Questioner: Namaskaram Sadhguru. Why do married women in India wear a Mangal Sutra? Does it have a spiritual significance?
Sadhguru: First of all, let’s understand, “What is marriage?” “Why?” “Why the need for two people to come together.” Being in California, I was about to make the mistake, why the need for a man and a woman to come together? I cannot risk that anymore.
When you were eight years of age, eight, when you were eight years of age, you had no such need. Hmm? Hmm? You were just fine by yourself, whoever was there around you, to play around and you were just fine, nothing need to happen. Slowly you became fourteen, fifteen… maybe twelve, thirteen, fourteen, fifteen. I’m adjusting the age according to recent times. Slowly, your hormones started hijacking your intelligence. Once it got hijacked, then wherever you looked, being a woman, everything looked in a particular way. If you’re a man, everything looked another way. Suddenly, the whole world changed. Yes?
The same world. But in your perception, if you look at a person, you can’t just look at them simply the way they are. All kinds of meanings came in to it, which did not exist just a few years ago. Because it’s the power of chemistry. Just you know, in this whole body which weighs 50-60 kgs, do you know what is the weight of the hormones which are doing this kind of mischief in you? It’s a few milligrams per day, do you understand? These few milligrams of chemicals can completely freak your life out, change your whole perception of life for good, isn’t it? You can’t look at the world anymore simply the way it is, you got so identified with the body. Till then, you weren’t, please see.
It’s only after these hormones started coursing your blood you being a man or a woman got established, that is when the body became so important, isn’t it? As a child, the body was just an instrument, it was not all that important. So, once this happened, you started thinking in different ways and you’re thinking you’re doing so many things, but what I want you to know is, all that’s happening is – nature is simply interested that somehow it makes you reproduce. It doesn’t matter you sing a song, you dance, you go around, do what – Mother Nature is waiting, ‘Okay, when are you going to reproduce ? ’We try to add our own colors, and culturally we try to make so many things attached to it, but essentially the push is towards reproduction, isn’t it?
That sounds very gross, totally uncivilized but nature does not know any civilization, only societies know civilization, isn’t it? So, such a compulsive need is there in people, you must see first of all, whether for you as a person is it such an important thing or is it just a passing thing? I would say, for at least twenty-five to thirty percent of the people, they need not even go in that direction because it is just a passing interest. For another thirty to forty percent, it may be little more long, they get into this. For ten years, twelve years they feel good, after that they think it’s a burden. There are some people for whom the need is very strong that they need this. Another twenty-five, thirty percent need it for a much longer period. They definitely need to get into such arrangements and whatever.
As mind has memory, physical body has its own memory. This is called runanubandha
Above all, you must understand as body… as mind has memory, physical body has its own memory. This is called runanubandha. You have heard of a word like this? The Indian people? Runanubandha? Runanubandha means it’s the physical memory. Physical body itself has its memory, if it goes through certain experiences – it remembers. And body responds and reacts in many ways in future, based on this memory. Physical intimacies always cause this memory in a big way, and if you imprint with too many memories and there is a certain level of confusion in the body, you work out everything in your life, still you will find, you do not know what it means to be blissful; there is no ease. There is no ease in your system because there is a complex impressions of memory in your system and it can confuse the body in such a way that it’ll cause much trouble to one’s life.
Understanding all these things, we established certain patterns, but today’s social situations are doing something else. You’re married? So, in India, when you got married they tied Mangal Sutram to you. Hmm? Mangal Sutram means it’s a sacred thread. If this is properly done, what it meant was – you create this thread in a certain way, if you have forgotten this, every year you’re supposed to renew this Mangal Sutram, you know this? Hmm? Not being done anymore because it’s a thick gold chain.
It was supposed to be either raw cotton thread prepared in a certain way or raw silk thread, so that – there is a whole science, there is a whole way of manipulating one’s energies or using one’s energies, which is a Tantric way where a certain Nadi… you know what’s a Nadi? We have talked about this – the 72,000 Nadis. Certain Nadi from your system is taken and a certain Nadi from your… the betrothed one is taken and the thread is prepared in a certain way, and it’s tied to you.
Now, the moment you have physical intimacy, it’s not just the bodies that met, two people’s energies become like this [clasping hands]. Now you can’t break it. If you break it, you will have to severely damage both the people, you have to tear them apart. This is how marriages were conducted.
They got them married when they were very young. You know, eight, nine, eleven years of age, they got them married, but they tied them up in such a way, it never occurred to them that they need to look elsewhere. It never occurred to them. This may look horrifying for today’s mind, but I want you to know the stability of that, gave them such power, that they could focus on their lives to do what they want to do. Because there is no such thing as emotional insecurity. It is a new thing in India. There is simply no such thing as emotional insecurity because there is such a stable bonding. Not an idea ever occurs in people’s mind “Could my husband be doing something?” “Could my wife be doing something else?” Such a thing never occurs because they have been tied internally in a certain way. But that’s become just an empty ritual now.
Even now some of the marriages that I have performed, we have done this to people and the level of harmony in them is phenomenal. You can see how two people function as one and what a power it is for two people to function just as one being, you know? It’s an enormous power. So, somewhere we thought two legs are not so stable, four legs are always more stable. So we tied up these two-two legs together. Two legs are not a very… why we shifted from a bicycle to a car? More stable. Though it takes more space, though it’s more expensive. Though it’s more polluting. We chose a car to a bicycle because it’s more stable, you don’t have to balance all the time. That’s why marriage. Otherwise, all the time you have to be balancing, all the time you have to be seeking something, all the time you have to feel insecure about your emotional connections with people around you – which won’t leave much of you to focus on what you could do with your life.
