Honeymoon is over

Excerpt from the OSHO's Speech "Just a Remembrance"

Honeymoon is a fantasy: it is a projection, it is not reality. It is projected dream. Once this dream is over, then 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.