Just the old husband, for example – you know him, and all the nonsense that he will do. The old wife…the husband knows that she will nag and nag and nag, and it has been going on for years. Now it is just a broken record – who cares? The husband and wife never have any conversation. Neither the husband listens to what the wife is saying nor the wife listens to what the husband is saying. The conversation continues, and everybody knows that nobody is listening to anybody. It is better to keep the old wife, the old husband. It is simpler, less complex. With the new husband you will have new troubles; with the new wife you will have new problems.

An old sannyasin, a traditional sannyasin, had become so troubled in his home-life that he renounced the world. But that does not make any difference: you cannot renounce your mind.

Wherever you go, your mind is inside you.

So he went deep into the mountains but he had the same mind. He was a very violent man. And a bird flew over him, dropping a great load of shit. He said, “My God, here also, the same problem! All my life I have suffered. And I thought that I had renounced the world, but even these idiot birds torture a sacred holy man!”

So many incidents happened that finally he thought, “Wherever you go there are problems. It is better to commit suicide.”

So he jumped into the river, but by chance, unfortunately, he knew how to swim. So he came out swimming, cursing himself: “Why did I learn swimming in the first place? And now all my clothes are wet!”

So he thought to collect dry wood by the side of the river-bank to make a funeral pyre. The neighbors who lived there gathered around…”What is happening? First this man jumped, then came out, and now he’s making a fire.”

They asked, “What is the problem?”

He said, “I’m going to jump into the fire, because in the river I could not succeed in committing suicide.”

They said, “Please, do it somewhere else, because your burning body will stink up the whole neighborhood.”

He said, “It is so difficult. You cannot allow a person either to live or to die!”

That night he dreamed and prayed to God: “It is enough! Either you take away my troubles…I’m even ready to exchange because I see everybody smiling, laughing, enjoying. I’m ready to change with anybody!”

A voice in his dream filled the whole sky, saying, “Everybody should collect his troubles in bags and come to the temple in the center of the city.” So he thought, “Perhaps my prayer has been heard!” He collected all his troubles…but he saw that everybody in the city was moving with bigger bags than he was carrying. Now he became afraid.

He tried to look for somebody who was carrying a smaller bag, but he could not find anybody – his bag seemed to be the smallest.

He said, “My God, if I have to change…My old troubles were at least well acquainted with me. New troubles…Who knows what kind of woman you will get, whether she beats the husband or not, how old she is, whether she is alive or just dead…”