OTHER SIDE OF THE COIN..FOOD FOR THOUGHT...!!!! AN INTERESTING EXCERPT ON MARRIAGE FROM OSHO'S BIOGRAPHY
In my family there must have been fifty to sixty people--all the cousins, uncles, aunts, living together. I have seen the whole mess of it. In fact, those sixty people helped me not to create my own family. That experience was enough. If you are intelligent enough, you learn even from other people's mistakes. If you are not intelligent, then you don't learn even from your own mistakes. So I learned from my father's mistake, my mother's mistake, my uncles', my aunts'. It was a big family, and I saw the whole circus, the misery, the continuous conflict, fights about small things, meaningless. >From my very childhood one thing became decisive in me, that I was not going to create a family of my own. I was surprised that everybody is born in a family.... And why does he still go on creating a family? Seeing the whole scene, he again repeats it. socrat05 When I came back home from the university my parents were concerned about my marriage--naturally. My mother asked me first, because my father was always very cautious about asking me anything, because once I have said anything then there is no way to change it. So first he tried through my mother, that she should find out what he feels about marriage, because once he has said no to me we have to drop the subject completely! So just to feel his mind.... When I was going to sleep my mother came and sat on my bed and asked me, "Now you have finished your education, what do you think about marriage?" I said, "I would like to ask you, because I have never been married before so I don't have any experience. You have been married, you have raised eleven children. You are an experienced person--I seek your advice. Has this life been a life of blessings? Have you not thought many times in your life that if you had not married it would have been better? And I don't ask you to answer right now; I give you fifteen days to think it over." She said, "This is really strange. I was going to give you time to think about it, and you are telling me to think about it!" I said, "Yes, because I don't know. I trust you. If after fifteen days you say that yes, your life has been a life of tremendous joy and ecstasy, of course I will get married. But remember, I am trusting you so much, I am giving my whole life in trust into your hands. And remember also that I know your life--there has never been any ecstasy, any blessing. It was a continuous fight, a struggle--with the father, with the children...." And in India it is a joint family. My family consisted at least of sixty people: my uncles, their wives, their children. "And you have been continuously miserable--that I know. Perhaps inside you may have experienced something that I am not aware of. You think it over for fifteen days. And I leave it to you: if you say "Get married," I will get married. After fifteen days she said, "No. Don't get married." She said, "You tricked me. You trusted me so deeply that I cannot betray you, and I cannot cheat you and cannot lie to you. You are right; many times I have thought what the hell am I doing?--just giving birth to children, raising children. This has been my whole life from early in the morning at four o'clock to late, twelve o'clock in the night. I am continuously working. I have never known a single moment of my own. "These fifteen days," she said, "have been of great turmoil in me. I have never thought about my whole life the way you forced me to think. And I love you, and I take my question back. It was not really my question; your father was trying to find out the answer." I said, "Tell him that he should ask me directly." She told my father, "As far as I am concerned, it is finished. I have told him not to get married." My father said, "My God! You have advised him not to get married?" She said, "Yes, because he trusted me so much, and he asked me to think it over for fifteen days. He was willing, but now I cannot cheat and I cannot live with the guilt my whole life. You do whatever you want to do." Now he was even more afraid--even my mother was gone out of his hands. But somehow the answer had to be found, what I want to do. He asked one of his friends, a Supreme Court advocate, very famous, very logical and rational, and he thought that that man might be the right man to argue with me. And of course that man said, "Don't be worried. I have been arguing my whole life in the Supreme Court. Do you think I cannot convince your boy who has just come from the university? What does he know? What is his experience? I will come tomorrow." The next day was Sunday, the courts were closed. He came to my house, and I told him, "Before you start--because my father has told me you are coming to meet me about my marriage--before you start I would like to make a clear statement that if you convince me, then I am ready to get married, but if you cannot convince me you will have to divorce your wife. You have to stake something. And I trust you, so I don't ask for a judge. I have loved and respected you just as I have loved and respected my father. You have been such bosom friends, I have never thought of you as anything else than my father. So I don't ask for a judge because that will be distrusting you. I trust your abilities and I am ready for the arguments, but this condition should be remembered." He said, "Then just give me a little time, because I have never thought about this alternative. The truth is that I have suffered my whole life because of my marriage, but I have never given a thought to it. And you are proposing that I divorce if I cannot convince you in favor of marriage. Let me think it over. I have