Beloved Master:Recently you talked again about the adverse aspects of marriage. Would you please talk about WHAT YOU MEAN BY INTIMACY? Particularly, when is staying together through difficult times positive and when is it negative?//OSHO://MARRIAGE IS A WAY TO AVOID INTIMACY. It is a trick to create a formal relationship, intimacy is informal. If marriage arises out of intimacy, it is beautiful -- but if you are hoping that intimacy will arise out of marriage, you are hoping in vain. Of course, I know that many people, millions of people, have settled for marriage rather than for intimacy -- because INTIMACY IS GROWTH AND IT IS PAINFUL.MARRIAGE IS VERY SECURE. It is safe, there is no growth in it. One is simply stuck. Marriage is a sexual arrangement, intimacy is a search for love. MARRIAGE IS A SORT OF PROSTITUTION, A PERMANENT SORT. One has got married to a woman or to a man -- it is a permanent prostitution. The arrangement is economical, not psychological, not of the heart.So remember, IF MARRIAGE ARISES OUT OF INTIMACY, THEN IT IS BEAUTIFUL. That means that everybody should have lived together before they get married. The honeymoon should not happen after marriage, it should happen before marriage. One should have lived the dark nights, the beautiful days, the sad moments, the happy moments, together. One should have looked into each other's eyes deeply, into each other's being.HOW TO DECIDE? If your intimacy is helping you to grow and to become mature, then it is positive and good and healthy, wholesome. If it is destructive and it is not allowing you to become mature... rather, it is helping you to remain childish, immature then it is unhealthy.ANY RELATIONSHIP THAT KEEPS YOU CHILDISH IS EVIL. Get out of it. Any relationship that gives you challenges to grow, to go on an adventure, to go deeper and higher into life... I am not saying that a positive marriage will not have problems, it will have MORE problems than the negative marriage. A positive relationship will have more problems -- because every day new challenges will be there. But each time a problem is solved, you will have gone a little higher; each time a challenge is taken, you will find something has become integrated in your being.A NEGATIVE RELATIONSHIP HAS NO PROBLEMS -- OR AT THE MOST, PSEUDO-PROBLEMS, so-called problems, not real problems. Have you not watched it? Wife and husband fighting over trivia. They are not problems. Even if you fight they don't give you anything, they don't help growth. Watch wives and husbands, watch yourself. You may be a husband, a wifeJUST WATCH. If you are fighting over trivia -- small things which don't mean anything any way -- then you will remain immature, childish. Real problems, authentic problems, which really have to be faced, create great turmoil in your being; they bring a cyclone. One has to face them. Never avoid them. THE TRIVIAL QUESTIONS ARE AN ESCAPE FROM THE REAL QUESTIONS. A husband and wife will fight on very small things: which film to go to and which not to go to; what color car has to be purchased, what model, what make; to what restaurant they are going this evening. Such trivia! They do not make any difference. You are making too much fuss about such problems and your relationship is not going to help you, give you any integrity, any center. I will call it negative.THE POSITIVE RELATIONSHIP WILL FACE REAL PROBLEMS. For example: if you are angry or if you are sad, you will be sad in front of your wife, you will not smile a false smile. And you will say, 'I am sad.' This has to be faced. If, walking on the road with your wife, you see a beautiful woman pass by and a great desire and longing arises in your heart, YOU WILL TELL YOUR WIFE THAT THIS WOMAN CREATED A GREAT DESIRE, STIRRED YOUR HEART. You will not avoid her. You will not take your eyes away. And you will not pretend that you have not seen the woman at all -- whether you pretend or not, your wife has already known it! It is impossible for her not to know because immediately your energy, your presence, changes. These are real problems.JUST GETTING MARRIED TO A WOMAN DOESN'T MEAN THAT YOU ARE NO LONGER INTERESTED IN ANY OTHER WOMAN. In fact, the day you are not interested in any other women, you will not be interested in your wife either. Why? For what? What has your wife got that is special? If you are no longer interested in women you will not be interested in your wife either. You are in love with her because you are in love with women still. She is just a woman. And sometimes you come across a woman who enchants you. You will say it to your wife. And you will face the turmoil that will arise. It is not trivia -- because it will create jealousy. it will create a struggle, it will disturb all rest; you will not be able to sleep at night. The wife