Question 3

WHAT DOES IT MEAN 'THE HONEYMOON IS OVER'?

'The honeymoon is over' means that the fantasy part of your love is finished. Honeymoon is a fantasy: it is a projection, it is not reality. It is projected dream. 'The honeymoon is over' means that the dream is over, and now starts the marriage. The higher the honeymoon, the greater will be the disillusionment. That's why love-marriages don't succeed. Marriages succeed, but not love-marriages.

The love-marriage cannot succeed. That failure is intrinsic to it. A love-marriage is a fantasy, and the fantasy cannot win over reality. There is only one way to remain in fantasy and to remain always in a honeymoon, and that is to never meet your beloved. Then it is possible: you can have it for your whole life -- but never meet the beloved, never meet your lover.

The greatest lovers in history were those who were not allowed to meet: Laila and Majnun, Shiri and Farihad -- these are the great lovers. They were not allowed: the society created so many obstacles that they remained always in a state of honeymoon. It is just like when food is there but you are not allowed to eat it, so the fantasy continues. If you are allowed to eat it, then the fantasy disappears.

Love-marriage cannot succeed. What do I mean by 'not succeed'? In the sense that people want it to succeed, it cannot succeed. Marriage is successful, but then there is no love. That's why in the past all the societies of the world, out of experience, decided in favour of marriage and against love. Indian society is one of the most ancient societies of the world. It has existed for at least five thousand years, or more than that. Out of this long experience India decided for marriage without love -- because a marriage without love can succeed. Because it has no honeymoon part in it, from the very beginning it is very realistic, down-to-earth. It does not allow any dreaming.

In India, the partners themselves are not allowed to choose. The boy is not allowed to choose the girl, the girl is not allowed to choose the boy; the parents choose. Naturally they are more down-to-earth, more experienced. And naturally, they cannot fall in love. They think of other things: finance, prestige, respectability, family. They think of thousands of things, but they don't think of one thing -- love. Love is not brought into the matter at all. They go to the astrologer; they ask the astrologer and inquire into everything but not love. Love has not to become an ingredient in it. Two unknown people -- the man and the woman are put together by the parents, by the society -- are left together. Naturally, when you live with a person, a sort of liking arises. But that liking is just like the liking you have for your sister; it is not love. Because you were born into a certain family, you have not chosen your sister, neither have you chosen your brother: they were not chosen by you. It was accidental that you were born to the same parents. So you have a certain liking. Living together for long, a thousand and one associations, and one starts liking -- or disliking -- but it is never love and never hate. It never goes to extremes, it is very balanced.

The same is the case with marriage, arranged marriage. The husband and wife live together and, by and by, they start feeling for each other.

Another thing the society does: the society does not allow any extramarital sex, so naturally the husband HAS to make love to the wife, and the wife HAS to make love to the husband. If you are allowed only one food to eat and no other food is allowed, how long can you wait? You have to eat it. This is the trick of the society. If extramarital sex were allowed, then there is every possibility that the husband may not want to make love to the wife, the wife may not like to make love to the husband. Just out of hunger, and with no other outlet, they start making love to each other. Out of desperation, they start becoming associated with each other. Then children are born... and more ties: religious, social ties. Then the children and the responsibility... and the family starts rolling.

Love-marriage is bound to fail, because the love-marriage is a poetic phenomenon. You fall in love and you start dreaming about the woman or the man, and you reach to a peak, a climax of dreams. Those dreams continue until you meet the woman, until you meet the man. Then you come together, you become satisfied. Those dreams start disappearing. Now, for the first time, you start seeing the other as he or she IS.

When you see your wife as she is, when you see your husband as he is, the honeymoon is over. This is the meaning of the phrase 'the honeymoon is over'. And it does not happen only in marriage, it happens in many sorts of relationships. It happens here with me.

You come to me and you can have a honeymoon, you can start fantasizing about me. I have no part in it, I am not a party to it. It is something that you do all alone. But you start fantasizing, desiring: This is going to happen and that is going to happen, and Osho will do this and Osho will do that. Then, one day, the honeymoon will be over. In fact, I always like to wait till the honeymoon is over, then I start working, never before it, because I don't want to become a party to your fantasies. I only start working when I see that now the honeymoon is over and you are back on the earth. Now something real can be done. In fact, I always like to give sannyas when the honeymoon is over. To give sannyas during the honeymoon is dangerous, very dangerous, because the moment the honeymoon is over, you will start feeling against me, you will start rebelling against sannyas, you will start reacting. It is better to wait.

In every relationship -- in friendship, in a Master-disciple relationship -- in any kind of relationship there is a part which is of fantasy. That fantasy is just your mind: repressed desires are flying into dreams. In a better world, with more understanding, marriage will disappear, and with marriage will disappear the honeymoon too.

Now listen.

There have been societies: for example, the Hindu society -- it has killed the honeymoon by killing love, and only marriage exists. In America, they are killing marriage and saving love -- the honeymoon and only the honeymoon exists, not marriage. It is disappearing.

But to me, both are deep down in conspiracy. The honeymoon can exist only if there is some repression, otherwise there is nothing to project. And if there is something to project, then love fails again and again. Then the social PUNDITS come in and they start making arrangements for marriage, because it fails. It drives people crazy, and does not help them to live their lives. It makes them suicidal. It makes them neurotic, schizophrenic, hysterical. So the social PUNDIT has to come in, the priest and the politician have to come in and arrange for marriage, because love is too dangerous. And that's how the society has moved between these two polarities.

