to be done, and nothing should be done, because that church is so ancient. And with things that are ancient, man has been in such deep attachment. So they passed a resolution with four clauses in it. First was that "We will make a new church, but it will be exactly the same as the old. It will be made of the same material the old is made of - nothing new will be used in it, so it remains ancient. It will be made in the same place where the old church stands, because that place has become holy by its ancientness."

And the last thing in their resolution was, "We will not demolish the old church until the new is ready."

They were all happy that they had come to a conclusion. But who was going to ask those idiots, "How are you going to do it?" The old should not be demolished till the new was ready. And the new had to be made of everything the old was made of, in the same place where the old was standing, with exactly the same architecture the old had. Nothing new could be added to it: the same doors, the same windows, the same glass, the same bricks - everything that needed to be used had to be of the old church.

And finally, they decided that the old should not be touched till the new was ready. "When the new is ready, then we can demolish the old."

Such is the human mind: it clings to the old, it also wants the new, and then it tries to find some compromise - that at least the new should be like the old. But a few things are impossible, nature just won't allow them.

Sadhan, first you have to say "no." And you have to learn to say "no" with a loving heart, because you are saying it in the service of yes; it is not negative at all. Just because it is no, does not mean it has to be negative. In language it is negative. But in reality, if it is in the service of yes, it is a servant of yes, how can it be negative? That which serves the positive - prepares the ground for the positive, prepares the way for the positive to come in - cannot be negative.

My rebel has a heart full of yes, but his yes is not impotent. His yes is capable of saying a thousand nos in the service of yes. He will destroy everything that prevents the new from being born. He will destroy all old ties, all old chains, all old jails - psychological, spiritual - in the service of freedom, in the service of love, in the service of truth. Then the no goes through a transformation, it becomes part of a bigger yes. And a yes that has not any part which is capable of destroying... that yes remains impotent because it cannot create. There is no creation possible without destruction.

So remember one thing: destruction should not, in itself, be the goal. Then it is ugly, then it is simply no, then it is only negative. Then it is against life and against existence. Every destruction should be in the service of some creativity. Then it is not negative. Then it is not in the service of death, it is in the service of life. It is life-affirmative. And to transform no into yes is the whole art of the meditative rebel.

The ordinary rebel starts enjoying destruction and he forgets completely what he is destroying for; destruction becomes a goal unto itself. Disobedience becomes his ego, his stubbornness, his adamant attitude towards life. I don't want political rebels; I want spiritual rebels whose concern is not with destruction at all. They will not destroy even a small thing unless it is absolutely needed for the new creation, for the new world.

Paddy put five dollars into the collection plate at his church. "What," Paddy asked the priest, "happens to all this money?"

"It goes to the Lord," answered the priest.

"Oh, well," said Paddy, removing his five dollars from the plate, "I am seventy-five years old. I am bound to see the Lord before a young man like you, and I can give it to him personally."

That seems to be an absolutely positive attitude: what is the point of giving five dollars to a young priest when you are going to meet the Lord before him? Withdraw your five dollars! It is better to give it to him personally rather than through a mediator who is going to take his commission. And who knows whether it ever reaches to the Lord or not? - there is no guarantee.

You have to remember not to be serious about anything but to remain playful, non-serious; because the more playful and non-serious you are, the more clear is your understanding.

A serious man stops understanding, he has already taken a certain attitude, fixed, unchanging; he has become prejudiced.

Your yes should not be a prejudice, otherwise it will not be my yes. My yes implies no in it. My creativity implies destructivity in it, because without no, the yes becomes impotent. No has certain qualities which yes does not have. Just don't let no become your master and your boss.

Yes remains your highest value, and no becomes a servant - then there is not a problem about no.

No has a beauty of its own. When it is just a shadow of yes it is immensely beautiful. And a person who cannot say "no," his yes has no meaning at all.

So I teach you yes as the ultimate value, the end, and no has to be its means. Then you are using the whole dialectical process of life. Then you are using the opposites for a single purpose. You are transforming their diametric oppositeness into a complementary, organic, unity.

Question 3:

Raso, rebellion itself is the compassion. It is not a reactionary approach towards life. It is out of compassion that a man of understanding becomes a rebel.

You are asking, "What is compassion for a rebellious man?" Rebellion itself is his compassion. It is out of compassion that he has become rebellious, otherwise there was no need for him.

What is the need for me to be a rebel? I could have lived silently in the Himalayas, without unnecessarily being bothered by all kinds of idiots. What am I going to gain by my rebelliousness and by my teachings about rebellion, except condemnation from all quarters, from all over the world?

But there is no need for me to gain anything. What life could give to me it has given - it has given more than one could ask for. It is just out of love, out of compassion, that I will welcome any crucifixion, but I will continue till my last breath to raise people's consciousness, to instill their beings with the dreams of a beautiful future. And I will go on convincing them that the past has been ugly and nightmarish - that if you go on living according to the past, you don't have any more future.

It is not my personal problem. My past is finished. I don't have any future - I am not going to be reborn again. I could have remained completely indifferent to the problems of the world, to the problems of people; they are not my problems. I have struggled and come out of the jungle of all those problems. I am not going to be caught again in the net of a body.

But with this enlightenment, this liberation, comes a tremendous compassion for all those who are struggling for the same aim. I would like that the world becomes more helpful to everybody to become awakened. Right now it is helpful only to keep you as much asleep as possible.

