The Family: Prisoners of Love

 

 

Question 3:

The family has been the basic social unit for thousands of years, yet you doubt its validity in your new world. What do you suggest can replace it?

 

 

Man has outgrown the family. The utility of the family is finished; it has lived too long. It is one of the most ancient institutions, so only very perceptive people can see that it is dead already. It will take time for others to recognize the fact that the family is dead.

 

It has done its work. It is no longer relevant in the new context of things; it is no longer relevant for the new humanity that is just being born.

 

The family has been good and bad. It has been a help - man has survived through it - and it has been very harmful because it has corrupted the human mind. But there was no alternative in the past, there was no way to choose anything else. It was a necessary evil. That need not be so in the future. The future can have alternative styles.

 

My idea is that the future is not going to be one fixed pattern, it will have many, many alternative styles. If a few people still choose to have a family, they should have the freedom to have it. It will be a very small percentage.

 

There are families on the earth - very rare, not more than one percent - which are really beautiful, which are really beneficial, in which growth happens; in which there is no authority, no power trip, no possessiveness; in which children are not destroyed, in which the wife is not trying to destroy the husband and the husband is not trying to destroy the wife; where love is and freedom is; where people have gathered together just out of joy - not for other motives; where there is no politics.

 

Yes, these kinds of families have existed on the earth; they are still there. For these people there is no need to change. In the future they can continue to live in families. But for the great majority, the family is an ugly thing. You can ask the psychoanalysts and they will say, "All kinds of mental disease arise out of the family. All kinds of psychoses, neuroses arise out of the family.

 

The family creates a very, very ill human being." There is no need; alternative styles should be possible. For me, one alternative style is the commune - it is the best.

 

A commune means people living in a liquid family. Children belong to the commune, they belong to all. There is no personal property, no personal ego. A man lives with a woman because they feel like living together, because they cherish it, they enjoy it. The moment they feel that love is no longer happening, they don't go on clinging to each other. They say good-bye with all gratitude, with all friendship. They start moving with other people. The only problem in the past was what to do with the children. In a commune, children can belong to the commune, and that will be far better. They will have more opportunities to grow with many more kinds of people.

 

Otherwise a child grows up with the mother. For years the mother and the father are the only two images of human beings for him. Naturally he starts imitating them. Children turn out to be imitators of their fathers, and they perpetuate the same kind of illness in the world as their parents did. They become ditto copies. It is very destructive. And there is no way for the children to do something else, they don't have any other source of information.

 

If a hundred people live together in a commune there will be many male members, many female members; the child need not get fixed and obsessed with one pattern of life. He can learn from his father, he can learn from his uncles, he can learn from all the men in the community. He will have a bigger soul. Families crush people and give them very little souls. In the community the child will have a bigger soul, he will have more possibilities, he will be far more enriched in his being. He will see many women; he will not have one idea of a woman. It is very destructive to have only one single idea of a woman - because throughout your whole life you will be searching and searching for your mother.

 

Whenever you fall in love with a woman, watch! There is every possibility that you have found someone that is similar to your mother, and that may be the thing that you should have avoided. Each child is angry with his mother. The mother has to prohibit many things, the mother has to say no - it cannot be avoided. Even a good mother sometimes has to say no, and restrict and deny.

 

The child feels rage, anger. He hates the mother and loves the mother also, because she is his survival, his source of life and energy. So he hates the mother and loves the mother together. And that becomes the pattern. You will love the woman and you will hate the same woman. And you don't have any other kind of choice. You will always go on searching, unconsciously, for your mother. And that happens to women also, they go on searching for their father. Their whole life is a search to find dad as a husband.

 

Now your dad is not the only person in the world; the world is far richer. And, in fact, if you can find the dad you will not be happy. You can be happy with a beloved, with a lover, not with your daddy. If you can find your mother you will not be happy with her. You know her already, there is nothing else to explore. That is familiar already, and familiarity breeds contempt.

 

You should search for something new, but you don't have any image. In a commune a child will have a richer soul. He will know many women, he will know many men; he will not be addicted to one or two persons.

 

The family creates an obsession in you, and the obsession is against humanity. If your father is fighting with somebody and you see he is wrong, that doesn't matter - you have to be with the father and on his side. Just as people say, "Wrong or right, my country is my country!" so they say, "My father is my father, wrong or right. My mother is my mother, I have to be with her." Otherwise it will be a betrayal. It teaches you to be unjust. You can see your mother is wrong and she is fighting with the neighbor and the neighbor is right - but you have to be with the mother.

 

This is the learning of an unjust life. In a commune you will not be attached too much to one family - there will be no family to be attached to. You will be more free, less obsessed; you will be more just. And you will have love from many sources; you will feel that life is loving. The family teaches you a kind of conflict with society, with other families.