will be throwing pillows at you.TO BE TRUE CREATES REAL PROBLEMS. To be authentic creates real problems. And say whatsoever is the case never demur, never look sideways. Look straight and be true. And help the wife to be true. Help the husband to be true.Yes, there are problems in real intimacy, more problems than in a negative state, more problems. Because if you are really intimate with the woman how can you avoid the fact that you become interested in another woman? You have to say it. That's part of love, part of intimacy. YOU DENUDE YOURSELF, YOU EXPOSE YOURSELF TOTALLY, YOU DON'T HOLD ANYTHING BACK. Even if during the night you dream a dream about another woman, in the morning you can relate it to your wife.I have heard about a film director. During the night he started talking to his girlfriend in his sleep and he was talking loudly. He was saying beautiful things and the wife started staring at him. When you are married, even in your dreams you remain afraid of your wife, so suddenly he became afraid. What was he saying? He felt his wife looking at him and with great presence of mind he said, 'Cut! Now another scene.'.... as if he was directing a film!If you really love the woman, in the morning you will tell her your dream -- that you made love to a woman in the night in your dream. EVERYTHING HAS TO BE SHARED. The whole heart has to be shared.INTIMACY MEANS THAT THERE IS NO PRIVACY. You don't carry anything private now -- at least with the person you are intimate with. You drop privacy. You are nude and naked. Good, bad, whatsoever you are, you open your heart. And whatsoever the cost, you pay for it; whatsoever the trouble, you go through with it. That brings growth.AND YOU HELP THE OTHER PERSON ALSO TO DROP ALL INHIBITIONS, SCREENS, MASKS. In an intimate relationship, one comes to see the original face of the other, and one comes to show his own original face. If a relationship helps you to find your original face, then it is meditative, then it is religious. If your relationship simply helps you to create more and more masks and hypocrisies, then it is irreligious.Try to understand my definition. If my definition is understood then out of a hundred marriages, ninety-nine are irreligious because they are simply creating more and more falsity. FROM THE VERY BEGINNING THE FALSITY STARTS.I have heard:The minister, casting an appraising eye over the bridal couple before him and the goodly crowd come to witness the ceremony, intoned, 'If there is anyone here who knows why these two should not be joined together in wedlock, let him speak now or forever hold his peace.''I've got something to say,' a voice rang out bold and clear.'You shut up!' snapped the minister. 'You're the groom!'From the very beginning! They are not even married yet. The minister said, 'You shut up! You are the groom.' AND THAT'S HOW THE LIFE OF A MARRIED COUPLE STARTS.People keep quiet, they don't say anything. THEY DON'T SAY THE TRUTH AT ALL. They pretend lies. They smile when they don't want to smile, they kiss when they don't want to kiss. Naturally, when you kiss and you don't want to kiss, the kiss is poisonous. Naturally, when you don't want to smile and you have to smile, your smile is ugly, it is political.AND THEN SOMEHOW ONE GETS ACCUSTOMED TO THESE THINGS: one settles to the falsity, to the inauthenticity of life. And one consoles oneself in a thousand and one ways:'Oh, we're very happy,' insisted the husband. 'Of course, once in a while my wife throws dishes at me. But that doesn't change the situation one bit, because if she hits me she's happy, and if she misses me I'm happy!'One by and by comes to such an arrangement -- both are happy.The car in which the elderly couple were riding went over the cliff. It was an awful wreck.'Where am I?' moaned the man when he opened his eyes. 'In heaven?''No,' said his dazed wife. 'I'm still with you.'THESE SETTLEMENTS ARE VERY HELLISH. What you know in the name of relationship is just a pseudo-game.So remember it as a criterion: IF YOU ARE GROWING MORE AND BECOMING AN INDIVIDUAL, if life is happening more to you, if you are becoming more open, if more beauty is felt in existence, if more poetry is arising in your heart, if more love flows through you, more compassion, if you are becoming more aware... then the relationship is good. Carry on. Then it is not a marriage, then it is intimacy.BUT IF THE REVERSE IS HAPPENING: if all poetry is disappearing and life is becoming prosaic; if all love is disappearing and life is becoming just a load, a dead load; if all song is dying and you are just living as a duty, then it is better to escape out of this prison. It is better for you and it is better for the partner with whom you are living.OSHOTao: The Pathless PathVol 2, Ch #4: Tao Tantraam in Buddha Hall