And when you feel that love is not coming towards you…and both feel the same: a great frustration and an idea, a suspicion that perhaps the other has deceived you. Before the marriage both were using beautiful words, sweet nothings; both were bringing their best to attract the other, to catch hold of the other. And once they are married, and the law has entered in, and society has granted you freedom to live together, soon the honeymoon is over. Even before coming back from the honeymoon it is over…all is finished because you have come to know the other in their total wholeness, which is ugly.

The facade, the mask that they were wearing before the marriage has slipped. You cannot hold it for twenty-four hours. When you live with someone, you have to come down from your hypocrisies and be whatever you are – and you know that you are not the person you pretend to be. The same is true about the other. And then it becomes a struggle to possess the woman, to possess the man.

The only significant symptom of love is, it never possesses; on the contrary, it gives freedom. It is happy in the happiness of the other. It does not beg; it is not a beggar. It is an emperor. It gives, and it gives unconditionally.

But in actual life, what we have been doing for centuries is asking the other to give; and the other is also asking you to give. And both are beggars, their bowls are empty; they don’t have anything to give. It becomes a struggle, a warfare.

You can change the concept from marriage to soul mates, but what about you? What about the people who will become soul mates? If they are the same people who were becoming a couple in a marriage, nothing will change.

My suggestion is, neither marriage is needed nor soul mates are needed – just friendliness is enough. You don’t know anything about soul, how can you become a soul mate?

If you can become just friendly with each other, that is more than can be expected from the present man. If you can be understanding of each other’s frailties, weaknesses, that is more than can be expected.

If you can drop the old superstitions, that once a woman or a man loves you, they have to love you forever… Love is very fragile. It is just like a flower: beautiful, but very delicate. In the morning it blossoms; by the evening it is gone, its petals are scattered. That was a beauty in the morning; by the evening it has become a grave. Life is a changing, continuously changing phenomenon.

When I say a great understanding is needed, the old idea of permanent relationship under any concept has to be dropped. You have to live moment to moment, you have to live each moment as if it is the last moment. So don’t waste it in quarreling, in nagging or in fighting. Perhaps you will not find the next moment even for an apology.

One of the mystics, Sarmad, used to tell his disciples every night, “We are going to sleep for the last time. Please forgive me. As a master I may have been hard to you. I had to be because I loved you and I wanted a transformation to happen. And I don’t know whether in the morning I will wake up again, so I’m asking for your forgiveness.” Each night he would go to bed as if it was the last night – and one day it is going to be true, one night will be the last night and you will never wake up again.