SOUL MATES or CELL MATES?

   We are all living lives according to fictions, poet-
ries, film stories. That has given humanity a wrong impression,
the impression that when there is love everything will fit, that
there will be no conflict. For centuries poets have been giving the
idea that lovers are made for each other.
    Nobody is made for anybody else. Everybody is different from
everybody else. You may love a person without knowing that you
love the person only because there is so much difference between
you. so much distance. The distance is a challenge, the distance is
an adventure; the distance makes the woman or the man worth
getting hold of. But things as they appear from a distance are not
the same when they come close.
    When you are just courting a man or a woman, everything is
beautiful, everything fits because both want everything to fit.
Anything that does not fit is not allowed to surface; it is repressed
in the unconscious. So lovers sitting on the beach looking at the
moon do not know each other at all. The marriage is almost fin-
ished before the honeymoon is finished.
    In the East where the tradition of arranged marriage is still
followed, there is nothing like a honeymoon; they don't give the
chance for the marriage to be finished so soon. Couples go on liv-
ing together and never feel that things are not fitting, that some-
thing is missing. There is no chance at all for that to happen.
Husbands and wives do not choose for themselves; marriages are
organized by the parents, by the astrologers, by all kinds of people
except the two who are going to be married.
    Even after they get married, the couple cannot see each other
alone in the daylight, they can only meet each other deep in the
darkness of the night. They live with their families, and those fam-
ilies are so big that they can talk only in whispers; fighting is out
of the question. Throwing clothes will not work; no woman, no
man in these traditional communities knows that clothes have to
be thrown, otherwise what kind of love affair do you have? Or that
plates have to be broken, or that you have to argue over each and
every thing. You say one thing and the woman understands some-
thing else; she says something, you understand something else.
    But in the modern marriages based on love affairs, there
seems to be no communication. And it starts with the honey-
moon, because there for the first time you are together twenty-
four hours a day. Now you cannot pretend; you have to be real.
You cannot act. When you live together you have to be real to the
other person; you cannot hide, you cannot have any secrets. And
we have been given the idea from our very childhood that
between wife and husband there is always harmony, everything is
always fitting, they are always together, always loving, no fight.
That whole ideology is the problem.
    I would like to tell you the truth. The truth is that both the per-
sons, whoever they are, are different individuals. If you love some-
body you have to understand that the person you love is not your
shadow, is not your reflection in the mirror, has his or her own
individuality. Unless you have a big enough heart to accommodate
somebody who is different from you, who may have different
ideas about different things, you should not get into unnecessary
trouble. It is better to become a monk or a nun. Why bother? Why
create hell for yourself and the other?
    But the hell is created because you expect heaven.
    I am telling you to accept that this is the situation: the person
is going to be different. You are not the master, neither is the
other the master; both are simply partners who have decided, in
spite of all differences, to be together. And in fact, differences add
spice to your love. If you can find a person who is just like you,
you will not find much attraction. The other person has to be dif-
ferent, distant, a mystery that invites you to explore.
    With two mysteries meeting together, once they drop the idea
that they have to agree on everything, there is no question of any
fight. The fight arises because you want agreement.
    If you are living just like two friends, she has her own ideas,
you have your own ideas, she respects your ideas, you respect her
ideas; she has her way, you have your own way and nobody is try-
ing to impose on and indoctrinate the other. Then there is no
question of fight. And then there is no question that things are
not fitting. Why should they be fitting?
    Why should there be any feeling that something is missing?
Nothing is missing; it is just that your idea of harmony is not
there. Harmony is not something very great, it is boring. Once in a
while, even if you fight, once in a while even if you get really hot,
that does not mean that love disappears; that simply means love is
capable of absorbing even disagreements, fights, overcoming all
these hindrances. But the old ideology gets in the way of your
understanding.
    I am reminded of the old biblical story which is not told very
much because it is very dangerous. First, God made one man and
one woman. But as you know by looking at the world, God does
not seem to be very intelligent. Here, nothing is fitting; from the
very beginning you can see it. He made man and woman, two per-
sons, and gave them a small bed, not a double bed.
    The very first night, at the beginning of time, was the night of
a tremendous fight because the woman wanted to sleep on the
bed. The man thought that he should sleep on the bed and she
should sleep on the floor. The whole night they went on fighting,
hitting each other, throwing things, and in the morning the man
said to God, "I asked you to give me a companion but I did not ask
you to give me an enemy. If this is your idea of a companion, then
I want to tell you I was better off alone. I don't want this woman;
there is never going to be peace between us."
    Now the simple thing would have been to ask for a double bed.
I don't understand what kind of God that was, and what these
idiots were asking. The simple solution was a double bed, or two
single beds, if things were getting that bad. But instead of that
Adam said, "I don't want this woman; she is trying to be equal to
me." The male chauvinist idea arose that very night.
