Once you are married, who bothers about the wife’s nose or the husband’s eyes? In fact nobody looks at each other. The elders know far better; there are other criteria to be thought of, considered. And they have to be considered by the elders of both the parties – only these two persons are not even to be asked. Yes, a few other people may be asked; the palmist may be asked, the astrologers may be asked.

Do you see my point? The point is, they are taking the burden off you – putting it on the stars, on the lines of your hand, on your birth chart, on the astronomer, astrologer – and they are taking the whole responsibility on themselves. The father, the grandfather, the mother, the grandmother, the uncles, the whole family, the relatives – they all will discuss and decide and consider every aspect of it. What do you know?

This was the practice for the whole world up to now. And the reason was that love is fragile, not dependable. So if nature has not given you a wife, a husband, with your birth, then society should decide, take the place of nature. But you should not choose because your choice can change tomorrow. In fact it is going to change.

Love is a changing relationship, it is not stable. Hence marriage came into existence. Marriage is the death of love. Yes, you make a beautiful samadhi, a marble samadhi, a beautiful memorial, but it is a grave whatever you call it.

But why did every society around the world decide in favor of it? It can’t be just coincidence. They decided to unburden the individual of turmoil, tension, anxiety, anguish – to protect the family, the children, their future. And millions of people have followed that, and for thousands of years nobody has raised a question. Nobody has even worked out in depth why marriage is needed at all.

It is needed because love alone won’t do. Today it is there; it is a guest. Yes, when it is there it is too much there, overflowingly there. But just the same, when it goes it goes completely – as if it has never been there. It comes with great ado, fills your whole being, gives you the feeling that all is achieved. But when it goes, it slips away so silently that it does not make even a sound that it is going; you don’t hear even the footsteps when it has gone. You come to know only when it is no longer there. And the same way when it goes, you feel all is lost.

If you are intelligent, which very few people are, if you are intelligent you will be grateful for those beautiful moments that came, and are gone. You will be tremendously grateful, because there was no necessity even for those few moments to come. They had come on their own, not asking whether you were worthy of them or not. They gave you a tremendous experience, a taste of life, a feeling of flowering.