What are ideal couples?

Osho, yesterday you said that jealousy is included in respect. I have immense respect for you, but the jealousy inherent in it keeps poisoning it, and I feel guilt and pain. Does reverence transcend this poison-laced respect?

It needs a little explaining—it's a delicate point. Whenever you respect someone, you do so because you see in that person something you do not have. You respect because you glimpse in the other something you would also like to possess. A beggar respects an emperor because he, too, longs to be an emperor. So on the one hand he respects, and inside he also envies. Because he is not yet an emperor but wants to be. You have attained what he wants to attain. He respects you as skillful, successful: “I stand far back in the line; you have gone ahead to where I should have been.” So you are powerful, clever, intelligent, strong—he respects you. But inside a fire of jealousy also burns—if he gets the chance, he would like to be in your place and push you aside. And if the beggar gets that chance, he will…

Osho, as you yourself say, the love of lovers can endure, but that of husband and wife does not. And yesterday you said Rama and Sita’s love was so complete in itself that they remained satisfied with each other for life. Is that really possible? Or is it merely an exception that proves the rule? And if it is possible, how does it become possible? And another thing: you have given sannyas initiation to householders. Many couples and pairs of lovers have entered your sannyas. Please guide us on how they can harmonize their sex and worldly life with sadhana and sannyas.

Rama arrives in Sita’s city, strolls in a garden, sees Sita, and falls in love. We cannot even think this. We would say, “Some vagabond boy might do that—see a girl and fall in love—but is this Rama’s way?” Yet Rama fell in love before marriage. Then marriage became the journey of that love’s fulfillment. Sita too fell in love seeing this young man. Two hearts met; society’s sanction would come later. The happening of two hearts meeting had already occurred. And I can say, even had Sita married someone else, it would have been only on the surface. The freshness, the virginity with which love was born between these two hearts—such virginity could not have come again in another love. That would have been borrowed, merely of the body. Even had Ravana abducted Sita, he could never have possessed her. That event had already occurred; someone else had already…

Beloved Osho, you say that the love between a lover and his beloved can be lasting, but not that between a husband and wife. But yesterday you described the love between rama and sita as so total that they were content with each other for their whole life. Is this possible? Or is this the exception which proves the rule? And if this is possible, how so? And another thing, you have given sannyas to many married couples as well as to lovers. How should they reconcile their sex and married life with their sadhana and sannyas? Please give us some guidance.

So don't think that all the stone statues you come across have always been devoid of meaning; many times love has happened there too, a devotee has found God through his love for these stones. The question is not of the stone outside, but of the heart within. If you really watch the devotee in his relationship with the stone statue, his behavior with it, you will come to see that you have not begun to relate like that even with living human beings. His involvement and his care for his stone statue are worth seeing. At dawn he awakens his statue, his beloved, ringing the bell at his door and saying: "Rise now, O Nand-kishore! The dawn has come." Not understanding what lies behind this madness, we can easily laugh at this devotee washing the face and cleaning the teeth of his beloved, raising him up and changing his…

I remember hearing about one man who married eight times -- of course, it must have been in California. When he married the eighth time, after two days he recognized that he had married this woman once before too. And then he started thinking, "What have I gained by changing women? It all comes back to the same rut." Stability in marriage is unnatural. Monogamy is unnatural. Man is by nature a polygamous animal, and anybody who is intelligent will be polygamous. You can't go on and on eating Italian food. Once in a while you want to visit the Chinese restaurant! I want people to be completely freed from marriage and marriage licenses. The only cause of their being together should be love, not law. Love should be the only law. Then what you are asking is possible. The moment love disappears, say goodbye to each other.

Beloved Osho, would you talk to us about our living partners -- our wives, husbands and lovers. When should we persevere with a partner, and when should we abandon a relationship as hopeless -- or even destructive? And are our relationships influenced by previous lives?

Kabir has said somewhere: I look into people. They are so much afraid, but I can't see why -- because they have nothing to lose. Says Kabir: They are like a person who is naked, but never goes to take a bath in the river because he is afraid -- where will he dry his clothes? This is the situation you are in -- naked, with no clothes, but always afraid about the clothes. What have you got to lose? Nothing. This body will be taken by death. Before it is taken by death, give it to love. Whatsoever you have will be taken away. Before it is taken away, why not share it? That is the ONLY way of possessing it. If you can share and give, you are the master. It is going to be taken away. There is nothing which you can retain forever. Death will destroy…