Do you trust your spouse?

Your wife is not your God. You need not doubt, you need not trust. It is a game -- don't make it so serious! But you have been told to trust your wife, to trust your husband. And because of this very teaching, distrust arises. In fact, you have been told to trust. For centuries it has been known that it is very difficult to trust your own wife, very difficult to trust your own husband; it is next to impossible.

If your wife is interested in you, how can you trust her? If she is still interested in men -- and you are only a man, and there are many many men who are far more handsome -- how can you trust your wife? If she is interested in you she must be interested in others too. She can be trusted only when she loses all interest in you too; then, of course, you can trust her. She has lost all interest in men -- she is almost dead.

You can trust your husband only if he is no longer interested in your body. If he is interested in your face, your body, your proportion, your beauty, how can he avoid being interested in other women's bodies, other women's faces, other women's beauty? It is impossible. You are asking something inhuman or something superhuman. And your poor husband is neither -- neither inhuman nor superhuman. He is just a poor husband, a poor human being... or a poor wife.

Don't demand such impossible things. It is natural; your wife is bound to fantasize about other men. It is impossible for her to dream about you, remember. I have never heard of a wife dreaming about her own husband. Who dreams about one's own husband or one's own wife? For what? Is the day not enough? Do you have to devote your night and your dreams also to the same woman, to the same man?

In dreams you are free; that is the only freedom left. In dreams you have a private world of your own. Your wife cannot peep in your dreams and say, "What are you doing? Stop!" In dreams you can have a few parties with the neighbors' wives. And nothing is wrong in it, nobody is harmed. Just, you have a good sleep and in the morning you have a smile on your face. Don't ask the impossible. 

Mulla Nasruddin said, "For the whole ten years of our married life I always trusted my wife. And then we moved from Calcutta to Poona -- and I discovered we still had the same milkman!" 

There is no need to trust or not to trust your spouses, why bring in the question of trust? it is just a game! Play it joyfully. You make it too serious. And when you start demanding, "Be faithful to me!" you are creating a situation in which it will become impossible for the poor woman to be faithful to you. Give her total freedom; then she may be faithful to you.

Life functions in a very strange way. If you give her total freedom you are WORTH trusting. A great faith may arise in her. If a wife gives total freedom to the husband, that shows she loves him so much that she would like him to be happy in every possible way. Even if sometimes he is happy with some other woman she will feel happy because he is happy. And then a totally different quality of trust may arise. I am not saying that it is bound to arise -- it is not an inevitability. I am saying perhaps, because about human beings nothing can be predicted.

The relationship between wife and husband is a very strange relationship because these are two different worlds. The woman functions in a different way, from a different center. She is more intuitive and the man is more intellectual. That's why they are attracted to each other. Not only physiologically they are polarities, but psychologically also they are polar opposites. They are intimate enemies. There is bound to be a little conflict, and that is not bad; it keeps the relationship alive. Whenever you see that the husband and wife have stopped fighting completely, that means the marriage is really finished; nothing is left now. Even fight is not left... all is finished. 

The butcher and the milkman were discussing the pros and cons of married life. "Do you really believe it is better than being single?" demanded Kali, the butcher.

"In a way," said the milkman, who was fond of philosophizing. "After all, if it were not for marriage, we would have to do all our fighting with strangers." 

Yes, that is true. It is good to fight with your own wife; at least the fight is with the friend. Otherwise you will have to do your fighting with strangers.

There is no need to demand these things -- trust, faith. Live together joyously. Make as much out of your being together as possible. 

Rather than doing that, people create such problems, useless problems, and destroy all their joys. The wife has no obligation to be faithful to you, neither do you have any obligation to be faithful to her. You love her, she loves you; that's enough. Don't bring faith into it. If love cannot keep you together, nothing else can keep you together. And if love cannot keep you together, then anything that can keep you together is dangerous. 

 

Source: from Osho Book “Dhammapada Volume 10”

Dream a little dream of me

When we think about our lives, the people in our lives, the work we go to, the city we live in, the galaxy we’re a part of and the whole universe, we think of it as so real, tangible, ever present and everlasting. But because we perceive it in our minds and we can only perceive that which our minds can grasp, it’s actually a very small universe. It is also transitory – it doesn’t last. It only lasts and exists when we think about it. If we see it as a dream then we can locate truth.

There’s a song that goes, ‘Life is but a dream.’ Take this to be the truth: that life is just a dream. All that we experience is just a dream on which the dreamer is who we are trying to find. Then our minds go still and we can go back to who is actually dreaming. Our minds are creating that which we perceive as real, but which at its depth is just a dream. It’s exactly the same as dreaming when we’re asleep. When we dream, everything seems real – until we wake up.

Enlightenment is the same. We wake up to the fact that our minds have created a very small world and the truth or background on which everything is based is infinite. It is eternal and it is who we are. This is our true self, our true reality, unlike life that is just a dream.
Our minds have an ability to remember things, so they can create perceptions, anticipations, truths and reality that seem very real to us. But since they are based on memory and impermanence, they can change and are therefore not the ultimate truth.

Anything that is ultimately true is permanent and everlasting. Identify with this and be it. Realize that our memories are faulty; they have gaps and holes in them, just like dreams. Can we remember what we did 27 days ago at 3 o’clock in the afternoon? With all the disjointed memories, our minds create a reality in the same way our dream mind creates a reality, and we think that it is real. It might be longer than the dream but it’s based on the same principles. The mind is creating a dream. Let’s wake up from it.

Sometimes when we’re dreaming we realize that we’re dreaming and we relax so that we can enjoy the dream. We just flow with it. We don’t fight it or believe it; instead, we just realize, “Oh, I’m dreaming” and we flow with the dream’s events. We can do the same thing with our waking dream which our mind has created. Flow with it and understand that it’s a dream, and that we are truly far more infinite, everlasting and permanent than it is. We are on which our minds are temporarily creating our dream world. If we open our eyes and wake up from the dream, we can see what is, and this is what our minds can grasp. We can then just be.

Some might argue this, saying, “Well, if it’s just a dream, why do we care how we treat others? Why aren’t we just cruel and vicious to others?” But remember, in a dream every part of the dream is you. And with that understanding, love arises spontaneously for every character in the dream. Even in our waking dream which we’re experiencing right now, there are rules and consequences to our behavior. What makes the dream so much more enjoyable is caring for everyone because they are a part of us and we know that being kind to others also benefits us, making the dream much more pleasant.

However, we still ultimately realize that life is but a dream. This is the understanding that enables us to wake up. We wake up to who we are, what we are, and then all is well. The background on which the dream is arising goes beyond words and descriptions. When we are that background, all is infinitely well, beautiful and peaceful beyond description. We can experience that by waking up from the dream and just being.
We still do our part to improve the dream and make it better because we care for everyone in the dream, and we also realize they are a part of us. But when we wake up from this dream called life, all is well.