Sadhguru answers a question about marriage and the spiritual path. Marriage is an arrangement we make to handle certain needs. It has nothing to do with the spiritual process because spiritual process is an inward journey.

Full Transcript:

Sadhguru: Marriage is not a commodity that you carry on your head, but many people carry it on their head. It’s just an arrangement, so that socially, there is some sense to the way you fulfill the needs that you have. A human being has needs – physical, psychological, emotional, financial, social, various kinds of needs. To fulfill these things in a dignified manner, we came up with something called marriage, so that it is fulfilled within a framework, your desires don’t run wild and disturb everything in the society, some kind of a framework so that it can be conducted in a sensible manner. Now you have raised this to heaven because somebody told you, “Marriages are made in heaven” (Laughter). Only the unmarried ones think so (Laughter/Applause). So it’s just two people, all right? Now, spiritual process is about turning inward. Can I turn inward with somebody else (Laughs)? Marriage is an arrangement to fulfill certain aspect of your life. Don’t complicate life by thinking, “We will walk together on the spiritual path.” There is no such thing because spiritual path is not (Laughs)… not the path that you take into the Velliangiri Mountains, that you want to walk together. Even if you go to Velliangiri Mountains, please don’t walk hand-in-hand (Laughter). It’s a narrow pathway and it’s not an appropriate way to walk in the forest (Laughs). You can walk in the park ha… hand-in-hand. You can go shopping hand-in-hand. You can sit in a cinema hand-in-hand. You can’t turn inward hand-in-hand (Applause). Now, does it mean to say someone who is married, what it ma… Let’s understand this. Someone who is married means someone who’s made an official arrangement for their needs in life. A formal arrangement for simple needs that a human being has, which are biological, which are psychological, which are social, many things. So, these arrangements that you have made, conduct these arrangements gracefully, so there will be time and space for you to turn around. If you pay excess attention to these arrangements, then turning around will not be possible. This does not mean if you are alone, you will do it. If you are alone, you may be always looking out (Laughs). You will spend your entire time and life looking out for somebody. That will also not help. If you think your desires, your longings and your needs can be well handled by an arrangement of marriage all right. Don’t try to raise it to heaven. It doesn’t happen in heaven, believe me. And if heaven is making so many mistakes (Laughter), then we will have to seriously reconsider many things (Laughs). So, of course in India, we don’t blame it on the heaven. We do our own calculations. Of all the arrangements of stars and planets and everything, we match all the planets and stars very well. It’s very easy to match stars because they never fought ever (Laughter). But to match these two people - that nobody has managed, except those two people if they are sensible (Laughs). If they are sensible, they can manage it. Nobody else can match these two people (Applause). Priests have tried, gods have tried, ghosts and goblins have tried, it’s not worked and not worked and not worked. Two sensible people, they can manage. If both of them understand the limitations of the arrangement and the possibilities of the arrangement, they can conduct it sensibly. If you try to raise it to heaven, you will see it will for sure crash. So, your marriage has nothing to do with your spiritual process because your spiritual process is an inward journey. But one dimension of this is – to walk alone, people falter. Actually, this question was asked to Gautama the Buddha, “Is it better to walk alone or in company?” Gautama looked and said, “It’s better to walk alone than to walk with a fool” (Laughs) (Applause) because Gautama – not me, okay (Laughter) – Gautama believes only a fool will marry you (Laughter/Applause). It’s him, not me, okay (Laughter)?