 

The family demands monopoly; it asks you to be for it and against all. You have to be in the service of the family. You have to go on fighting for the name and the fame of the family. The family teaches you ambition, conflict, aggression. In a commune you will be less aggressive, you will be more at ease with the world because you have known so many people.

 

That's what I am going to create here - a commune, where all will be friends. Even husbands and wives should not be more than friends. Their marriage should be just an agreement between the two - that they have decided to be together because they are happy together. The moment even one of them decides that unhappiness is settling, then they separate. There is no need for any divorce. Because there is no marriage, there is no divorce. One lives spontaneously.

 

When you live miserably, by and by you become habituated to misery. Never for a single moment should one tolerate any misery. It may have been good to live with a man in the past, and joyful, but if it is no longer joyful then you have to get out of it. And there is no need to get angry and destructive, and there is no need to carry a grudge - because nothing can be done about love.

 

Love is like a breeze. You see - it just comes. If it is there it is there. Then it is gone. And when it is gone it is gone. Love is a mystery, you cannot manipulate it. Love should not be manipulated, love should not be legalized, love should not be forced - for no reason at all.

 

In a commune, people will be living together just out of the sheer joy of being together, for no other reason. And when the joy has disappeared, they part. Maybe it feels sad, but they have to part. Maybe the nostalgia of the past still lingers in the mind, but they have to part.

 

They owe it to each other that they should not live in misery, otherwise misery becomes a habit. They part with heavy hearts, but with no grudge. They will seek other partners.

 

In the future there will be no marriage as it has been in the past, and no divorce as it has been in the past. Life will be more liquid, more trusting. There will be more trust in the mysteries of life than in the clarities of the law, more trust in life itself than in anything - the court, the police, the priest, the church. And the children should belong to all - they should not carry the badges of their family.

 

They will belong to the commune; the commune will take care of them. This will be the most revolutionary step in human history - for people to start living in communes and to start being truthful, honest, trusting, and to go on dropping the law more and more. In a family, love disappears sooner or later. In the first place it may not have been there at all from the very beginning. It may have been an arranged marriage - for other motives, for money, power, prestige.

 

There may not have been any love from the very beginning. Then children are born out of a wedlock which is more like a deadlock - children are born out of no love. From the very beginning they become deserts. And this no-love state in the house makes them dull, unloving. They learn their first lesson of life from their parents, and the parents are unloving and there is constant jealousy and fighting and anger.

 

And the children go on seeing the ugly faces of their parents. Their very hope is destroyed. They can't believe that love is going to happen in their life if it has not happened in their parents' life. And they see other parents also, other families also. Children are very perceptive; they go on looking all around and observing.

 

When they see that there is no possibility of love, they start feeling that love is only in poetry, it exists only for poets, visionaries - it has no actuality in life. And once you have learned the idea that love is just poetry, then it will never happen because you have become closed to it.

 

To see it happen is the only way to let it happen later on in your own life. If you see your father and mother in deep love, in great love, caring for each other, with compassion for each other, with respect for each other - then you have seen love happening. Hope arises. A seed falls into your heart and starts growing. You know it is going to happen to you too. If you have not seen it, how can you believe it is going to happen to you too? If it didn't happen to your parents, how can it happen to you? In fact, you will do everything to prevent it happening to you - otherwise it will look like a betrayal of your parents.

 

This is my observation of people: women go on saying deep in the unconscious, "Look, Mom, I am suffering as much as you suffered." Boys go on saying to themselves later on, "Dad, don't be worried, my life is as miserable as yours. I have not gone beyond you, I have not betrayed you. I remain the same miserable person as you were. I carry the chain, the tradition. I am your representative, Dad, I have not betrayed you. Look, I am doing the same thing as you used to do to my mother - I am doing it to the mother of my children. And what you used to do to me, I am doing to my children. I am bringing them up in the same way you brought me up."

 

Each generation goes on giving its neurosis to the new people that come to the earth. And the society persists with all its madness, misery. No, a different kind of thing is needed now. Man has come of age and the family is a thing of the past; it really has no future.

 

The commune will be the thing that can replace the family, and it will be far more beneficial. But in a commune only meditative people can be together. Only when you know how to celebrate life can you be together; only when you know that space I call meditation can you be together, can you be loving. The old nonsense of monopolizing love has to be dropped, then only can you live in a commune.

 

If you go on carrying your old ideas of monopoly - that your woman should not hold somebody else's hand and your husband should not laugh with anybody else - if you carry these nonsensical things in your mind then you cannot become part of a commune.