    So God dismantled the woman--naturally, because God is also
a male chauvinist. Her name was Lilith. He dismantled her just
the way you dismantle any mechanism. He destroyed the woman
and said, "Now I will make another woman who will be lower
than you and will never ask for equality." Then he made the sec-
ond woman, who was Eve, by taking one of the ribs from Adam.
Out of Adam's rib he made the woman, so that she could ask for
equality; she was nothing but a rib.
     It is said that every night when Adam would come back home
and go to sleep, Eve would count his ribs because she was always
afraid that if he lost anther rib, that would mean another woman
was also somewhere around.
     There is no need for more than friendship. Love has to be
a friendly affair in which nobody is superior, in which nobody
is going to decide about things, in which both are fully aware
that they are different, that their approach towards life is differ-
ent, that they think differently, and still, with all these differ-
ences, they love each other.
    Then you will not find any problems. Problems are created by us.
    Don't try to create something superhuman. Be human, accept
the other person's humanity with all the frailty humanity is
prone to. Your partner will commit mistakes just as you commit
mistakes, and you have to learn. To be together is a great learning:
of forgiving, forgetting, understanding that the other is as human
as you are. Just a little forgiveness.
    There is an old proverb: "To err is human and to forgive is
divine." I don't agree. To err is human and to forgive is also
human. To forgive is divine?--then you are raising it too high,
beyond human reach. Bring it within human reach and learn to
forgive. Learn to enjoy forgiveness, learn to offer an apology; you
don't lose anything when you can say to your partner, "I'm sorry,
I was wrong."
    But nobody wants to say, "I was wrong." You want to be always
right. The man tries to prove through arguments that he is right,
and the woman tries through emotions to prove that she is right--
screaming, crying, weeping, tears. And most often she wins!
The man becomes afraid of the neighbors, and just to cool her
down--because the children may wake up--he says, "Cool down,
perhaps you are right." But deep down he still believes he is right.
    To be understanding means that you can be wrong, the woman
may be right. It is not a guarantee that just by being man you have
the power and authority to be right; neither has the woman. If we
were just a little more human and a little more friendly, and we
could say to each other, "I am sorry." And what are the things you
are fighting for? So small, so trivial that if somebody asks you to
tell them about it you will feel embarrassed.
    Just drop the idea that everything has to fit, drop the idea that
there is going to be total harmony because those are not good
ideas. If everything fits you will get bored with each other; if
everything is harmonious you will lose the whole juice of the rela-
tionship, It is good that things don't fit. It is good that there is
always a gap so there is always something to explore, something to
cross over, some bridge to be made. The whole life can be a tremen-
dous exploration of each other if we accept the differences, the
basic uniqueness of each individual, and we make love not a kind
of slavery but a friendship.
    Try friendship, try friendliness; and remember always, there
is nothing that is going to disturb you. When you see a beautiful
woman, you feel attracted; you should understand that when
your wife sees a beautiful man, she must be feeling attracted. If
you are understanding, you will both discuss, lovingly, what a
beautiful woman she was, and what a beautiful man he was.
    But right now the situation is that you can see from miles
away whether the couple coming is married or unmarried. With
the married couple, the husband moves very cautiously and very
carefully; he does not look here and there, as if he has got some
neck problem. And the wife is watching where he is looking, what
he is looking at, and taking note of everything. This is ugly.
    I was traveling--I was going to Kashmir--and in my compart-
ment there was a beautiful woman. Her husband was coming to
her at every station with ice cream, and with bananas, apples. In
Kashmir, the fruits are really good.
     I asked the woman, "How long have you been married?"
     She said, "Seven years."
     I said, "Don't lie to me."
     She said, "What do you mean? Why should I lie to you?"
     I said, "This man has been coming to you at every station and
bringing all these things. So it's clear to me that he is not your
husband."
     She said, "How did you come to know?"
     I said, "If he was your husband, especially if you had been mar-
ried seven years, then once he had dropped you off in this com-
partment, only at the last stop--if you were fortunate--would he
come back to get you; for the rest of the journey he would be gone.
Why should he come to you at every station with all these treats?"
    She said, "Strange, but you are right. He is not my husband; he
is a friend's husband, but he loves me. And what you are saying
about husbands is true. That has happened between me and my
husband. We live together but we are miles apart; I am thinking
to divorce him."
    I said, "Don't do that. Go on living with him and go on loving
this man, and don't let this man divorce his wife. She is probably
already seeing somebody else, so don't be worried. Existence takes
care of things. But if you divorce your husband and get married to
this man, you will not get these ice creams and fruits and all this
attention and love; all of that will disappear."
    If you are just friendly and don't make your friendliness a
legal affair of husband and wife, things will be far better because
then you are not a burden to anybody, not a bondage. There will
be no question of having to fit with each other. You can have your
individuality totally free from each other, and yet be in love.
    And really to be totally different in your individuality creates
the best possibility of love.


				SOUL MATES or CELL MATES?