In life there is only one chance to choose and that is in a love relationship. A father is given by birth, a mother is given by birth, brothers and sisters are given by birth. It is only in the relationship of a husband and wife that there is the freedom to choose. In all other relationships we do not have that freedom. So this one opportunity to exercise freedom can be dangerous, because freedom is dangerous; hence we took that away too. We made marriage into an institution and made it a part of the unconscious. The danger was removed, but so too was the romantic flight of love. The elixir of love vanished along with the danger.

We have done exactly the same with religions as we have done by having child marriage. We have made them a part of the unconscious too. When the child grows up he discovers that he is a Hindu. He doesn’t even know that when he was born he was not a Hindu. As he grows up, he finds out that he is a Hindu, he is a Mohammedan. It never occurs to him that all his conditioning is borrowed, that someone has instilled it, injected it into his mind, that he was not born with it. Now he will go through his whole life believing that he is a Hindu.

And he can’t possibly have much interest in what he has not chosen for himself. If we look carefully we can see that he doesn’t have any real connection with it. It is an imposition which he will somehow carry around with him, it is a formality. At times, when it is necessary to visit the temple, he will oblige; he will find himself in church on a Sunday; he will take part in some festival as a formality. Religion will become a part of his social structure.

But religion is not a part of the social structure. Like love, religion is dangerous – even more dangerous than love. Like love it is dangerous because there is no way to know where it will lead, no prediction can be made about the outcome. Religion is even more dangerous than love. Love takes you along unknown paths, but religion takes you onto even more unknown paths. Religion is an inner revolution. By making religion a social institution no avenue is left for the inner revolution.

So our minds build up a resistance to what has been imposed upon us. They have to. And we relish destroying what has been imposed on us. Why? – because when we destroy it, we feel as if we are becoming free from it.

Freud has written about an incident that happened when he went for a walk in the park with his wife and child.

“…As we were returning from the park and just as the gates were being shut, we realized that our child was missing. So I asked my wife, ‘Where is our child?’ My wife became very frightened; the gates were being shut, the park was miles long and the child could have been anywhere.

“Then I said, ‘Don’t worry, just tell me: did you forbid him from going to some particular place? If you did, then that is the place where we should look first. If he has even a little intelligence, that is where he will go.’

“My wife replied, ‘I told him not to go to the fountain.’

“I said, ‘Come, let’s run to the fountain.’ And there we found our son sitting with his legs dangling in the water.”