 

If your husband is laughing with somebody else, it is good. Your husband is laughing - laughter is always good, with whom it happens it doesn't matter. Laughter is good, laughter is a value. If your woman is holding somebody else's hand - good. Warmth is flowing - the flow of warmth is good, it is a value. With whom it is happening is immaterial. And if it is happening to your woman with many people, it will go on happening with you too. If it has stopped happening with anybody else, then it is going to stop with you too.

 

The whole old idea is so stupid! It is as if the moment your husband goes out, you say to him, "Don't breathe anywhere else. When you come home you can breathe as much as you want, but only when you are with me can you breathe. Outside hold your breath, become a yogi. I don't want you to breathe anywhere else." Now this looks stupid.

 

But then why should love not be like breathing. Love is breathing. Breathing is the life of the body and love is the life of the soul. It is far more important than breathing. Now when your husband goes out, you make it a point that he should not laugh with anybody else, not at least with any other woman. He should not be loving to anybody else.

 

So for twenty-three hours he is unloving, then for one hour when he is in bed with you, he pretends to love. You have killed his love. It is flowing no more. If for twenty-three hours he has to remain a yogi, holding his love, afraid, do you think he can relax suddenly for one hour? It is impossible. You destroy the man, you destroy the woman, and then you are fed-up, bored.

 

Then you start feeling, "He does not love me!" And it is you who created the whole thing. And then he starts feeling that you don't love him, and you are no longer as happy as you used to be before.

 

When people meet on a beach, when they meet in a garden, when they are on a date, nothing is settled and everything is liquid; both are very happy. Why? Because they are free. The bird on the wing is one thing, and the same bird in a cage is another thing. They are happy because they are free.

 

Man cannot be happy without freedom, and your old family structure destroyed freedom. And because it destroyed freedom it destroyed happiness, it destroyed love. It has been a kind of survival measure. Yes, it has somehow protected the body, but it has destroyed the soul. Now there is no need for it. We have to protect the soul too. That is far more essential and far more important.

 

There is no future for the family, not in the sense that it has been understood up to now. There is a future for love and love relationships. "Husband" and "wife" are going to become ugly and dirty words.

 

And whenever you monopolize the woman or the man, naturally you monopolize the children also. I agree totally with Thomas Gordon. He says, "I think all parents are potential child-abusers, because the basic way of raising children is through power and authority. I think it is destructive when many parents have the idea: 'It is my kid, I can do what I want to do with my kid.' It is violent, it is destructive to have the idea: 'It is my kid and I can do whatsoever I want with it.'

 

A kid is not a thing, it is not a chair, is not a car. You cannot do whatsoever you want to do with him. He comes through you but he does not belong to you. He belongs to God, to existence. You are at the most a caretaker; don't become possessive. But the whole family idea is one of possession - possess property, possess the woman, possess the man, possess children - and possessiveness is poison.

 

Hence, I am against the family. But I am not saying that those who are really happy in their families - flowing, alive, loving - have to destroy it. No, there is no need. Their family is already a commune, a small commune. And of course a bigger commune will be far better, with more possibilities, more people.

 

Different people bring different songs, different people bring different lifestyles, different people bring different breathings, different breezes, different people bring different rays of light - and children should be showered with as many different lifestyles as possible, so they can choose, so they can have the freedom to choose.

 

And they should be enriched by knowing so many women that they are not obsessed by the mother's face or the mother's style. Then they will be able to love many more women, many more men. Life will be more of an adventure.

 

I have heard: A mother visiting a department store took her son to the toy department. Spying a gigantic rocking-horse, he climbed upon it and rocked back and forth for almost an hour. "Come on, son," the mother pleaded, "I have to go home to get father's dinner." The little lad refused to budge and all her efforts were unavailing. The department manager also tried to coax the little fellow, without meeting with any success.

 

Eventually, in desperation, they called for the store psychiatrist. Gently he walked over and whispered a few words in the boy's ear, and immediately the lad jumped off and ran to his mother's side. "How did you do it?" the mother asked incredulously. "What did you say to him?" The psychiatrist hesitated for a moment, then said, "All I said was, 'If you don't jump off that rocking-horse at once, son, I will knock the stuffing out of you!' "

 

People learn sooner or later that fear works, that authority works, that power works. And children are so helpless and they are so dependent on the parents that you can make them afraid. It becomes your technique to exploit them and oppress them, and they have nowhere to go.

 

In a commune they will have many places to go. They will have many uncles and many aunts and many people - they will not be so helpless. They will not be in your hands as much as they are right now. They will have more independence, less helplessness. You will not be able to coerce them so easily. And all that they see in the home is misery. Sometimes - yes I know - sometimes the husband and wife are loving, but whenever they are loving it is always in private.

