According to Osho, marriage as an institution cannot be spiritual: anything fixed and rule-bound lacks the playful spontaneity of spirit. Society’s rules breed seriousness, while enlightenment is light, joking, creative—like Bodhidharma’s irreverence. God is playful; from satori’s playfulness, creativity flowers. Spirituality belongs to free, living consciousness, not to rigid contracts or institutions.
No—marriage as a fixed rule isn’t spiritual; real spirit is playful, free, and creative, not stiff and serious.
From the Discourses
Passages where Osho speaks to this question — each links to the complete discourse.
Are you saying that marriage cannot be spiritual?
It cannot be. Marriage can never be spiritual because it is a fixed thing. But I have used marriage just as an example. In fact, the whole of society can never be spiritual because it is based on rules. Rules are always serious; you cannot be playful about them. When Bodhidharma reached China, he put one shoe on his head and the other on his foot. The emperor asked, "What are you doing? What nonsense!" Bodhidharma said, "I am joking." The emperor said, "But we never expected a joking, laughing sadhu." Bodhidharma said, "How is it possible for a sadhu to be serious? God is not serious, he is so unceasingly playful!" Creativity comes out of playfulness; hence so much creativity is born out of satori.
Beloved Osho, is it possible to be married and to be free at the same time?
I said, "I know her -- because she came even before you did! She also wants to get rid of this continuous quarreling -- she is not living a joyous life. Either you can both be joyous or you can both be miserable; it is not possible that one remains joyous and the other remains miserable. So I will convince her -- she is almost ready -- you just go and tell her that I have sent you. So get into your marriage clothes...." He said, "Marriage clothes?" I said, "Yes. The whole ritual has to be done in the reverse order." The man never came back. I had to go to his house many times. I would knock, and he would plead, "Forgive me for telling you. When I came home I got such a beating that I forgot all the beatings that had happened before! In this life…
Question: The fifth question: Osho, why do you make so much fun of marriage? Marriage is an old institution, very old. And the older it is, the more rotten it has become. Marriage cannot survive in the future; its days are over. We will have to find some new alternatives. The search for alternatives has begun. But in the alternatives now being sought there is one fallacy: they think there was suffering in marriage, and in this alternative there will be no suffering. That is a fallacy. Yes, in the alternatives there may be more or less suffering—but suffering will be there until you become steady within yourself. In fact, the very need for marriage arises because you think happiness can come from another—and there lies the root of all ignorance. Happiness cannot come from the other.
Question: OSHO, WHAT IS WRONG WITH MARRIAGE? WHY DO YOU SPEAK ALWAYS AGAINST IT? MARRIAGE IS a great institution. Without marriage life will be very empty. Without marriage you will be all Buddhas! It is marriage that keeps the world going on; it keeps things running. It keeps all kinds of things moving, alive. In fact, without marriage there will be no religion at all. Religion exists not because of God or for God; it is because of marriage. Marriage creates so much misery that one has to meditate; meditation is a byproduct. Without marriage, who will bother to meditate? For what? You will be already blissful! Without marriage there will be no renunciation, Buddha would not have left the world -- for what? His wife, Yashodhara, must have created the situation -- Mahavira would not have escaped to the mountains.
Osho, you have said that you regard marriage as immoral. Yet it is under Krishna’s auspices that the greatest number of marriages are solemnized. Does he then encourage the immorality of marriage?
I called marriage immoral—the institution of marriage—not the act of marrying. Those who love will also want to live together. So a marriage that grows out of love is not immoral. But we are doing the reverse: we are trying to extract love out of marriage, which cannot happen. Marriage is a bondage; love is a liberation. Those in whose lives love has arrived will naturally want to live together—but let their living together be only the shadow of their love. I am not saying that the day the institution of marriage disappears, men and women will stop living together. The truth is: only then will they be able to live together rightly. Right now they appear to be together, but they do not truly live together. Being together is not the same as being in communion. Being close is not necessarily being intimate. Being joined is not being one.…