Is it better to get married or walk alone? Sadhguru explains, whichever path you travel, carrying yoga with you will make the path easy and beautiful. By choosing consciously rather than out of compulsion, as well as structuring our psychological framework around the basic fact of our mortality, we can conduct our lives sensibly, free of stress, strain and depression.

Full Transcript:

Participant: Sadhguru, the same problem every human being faces - stress, strain.

Sadhguru: Why? Why? Why are you making it universal? (Laughter/Applause) You are assuming that. Okay, you are stressed and strained and what?

Participant: And one more point.

Sadhguru: Torture?

Participant: Getting married and traveling on the path of yoga to reach to the destination and not getting married going on the path of the yoga. Which one is the best way? (Laughter)

Sadhguru: So he has named his wife and children as stress, strain and torture. (Laughter/Applause) Wife and two children - stress, strain and torture. How’s that? (Laughter) I don’t want you to travel on the path of yoga. Whatever goddamn path you’re travelling on, take yoga with you. (Applause) It will make the path easy and beautiful. Whether you go north or south, if it is dark you take a torch, isn’t it? Only northward people take torch, southern people take darkness with you, is there such a thing? No. So you getting married is because of your needs. You were not born with your wife, were you? (Laughter) You were born like this, a complete human being. Because you have certain needs - physical, psychological, emotional, maybe financial (Laughter), social (Laughs) - that also is there, right? So, various needs; marriage is generally supposed to be a package which deals with all these needs - physical needs, psychological needs, emotional needs, social needs, sometimes financial needs also. So it is a comprehensive package, that if you get married all these problems are solved in one shot. Sometimes they may refuse to fulfill some of your needs, so you get stressed, strained and tortured. (Laughter) If they don’t fulfill your financial needs, you torture them (Laughter) or after some time – initially you can torture them, after some time they learn the tricks (Laughter) and they torture you. (Laughter) This is a give and take process – whatever.

I want you to understand you married for your well-being, not as some sacrifice for somebody’s sake. You married for your needs and your well-being, isn’t it? You better remember that all your life. You married and tied up the other person with you because you have needs. You did not do it for the other person’s sake. Yes or no? Let’s be straight about this. Yes or no? Yes. You remember this. If you remember this, you will live in little gratitude, okay? If not all the five – pancha, you know the five needs, at least two you fulfill for me, thank you very much, isn’t it? All the five perfectly, maybe they did not fulfill, at least two or three they fulfilled, right - your husband or your wife? Did they, didn’t they? If they did not fulfill anything, I don’t think you would be there by now. (Laughter) Yes or no? If they did not fulfill any of your needs, I do not think you would still be there. They are fulfilling some needs, a few things maybe they are not able to fulfill. So are you. You are also not able to fulfill every one of the needs of the other person. Some you are fulfilling, some you are not. Isn’t it so?

So why did this become stress, strain and torture? Whichever way you have made it, till now it doesn’t matter; if you are willing, in three days’ time it doesn’t matter how bad your situation is, in three days’ time you can bring it to a semblance of peace. If not love, if not ecstasy, at least you can bring it to a peaceful state in three days’ time if you are willing, hundred percent. Yes or no? Hmm? At least you can shut-up, simply, whatever happens. (Laughter) Peace will happen and maybe they will love it. (Laughs) So don’t walk the path of yoga, whatever the path, you must carry yoga with you. If you carry yoga with you, it’ll light up your path, whatever path you have chosen. You have chosen your path out of your needs. You already done it, so that’s up to you. Those who have done it, I would like you to choose your path not out of your compulsive needs, but of your conscious needs.

So when that stage in your life comes, it is time to consciously look at your life and see will today’s needs mean something to you after five years or ten years? Will it be worthwhile to tie up your life for the simple needs that you have today or will… are these just passing needs for you? If it’s a very strong need, you must marry. If it is not a strong need, it’s a passing need, you can work out your needs probably by just going to a cinema. Then no need to get married, you know. Yes, many people are like this. Their needs are not very strong. It’s just passing, but social structure tells them you have to. Not necessary. It must be a conscious choice. Whichever way you go, it must be your conscious choice, not compulsive choices because if you choose compulsively you will always take it out on the people around you because you feel like a slave and you don’t like it. So you take it out on them and they will take it out on you. This becomes…

So it is not about what you are doing, it is about how you do it. What you are doing is according to our requirements, but how you do it will determine the nature of your life. Is it an advantage to walk single rather than walk with people? Yes, if you want to walk rapidly. In Africa there is a saying. They say, “If you want to walk quick, walk alone. If you want to walk long, walk in company.” If you’re making a long distance journey, it’s better to have company. If you’re walking a short distance and very quick you want to walk, it’s best to go alone, isn’t it? Gautama said another thing. When somebody asked him the same question, he said, “It is better to walk alone than to walk with a fool.” (Laughter) But you think life is long, so maybe you need company. If you need company you take it, but how you conduct this company is very important. If you want to conduct this sensibly, one of the most important things that you need to do - particularly with your children, you must do this - is your psychological and your emotional framework should be around the basic fact of life.

The basic fact of life is that you are mortal. Your psychological and emotional structure should be formed around your mortality. This is most important. If you are constantly aware that this is a brief life, any moment you will fall dead. Actually then you would organize your life and conduct your life in a certain way. When you know time is ticking away, any moment you will be knocked down, you have no time to get angry with somebody, isn’t it? You have no time to fight with somebody here. You have no time to sit there depressed for a long period of time because tick, tick, tick, tick, it’s going away. Because your psychological structure is organized around your immortality, because of that you have lot of time to fight, to be depressed, to be frustrated, to fret, to fume - you have lot of time.

So it’s very, very important that everybody organizes their psychological and emotional structure around the mortal nature of our existence. After all you are just a baton carrier between the last generation and the next generation, isn’t it? Yes? For a brief time it’s in your hands, this world, afterwards somebody else is going to take it. You will see taking the baton from the previous generation happens in most ugly ways, handing over the baton to the next generation happens in horrible ways, simply because people’s mind is structured around their belief of immortality. They don’t see they are mortal. If you’re constantly aware that you are mortal, sense will naturally dawn upon you. You will have no time for foolishness. Suppose you are aware that tomorrow you are going to die, would you spend today fighting with somebody? Hmm? Because your time is ticking, isn’t it? And your time is ticking even now, not after a doctor diagnoses you with some horrible disease. Even now it’s ticking. Isn’t it so? If you want to explore the possibility of what this is, the immensity of what this is, then the time is ticking too rapidly and time is a extremely relative experience.

If you are joyful and blissful, even if you live to be hundred, it’s a very brief life, it’s gone in no time. So in this brief life, where do you get time for stress, strain and torture? I don’t know where you get time. This is simply because you think you are immortal, this is the biggest mistake you have done. It is just a brief journey. You must conduct it as gracefully, as blissfully as possible. If you do not know the cosmos, at least you must know this (Gestures) piece of life before you fall dead. That must happen to everybody. (Applause)