Karl Marx was right when he said that religions have functioned like opium to the people. I may not agree with all his opinions, but about this small statement I agree one hundred percent. All the religions have been narcotics. They are the real drug dealers. They have kept humanity asleep, and they have taken away all the opportunities and possibilities of people becoming enlightened, of people becoming individuals, of people becoming free.

It is out of my love and compassion that I would like to go on sowing the seeds of rebellion in as many hearts as possible. Perhaps existence wants me to be a vehicle to save man from committing suicide; and not only to save man, but at the same time transform him also. Because this kind of man, as has existed in the past, is out of date, he cannot continue - either he has to die or he has to transform.

Rebellion, to me, is the only saving device, and it is out of compassion - for no other reason.

Hymie Goldberg was striding happily along the street on his way to work, when his old friend, Mr.

Cohen, caught up with him.

"You are pretty happy this morning," said Mr. Cohen.

"That's right," smiled Hymie, "I have finally cured my wife of her habit of yelling at me all the time."

"And how did you do that?" asked Mr. Cohen.

"Well," laughed Hymie, "I have convinced her that yelling at me was making a nervous wreck of the dog."

This is the situation of the present man. The wife is willing to stop yelling at poor Hymie Goldberg if she is convinced that her yelling will drive the dog insane. But if her yelling can drive the dog insane, what is it doing to poor Goldberg? That is not a consideration at all.

Man has lost compassion for man. He may be compassionate towards animals, he may be compassionate towards trees. In the Himalayas, there has been a movement going on for almost ten years - a very new concept. The people who live in the Himalayas love the trees and their trees are being cut, brutally, thousands every day. Just ten years ago an uneducated man started a movement, and it spread like wildfire all over the Himalayas. In the Himalayas, it is called "Chipko Andolan." It means, "cling to the tree movement." When people come to cut the tree, you simply cling, hug the tree, and be ready to die with the tree - but don't allow the tree to be cut.

So thousands of people are clinging to the trees, and the government contractors come and they are standing there... what to do? They cannot use their electric saws and cut the people with the trees.

The movement is immensely successful, although the government is jailing, punishing those people who are preventing the trees from being cut. But the moment they are out of jail, they go back again.

It seems they have slowed the process, and it is also possible that they may have succeeded.

These people - who are so compassionate to the trees that they are ready to die for them - murder human beings. With human beings their relationships are of cruelty, barbarousness. And they are primitive people; a few tribes even sacrifice men to their god, and then they eat the flesh of men. It is very strange that they are so compassionate towards the trees - to protect them they are ready to die; they risk imprisonment because they are preventing government work.

But towards man they don't seem to have any compassion, any love. They beat their wives, they beat their children; they don't have any respect for their children, they don't have any respect for their women. In fact Hindu scriptures say that unless you beat your wife once in a while, you will lose control over her. It is absolutely according to religious scriptures, it is not a sin or a crime to beat your wife once in a while - that keeps peace in the house.

It would have been perfectly right if they had said that the wife is also allowed, once in while, to beat the husband; then it would have kept more peace in the house. If peace is the goal, then both should be given the opportunity to create it. And the people who have written such things are thought to be great saints! And if I say anything against them immediately somebody's religious feelings are hurt, immediately the government sends an unbailable arrest warrant. This has been going on my whole life.

Man has lost compassion completely - at least about other men. And I would like my people...

their first duty is towards man, everything else comes next. If you are not loving and compassionate towards man, all your compassion for animals, dogs, is just stupid. One man in Bombay has a trust... and we have been fighting a trust case for years. The government is not willing to accept this institution as a charitable trust, because to them teaching meditation is not charity. Teaching compassion is not charity. Teaching charity is not charity.

So I had told my people to look around and see what kind of charitable trusts are acceptable to the government. They found a trust in Bombay which is tax-exempt, and the man who has that trust is a retired government officer; he collects many donations for stray dogs.

Every day in his beautiful car he goes around the slums of Bombay, where you will find stray dogs - and worse than that, stray human beings. Children with big bellies and shrunken bodies, standing by the side of the dogs just in the hope that they can get something to eat from the dog food. And that man, sitting in his car, is feeding the dogs; and those children are standing by the side waiting, so that if something is left they can eat it.

This is charity. And this man must be pocketing all the donations that are coming to him, because dogs cannot complain. They cannot say whether he comes every day or not, what kind of food is being given to them, whether it is edible or not, how much is being given, to how many dogs it is being given - dogs cannot report. It all depends on the man keeping the register: that he is feeding five hundred dogs, or one thousand dogs, and how much money is being spent per dog.... And he goes on collecting donations, and the government allows him to be a tax-exempt, charitable trust.

This world certainly needs to be completely renewed. All old values have to be said good-bye to, and new values have to be established. This is possible only by a religious rebelliousness, not ordinary rebelliousness. Never before has a concept like religious or spiritual rebelliousness ever existed.

I am giving you a totally new philosophy, absolutely fresh. Political rebels have existed, but spiritual rebelliousness can only come out of compassion and meditation. And unless it comes out of meditation and compassion it is not worth anything. But I hope... in spite of the darkness all around, I still hope that when the darkness is too much, the dawn will be very close.

Okay, Maneesha?

Yes, Beloved Master.