Osho on marriages...
Meditate over it: A fool and his cool are soon parted. That's what marriage is going to be. Only fools think in terms of legality; otherwise, love is enough. And I am not against marriage — I am for love. If love becomes your marriage, good; but don't hope that marriage can bring love. That is not possible. Love can become a marriage.You have to work very consciously to transform your love into a marriage.
Ordinarily, people destroy their love. They do everything to destroy it and then they suffer. And they go on saying, "What went wrong?" They destroy — they do everything to destroy it. There is a tremendous desire and longing for love, but love needs great awareness. Only then can it reach its highest climax — and that highest climax is marriage. It has nothing to do with law. It is a merging of two hearts into totality. It is the functioning of two persons in synchronicity — that is marriage.
But people try love and because they are unconscious...their longing is good, but their love is full of jealousy, full of possessiveness, full of anger, full of nastiness. Soon they destroy it. Hence for centuries they have depended on marriage. Better to start by marriage so that the law can protect you from destroying it. The society, the government, the court, the policeman, the priest, they will all force you to live in the institution of marriage, and you will be just a slave. If marriage is an institution, you are going to be a slave in it. Only slaves want to live in institutions. Marriage is a totally different phenomenon: if it is the climax of love. Then it is good.
I am not against marriage — I am for the real marriage. I am against the false, the pseudo, that exists. But it is an arrangement. It gives you a certain security, safety, occupation. It keeps you engaged. Otherwise, it gives you no enrichment, it gives you no nourishment. So if you want to get married according to me, only then can I give you my blessings. Learn to love, and drop all that goes against love. It is an uphill task. It is the greatest art in existence, to be able to love. One needs such refinement, such inner culture, such meditativeness, so that one can see immediately how one goes on destroying.
If you can avoid being destructive, if you become creative in your relationship; if you support it, nourish it; if you are capable of compassion for the other person, not only passion.... Passion alone is not able to sustain love; compassion is needed. If you are able to be compassionate towards the other; if you are able to accept his limitations, his imperfections; if you are able to accept him the way he is or she is and still love — then one day a marriage happens. That may take years. That may take your whole life.
You can have my blessings, but for a legal marriage you need not have my blessings — and my blessings won't be of any help either. And beware! Before you jump into it, give it a second thought.
A woman walks into a pet shop and sees a bird with a big beak. "What is that strange looking bird?" she asks the proprietor. "That is a gobble bird," he answers. "Why do you call him a gobble bird?" The man says to the bird, "Gobble bird, my chair!" The bird immediately starts pecking away and gobbles up the chair. "I will buy him," the woman says. The owner asks why. "Well," she says, "when my husband comes home he will see the bird and ask, 'What is that?' I will say, 'A gobble bird.' And then he will say, 'Gobble bird, my foot!'"
Just be a little aware before you move! My blessings won't help. Marriage is a trap and your wife sooner or later will find a gobble bird.
Mrs. Moskowitz loved chicken soup. One evening she was spooning it up when three of her husband's friends came in. "Mrs. Moskowitz," the spokesman said, "we are here to tell you that your husband, Izzy, has been killed in an automobile accident." Mrs. Moskowitz continued eating her soup. Again they told her. Still no reaction. "Look," said the puzzled speaker, "we are telling you that your husband is dead!" She went right on with the soup. "Gentlemen," she said between mouthfuls, "soon as I am finished with this chicken soup, you gonna hear some scream!
Marriage is not love; it is something else.
So be a little aware before you are trapped! Marriage is a trap: you will be trapped by the woman and the woman will be trapped by you. It is a mutual trap. And then legally you are allowed to torture each other forever. And particularly in this country, not only for one life but for lives together! Divorce is not even allowed after you are dead. Next life also you will get the same wife, remember!