Sometimes, when people get fed up with marriage -- as they have got fed up in America -- they start thinking of love. When people get fed up with love as sooner or later they will find; they are already -- then they start moving towards marriage. Both are polarities of the same game.

To me, a different kind of society is needed where marriage and romance disappear. Marriage disappears, because to make two people live together by legal enforcement is immoral. To force two people to live together when they don't want to live together is against nature and against God.

Ninety-nine per cent of social diseases will disappear if people are not forced.

Listen to this:

A man went to his solicitor and said 'I am very rich, so money is no object, but I want to be rid of my wife, who is a bitch, without being had for murder. So tell me what to do.'

'Buy her a strong horse and it may throw her.'

A month later the man came back and said his wife was now the best horsewoman in the district...

'Try' said the lawyer 'buying her a mini and send her up the mountains in it.'

The man did this, but she drove like Sterling Moss, putting in danger everybody but herself. The husband told the solicitor he was desperate...

'Then buy her a big Jaguar.'

The man was back in a week, delighted. 'Name your fee' he said 'it worked.'

'What happened then?'

'Well, when she opened the cage door to feed the jaguar, it bit her bloody head off!'

Marriage creates a thousand and one complexities and solves nothing. Yes, it succeeds -- it succeeds in making people slaves. It succeeds in destroying people's individuality. Don't you see it all around? An unmarried man has a certain individuality, and a married man starts losing his individuality. He becomes more and more of a type. The unmarried woman has a joy, something flowing. The married woman becomes dull, uninterested, bored. This is ugly -- to force people into boredom. People are here to be happy, people are here to enjoy and celebrate. This is ugly!

Marriage has to go. But if you choose fantasy and love, you will again fall into the same trap of marriage. Because love never succeeds -- never succeeds the way marriage succeeds financially, security-wise, for children, for society, for this and that. Love never succeeds as marriage succeeds.

So love is bound to create other kinds of troubles. And love exists because of repressed desires. When marriage disappears and desires are not repressed, love will disappear automatically.

A real society of human beings will not know anything of marriage and will not know anything of the honeymoon. It will know only of joy, of sharing with people. As long as you can share, good; if you cannot share, good-bye. Marriage disappears, and with it disappears the ugly divorce. Marriage disappears, and with it disappears the fantasy of the honeymoon.

When you are free to love, to meet, to be with people, the honeymoon will disappear. Laila and Majnun, and Shiri and Farihad, will not be possible -- nobody is obstructing the way. You can meet any woman and you can meet any man. Whomsoever you desire and whosoever desires you -- nobody else is barring the way. Then what is the need for fantasy? All kinds of food are available, and yet whatsoever is standing there is like a policeman or a magistrate or a priest and making you afraid and scared that if you eat this food you will go to hell. If you eat this food, only then can you go to heaven, and that food you don't want to eat; and that food leads you to heaven, and the food that you want to eat leads you to hell. Anything that gives you joy leads to hell, and anything that makes you miserable leads to heaven. When nobody is standing in between you and your desires, when desire is free, there will be no repression.

Without repression the honeymoon will disappear. The honeymoon is a by-product: it exists with marriage. It is like bait. You go fishing, you use bait. Honeymoon is a bait: it takes you into marriage. That's why women are very, very insistent about marriage -- because they know. They are more down-to-earth, more empirical than men. Men have remained dreamers, they think of stars and moons. And women only laugh at their ridiculous desires. The woman knows -- she is very down-to-earth-she knows that within ten, twelve, fifteen days, two to three weeks, the honeymoon will disappear. Then what? She insists on marriage.

A man was asking his woman -- he was in love -and he asked her in the night 'Love or something?'

And the woman said 'Marriage or nothing.'

He asked again 'Love or something?'

And she said 'Marriage or NOTHING.'

Love is not reliable. It comes and goes; it is a whim, a mood. If love remains, that simply means repression is still there.

Then, in a different society there will be joy. 'Love' will not be so important a word as 'delight', 'celebration'. Two people want to share their energies; if they are both willing, then there will be no hindrance. There will be only one limitation, that if the other is not willing, then it is finished. Then it never starts. All other limitations should be dropped.

And now science has made it possible for the problem of children to be very easily solved. In the old days people were not so fortunate. You are more fortunate. The problem of children can be solved. You can stay with a woman until the day you think 'Now we have lived together long enough and my love, my joy with the woman goes on increasing, my joy with the man goes on increasing, and now there is no possibility of our becoming separate.' You have found your soul-mate. The day you feel that, you can have children, otherwise there is no need to have children.

And in a better society, children should belong to the communes. The family has to disappear. There should be communes of people: a commune of painters, where painters -- painter men and painter women -- live together and enjoy their togetherness; a commune of poets, a commune of carpenters, a commune of goldsmiths: communes of different kinds of people who live together, rather than families.

The family has been a calamity. It is better when many people live together who possess everything in common and who share their love with each other.

But there should not be any restriction. Love should never become a duty -- only then is it joyful. The moment it becomes a duty, it is dead, heavyweight. And it creates a thousand and one problems which cannot be solved directly. That is the whole situation in the world. You can go to the psychoanalyst, you can come to a Master, you can meditate, you can do this and that -- but your basic problem is not touched.

Your basic problem remains somehow connected with your sex energy, and you go on tackling it somewhere else. You go on cutting the leaves, pruning the leaves, and you never cut the root. People are miserable because people are fed up with each other. People are sad because they don't enjoy the company of each other. People are simply burdened: they are doing their duties, the love is not there.