children, I have a wife, I have my whole respectability in the society. I cannot divorce so easily." I said, "And you think I don't have anything? All that you have is past and all that I have is future. The past is already dead and finished. I am risking the living, the coming, and you are risking only the gone, the finished. Do you think you are risking more than I am risking?" And he informed me the second day, "I don't want to argue about it at all." I used to go to his house every day, and he would tell his wife, "Just tell him that I am not in the house." Finally the wife said, "Why are you afraid of that boy? Why do you go into the bathroom and lock it from inside? The moment you see him coming, why are you afraid?" He said, "You don't know. The problem is that either he has to get married or I have to get divorced from you. It is a question of life and death. You simply go on telling him that I am not at home!" Before I was going to leave the city and join the university as a lecturer, the last day I went and I told his wife, "I know he has always been in, and you know also why he is not coming to face me. Just tell him that he may be an advocate of long experience in the Supreme Court, but he has lost this case as far as I am concerned. Tell him he should stop bragging that he has never lost a case. He has lost an actual, existential case and even without a judge. He was both. I had given him the chance to be both the client and the judge. He could have cheated me, he could have been insincere to me. But I know that it is very difficult when somebody trusts so deeply in you...." He came out while I was talking to his wife and he said, "Just forgive me. You are right. I have always been in but I was afraid. I was never afraid of anybody but I was afraid of you, because I cannot tell a lie when I look at you, at your eyes, at your trust, your love towards me. I cannot tell a lie, and I cannot divorce my wife. There is so much involvement and there is so much investment--that I cannot do. My suggestion is you talk to your father directly and tell him that there is no other way. He will have to talk directly to you." My father never did that. I asked him many times, "Why don't you ask about my marriage? You have been trying to inquire from other ways; why don't you ask directly?" He said, "I know that your answer will create trouble for me. Your answer is not going to become a marriage for you, but it is going to become a nightmare for me. You simply forget the matter. Whatever you want to do, you do. If you want to get married, you get married; if you don't want, just drop the subject. As far as I am concerned, I have dropped it." last212 Marriage is one of the ugliest institutions man has invented. But it has been invented with deep concern, goodwill. I do not suspect the goodwill, I only suspect people's wisdom. Their intention is right, but their intelligence is very mediocre. unconc18 A real man of understanding never promises for tomorrow, he can only say, "For the moment." A really sincere man cannot promise at all. How can he promise? Who knows about tomorrow? Tomorrow may come, may not come. Tomorrow may come: "I will not be the same, you will not be the same." Tomorrow may come: "You may find somebody with whom you fit more deeply, I may find somebody whom I go with more harmoniously." The world is vast. Why exhaust it today? Keep doors open, keep alternatives open. I am against marriage. It is marriage that creates problems. It is marriage that has become very ugly. The most ugly institution in the world is marriage, because it forces people to be phony: they have changed, but they go on pretending that they are the same. wlotus10 I have been staying with thousands of families--everybody is miserable. And because I have been loved by so many people, the husband could open his heart to me, the wife could open her heart to me. Both are beautiful people, but together they are continuously at war. Every house has become a battlefield. And children are growing in this poisonous atmosphere. They will learn the same techniques and strategies and they will repeat them. That's how every generation goes on giving its diseases to the new generation. Generations change, diseases have become permanent. Now we have to drop the diseases, so that the future humanity can be free from all this ugliness. Don't just give it a new name, change it from the very foundations. dawn20 I have lived with many people, in many places. I was surprised--why are people so much anxious to create trouble for other people? If somebody is unmarried they are worried: "Why don't you get married?"--as if marriage is some universal law that has to be followed. Tortured by everybody, one thinks it is better to get married--at least these people will stop torturing. But you are wrong: once you get married they start asking, "When is the child coming?"... I am sitting, silent in my room my whole life. I am not bothering anybody, I have never asked anybody, "Why are you not married, why have you not produced a child?" Because I don't think that it is civilized to ask such questions, such queries; it is interfering in somebody's freedom. yaahoo18 From: Vishal - a pure soul like You. <http://capitalmarketandspirituality.blogspot.com/> CLICK HERE FOR CAPITAL MARKET AND SPIRITUAITY --~--~---------~--~----~------------~-------~--~----~ You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "BETTER PERSONALITY GROUP" group. To post to this group, send email to [email protected] To unsubscribe from this group, send email to [email protected] For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/BETTER_PERSONALITY?hl=en -~----------~----~----~----~------~----~------~--~---