 

Children don't know about it. Children see only the ugly faces, the ugly side. When the mother and the father are loving, they are loving behind closed doors. They keep quiet, they never allow the children to see what love is. The children see only their conflict - nagging, fighting, hitting each other, in gross and subtle ways, insulting each other, humiliating each other.

 

Children go on seeing what is happening. A man is sitting in his living room reading the newspaper when his wife comes over and slaps him. "What was that for?" asked the indignant husband. "That is for being a lousy lover." A little while later the husband goes over to where the wife is sitting watching TV and he gives her a resounding smack. "What was that for?" she yelled at him. To which he answered, "For knowing the difference."

 

This goes on and on, and the children go on watching what is happening. Is this life? Is this what life is meant for? Is this all there is? They start losing hope. Before they enter into life they are already failures, they have accepted failure. If their parents who are so wise and powerful cannot succeed, what hope is there for them? It is impossible.

 

And they have learned the tricks - tricks of being miserable, tricks of being aggressive. Children never see love happening. In a commune there will be more possibilities. Love should come out into the open a little more. People should know that love happens. Small children should know what love is. They should see people caring for each other.

 

The idea is that you can fight in public but you cannot be loving in public. Fight is okay. You can murder, that is allowed. In fact, when two persons are fighting, a crowd will stand there to see what is happening. And everybody will enjoy it. That's why people go on reading and enjoying murder stories, suspense stories, detective stories. Murder is allowed, love is not allowed. If you are loving in public it is thought to be obscene.

 

Now this is absurd. Love is obscene and murder is not obscene? Lovers are not to be loving in public and generals can go on walking in public showing all their medals - these are the murderers and these medals are for murder! Those medals show how much they have murdered, how many people they have killed. That is not obscene.

 

That should be the obscene thing. Nobody should be allowed to fight in public. It is obscene; violence is obscene. How can love be obscene? But love is thought to be obscene. You have to hide it in darkness. You have to make love so nobody knows. You have to make it so silently, so stealthily - naturally you can't enjoy it much. And people don't become aware of what love is.

 

Children, particularly, have no way of knowing what love is. In a better world, with more understanding, love will be there all over. Children will see what caring is. Children will see what joy it brings when you care for somebody. You can see it happening here. You can see little Siddhartha holding a girl's hand in a great caring, in great love. If they watch, they learn. If they know it happens, their doors open.

 

Love should be accepted more, violence should be rejected more. Love should be available more. Two persons making love should not be worried that no one should know. They should laugh, they should sing, they should scream in joy, so that the whole neighborhood knows that somebody is being loving to somebody - somebody is making love.

 

Love should be such a gift. Love should be so divine. It is sacred. You can publish a book about a man being killed; that's okay, that is not pornography. To me, that is pornography. You cannot publish a book about a man lovingly holding a woman in deep, naked embrace - that is pornography.

 

This world has existed against love up till now. Your family is against love, your society is against love, your state is against love. It is a miracle that love has still remained a little, it is unbelievable that love still goes on - not as it should be, it is just a small drop not an ocean - but that it has survived so many enemies is a miracle. It has not been destroyed completely - it is a miracle.

 

My vision of a commune is of loving people living together, with no antagonism towards each other, with no competition with each other, with love that is fluid, more available, with no jealousy and no possession. And the children will belong to all because they belong to God - everybody takes care of them

 

And they are such beautiful people, these children, who will not take care of them? And they have so many possibilities to see so many people loving, and each person loves in his own way, each woman loves in her own way - let the children see, play, enjoy.

 

While their parents are making love, let them be there, let them be a part of it. Let them watch what happens to their mother when she makes love - how ecstatic her face becomes, what glow comes to her face, how her eyes close and she goes deep into herself; how their father becomes orgasmic, how he screams with joy.

 

Let the children know! Let the children know many people loving. They will become more rich. And I tell you that if these children exist in the world, none of them will read Playboy. There will be no need. Nude and naked pictures will disappear. They simply show starved sex, starved love.

 

The world will become almost nonsexual, it will be so loving. Your priest and your policeman have created all kinds of obscenity in the world. They are the source of all that is ugly. And your family has played a great part.

 

The family has to disappear. It has to disappear into a bigger vision of a commune, of a life not based on small identities, more floating. If families disappear, churches will disappear automatically, because families belong to churches.

 

In a commune, there will be all kinds of people, all kinds of religion, all kinds of philosophies floating around, and the child will have the opportunity to learn. One day he goes with one uncle to the church, another day he goes with another uncle to the temple, and he learns all that is there and he can have a choice. He can choose and decide to what religion he would like to belong. Nothing is imposed.

 

Life can become a paradise here and now. The barriers have to be removed. The family is one of the greatest barriers.

 

-Osho, "Sufis: The People of the Path, Vol 2, #12, Q3"