You are asking, "Is it possible to be married and to be free?"

If you take marriage non-seriously, then you can be free. If you take it seriously, then freedom is impossible. Take marriage just as a game -- it is a game. Have a little sense of humor, that it is a role you are playing on the stage of life; but it is not something that belongs to existence or has any reality -- it is a fiction.

But people are so stupid that they even start taking fiction for reality. I have seen people reading fiction with tears in their eyes, because in the fiction things are going so tragically. It is a very good device in the movies that they put the lights off, so everybody can enjoy the movie, laugh, cry, be sad, be happy.

If there was light it would be a little difficult -- what will others think? And they know perfectly well that the screen is empty -- there is nobody; it is just a projected picture. But they forget it completely.

And the same has happened with our lives. Many things which are simply to be taken humorously, we take so seriously -- and from that seriousness begins our problem.

In the first place, why should you get married? You love someone, live with someone -- it is part of your basic rights. You can live with someone, you can love someone.

Marriage is not something that happens in heaven, it happens here, through the crafty priests. But if you want to join the game with society and don't want to stand alone and aloof, you make it clear to your wife or to your husband that this marriage is just a game:

"Never take it seriously. I will remain as independent as I was before marriage, and you will remain as independent as you were before marriage. Neither I am going to interfere in your life, nor are you going to interfere in my life; we will live as two friends together, sharing our joys, sharing our freedom -- but not becoming a burden on each other.

And any moment we feel that the spring has passed, the honeymoon is over, we will be sincere enough not to go on pretending, but to say to each other that we loved much -- and we will remain grateful to each other forever, and the days of love will haunt us in our memories, in our dreams, as golden -- but the spring is over.

Our paths have come to a point, where although it is sad, we have to part, because now, living together is not a sign of love. If I love you, I will leave you the moment I see my love has become a misery to you. If you love me, you will leave me the moment you see that your love is creating an imprisonment for me."

Love is the highest value in life: It should not be reduced to stupid rituals. And love and freedom go together -- you cannot choose one and leave the other. A man who knows freedom is full of love, and a man who knows love is always willing to give freedom.

If you cannot give freedom to the person you love, to whom can you give freedom? Giving freedom is nothing but trusting. Freedom is an expression of love.

So whether you are married or not, remember, all marriages are fake -- just social conveniences. Their purpose is not to imprison you and bind you to each other; their purpose is to help you to grow with each other. But growth needs freedom; and in the past, all the cultures have forgotten that without freedom, love dies.

You see a bird on the wing in the sun, in the sky, and it looks so beautiful. Attracted by its beauty, you can catch the bird and put it in a golden cage.

Do you think it is the same bird? Superficially, yes, it is the same bird who was flying in the sky; but deep down it is not the same bird -- because where is its sky, where is its freedom?

This golden cage may be valuable to you; it is not valuable to the bird. For the bird, to be free in the sky is the only valuable thing in life. And the same is true about human beings.

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（英语点津姗姗编辑）