LAST NIGHT YOU SAID THAT LOVE IS ALIVE BECAUSE IT IS INSECURE, AND MARRIAGE IS DEAD BECAUSE IT IS SECURE. BUT ISN'T IT TRUE THAT LOVE IN THE SPIRITUAL DEPTH BECOMES MARRIAGE?
No! It never becomes marriage. The deeper it goes the more love it becomes, but never a marriage.
By marriage I mean an outer bond, a legal sanction, social approval. And I say that love never becomes a marriage because it is never secure. It remains love. It becomes more love, more and more, but the more it is, the more insecure it is. There is no security. But if you love, you don't care about security at all. When you don't love, only then you care about security.
When you love, the very moment is so much that you don't care about the next moment, you don't care about the future. What happens tomorrow is not your concern — because what is happening right now is so much. It is too much. It is unbearably much. You don't care. Why does security come to the mind? It comes because of the future. Really, you are not rooted in the present. You are not living in the present. You are not enjoying it. It is not a bliss. The present is not a bliss. Then you hope for the future, then you plan for the future, then you want to make every security for the future.
Love never wants to make any security, it is secure in itself. That is the point. It is so secure in itself that it never thinks about any security; what will happen in the future is not a concern at all — because the future is going to grow out of the present, and if the present is so alive, so blissful, the future will grow out of it. Why worry about it?
When the present is not a bliss, when it is a misery, then you are worried about the future. Then you want to make it secure, safe. But remember, no one can make anything secure. That is not in the nature of things. The future will remain insecure. You can do only one thing: live the present more deeply. That is all you can do. If any security happens through that, that is the only security. And if it is not happening, it is not happening — nothing can be done.
But our mind works in a completely suicidal way. The more miserable the present is, the more you think about the future and want to make it secure. And the more you move into the future, the more the present will be miserable. Then you are moving in a vicious circle. This circle can be broken, but the only way to break it is to live the present moment so deeply that this moment becomes the eternity in its depth. The future is going to be born out of it — it will take its own course, you need not worry about it.
So I say that love never thinks of security because love is so secure in itself. Love is never afraid of insecurity. If it is there at all, if love is there at all, it is not afraid of insecurity. Life is insecure, but love is not afraid of insecurity. Rather, love enjoys insecurity because it gives color to life, changing seasons and moods. It gives tone. It is beautiful. The changing life is beautiful because there is always something to discover, there is always something to encounter which is new.
Really, two lovers move in a constant discovery of each other. And the landscape is infinite. A loving heart is an infinite landscape. You can never finish it. There is no end to it. It goes on and on. It is as spacious as space itself. Love is not worried about insecurity, love can enjoy it. It gives a thrill. Only those who cannot love are afraid of insecurity, because they are not rooted in life. Those who cannot love are always secure in life. They waste their life just making it secure — and it is never secure. It cannot be.
Security is the quality of death; safety is the quality of death. Life is insecure, and love is not afraid of it. Love is not afraid of life, insecurity, because it is so grounded. If you are not grounded and you feel a cyclone coming, you will be afraid. But if you are grounded you will welcome the cyclone, it will become an adventure. If you are rooted, the passing cyclone will become a challenge. You will be shaken to the very roots by it; every fibre will become alive. Then when the cyclone has gone you will not think that it was bad, a misfortune. You will say it was fortunate, a blessing, because all the deadness has been taken away by the cyclone. All that was dead has moved with it and all that was alive has become more alive.
Look at the trees after the cyclone has gone. They are vibrating with life, pulsating with life, radiant, vital; energy is filling them. Because the cyclone gave then an opportunity to feel their roots, to feel their `groundedness.' It was an opportunity to feel themselves.
So one who is rooted in love is never afraid of anything. Whatsoever comes is beautiful, a change — insecurity. Whatsoever happens is beautiful. But it never becomes a marriage. When I say it never becomes a marriage I don't mean that lovers should not marry, but that marriage should not become a substitute for love. It should only be the outer garb, it should not be the substitute. And it will never become a marriage because lovers never take each other for granted. What I mean is that it is deeply psychological — lovers never take each other for granted. Once you start taking the other for granted, the other has become a thing. Now he is not a person. So marriage reduces the partners into things. A husband is a thing, a wife is a thing — predictable, very predictable.
I have been staying in many families all over this country and I have come to know many wives and many husbands. They are not persons at all. They are predictable. If the husband asserts a sentence it can even be said what the wife will say. How the wife will react is predictable. And if the wife says something mechanically the husband will reply to it mechanically.
It is certain. They are playing the same role again and again. Their life is just like a gramophone record when something goes wrong, when the needle sticks at a point and it goes on repeating. It is as predictable as that. You can tell what is going to happen again and again — the husband and wife are stuck somewhere, they have become phonograph records. Then they go on repeating. That repetition creates boredom.
I was staying with a family. The husband said to me, "I have become afraid to be alone with my wife. Only when someone else is there, we both happy. We cannot even go for a holiday without taking someone with us because that someone gives something new. Otherwise we know what is going to happen. It is so predictable that it is not worth anything. We know it already."
It is just as if you are reading the same book, again and again and again…. Lovers are not predictable. That is the insecurity. You don't know what is going to happen — and that is the beauty. You can be fresh and young and alive. But we want to make a thing of each other because a thing can be manipulated easily. And you need not be afraid of a thing. You know its whereabouts, its behavior. You can plan beforehand what to do and what not to do. By marriage I mean an arrangement in which two persons fall to the level of things. Love is not an arrangement: it is a moment to moment encounter, alive. Full of danger of course, but life is so. Marriage is safe, there is no danger; love is unsafe. You never know what is going to happen, the next moment is unknown, remains unknown.
So love is entering every moment into the unknown — And if you are not ready to be alive and in love and insecure, you cannot move into God, because that is a greater insecurity, a greater unknownness.
So love prepares you for prayer. If you can love, and remain with an unknown person without reducing him to a thing, without becoming predictable, encountering moment to moment, you are getting ready for prayer.
Prayer is nothing but love — love for the whole existence. You are living with existence as you are living with your lover: you don't know the mood, you don't know the season, you don't know what is coming. Nothing is known. You go on uncovering it — it is an endless journey.
OSHO