Subtitles
when we go back to the origins of 00:00:01
when we go back to the origins of Western civilization in the Hebrew and 00:00:05
Christian traditions we find that the 00:00:13
idea of marriage and the experience of 00:00:18
falling in love are really rather 00:00:19
separate things because in those earlier 00:00:24
times in agrarian cultures nobody ever 00:00:30
chose their marriage partner there are 00:00:34
certain exceptions to this that in 00:00:37
ancient Greece you will occasionally 00:00:41
find a woman who is called a Parthenos 00:00:44
which has been mistranslated virgin the 00:00:48
correct meaning of Parthenos is a woman 00:00:51
who chooses her own husband and there 00:00:55
were very few of them and in that 00:00:57
passage in the gospel and the book of 00:00:59
the prophet Isaiah 00:01:00
where it says behold a virgin shall 00:01:01
conceive and bear a son and his name 00:01:03
should be called Emmanuel that is in 00:01:06
Greek Parthenos a parthenon shall 00:01:08
conceive and that therefore has nothing 00:01:11
strictly to do with a virgin although a 00:01:13
woman who chooses her own husband might 00:01:15
conceivably be a virgin but by-and-large 00:01:21
a marriage was an alliance of families 00:01:27
and it was contracted not simply for the 00:01:33
purpose of raising children yes but also 00:01:37
to create a social unit smaller than a 00:01:41
village a village therefore being a 00:01:45
cluster of families and these families 00:01:48
were rather large so families allied the 00:01:54
oldsters the grandpa and grandma who had 00:01:57
an enormous voice in who their children 00:01:59
were going to marry used to as you know 00:02:02
I'm suppose this is no news to any of 00:02:04
you used to dhikr and use go-betweens 00:02:08
and they considered not only whether 00:02:11
this girl was suitable for their 00:02:13
son and vice versa but also what kind of 00:02:16
a dowry she would bring whether it would 00:02:18
be advantageous to the two families to 00:02:20
form such an alliance and of course 00:02:22
these things almost up to quite recent 00:02:24
times were always important in the 00:02:27
marital affairs of royal families but as 00:02:31
his notorious all royal families and 00:02:34
kings and queens kept concubines and had 00:02:38
outside arrangements when and if they 00:02:41
should happen to fall in love and even 00:02:44
if they didn't they had mistresses 00:02:47
simply to prevent monogamy from becoming 00:02:50
monotony so that is the basis you see 00:02:56
and that is why to this day a marriage 00:03:00
is a civil or and/or religious ceremony 00:03:05
the basis of which is a contract a legal 00:03:12
contract which one signs on the dotted 00:03:16
line and therefore there are all kinds 00:03:19
of laws as laws relate to contracts that 00:03:22
this contract is very difficult to get 00:03:24
out of the rationale for that being 00:03:27
quite obvious that society believes that 00:03:32
it requires a secure environment for 00:03:34
children but also just the general 00:03:38
stability of things because when people 00:03:43
break up a marriage it's sort of 00:03:45
unnerving for everyone you see a couple 00:03:50
and you think for a long time that 00:03:52
they're the happiest and best adjusted 00:03:54
couple you ever met the next thing you 00:03:56
know is that they've split up and you 00:03:59
begin to think now what goes on here are 00:04:02
all my friends crazy because you see 00:04:05
people breaking up all around course you 00:04:08
call it breaking up 00:04:09
that's a put down phrase to break up 00:04:15
especially it sounds like smashing 00:04:17
something as if there's something 00:04:18
precious had been smashed whereas it may 00:04:22
be something quite different altogether 00:04:24
depending on how you evaluate it 00:04:24
but now into this kind of feudal conception of marriage there came in 00:04:31
very largely I think as a result of the 00:04:40
poetic movement that was centered in 00:04:45
southern France in Provence in the 00:04:47
Middle Ages what is called the cult of 00:04:51
courtly love this is something about 00:04:58
which scholars dispute according to one 00:05:03
theory the nightly or courtly lover who 00:05:10
was also a poet would select a lady to 00:05:17
be his heart's desire preferably a 00:05:20
married lady and he would yearn for her 00:05:26
and sing songs under her window and send 00:05:32
messages to her and little tokens of his 00:05:34
devotion but according to this 00:05:36
particular theory he must never go to 00:05:38
bed with her not only would that be 00:05:41
adultery but it would spoil the state of 00:05:43
being in love that it should always be 00:05:47
an unfulfilled state and an unhappy 00:05:50
state this is the theory of Dennis W MA 00:05:53
in his book love in the Western world or 00:05:55
passion and society it has two titles 00:05:57
and the other theory is probably more 00:06:00
realistic that this was first of all the 00:06:06
the the great ladies of the noble 00:06:10
families were awfully bored because 00:06:15
their husbands were always out hunting 00:06:17
and making war and wenching and so on 00:06:20
and therefore they had to have lovers 00:06:22
too and so they did indeed have a 00:06:27
doubtless affairs on the side and a 00:06:30
great deal of poetry arose out about 00:06:32
this because you see it's a the my 00:06:35
friend 00:06:36
Janka Varda or always says that laws 00:06:40
about sexual 00:06:41
ships should never be liberalized there 00:06:46
should always be strict disapproval of 00:06:49
adultery and fornication because if 00:06:52
there is not that strict disapproval and 00:06:53
if it's not difficult to attain it's 00:06:55
less fun and I have worked out those of 00:07:01
you who've read my book 00:07:02
beyond theology I've worked out a whole 00:07:04
theory of the Christian repression of 00:07:06
sex that the secret intent of this was 00:07:09
to make people more interested in sex 00:07:12
because if there is complete liberality 00:07:14
in promiscuity in every direction it all 00:07:17
becomes so easy that it might indeed be 00:07:20
in danger of becoming a bore and then 00:07:24
people would seek other dissipations 00:07:27
of perhaps a lesser healthy kind so then 00:07:36
as a result of the gradual fusion of 00:07:40
these two approaches to the relationship 00:07:42
of the sexes we have arrived at the idea 00:07:46
of the romantic marriage in which the 00:07:50
two trends are Mis allied to say the 00:07:55
very least you are supposed therefore to 00:07:59
fall in love with someone and of your 00:08:03
own choice naturally it has to be that 00:08:04
way if we're gonna fall in love if that 00:08:06
is a choice and then in enter into that 00:08:11
relationship with a legal contract in 00:08:15
which you get up before a magistrate or 00:08:17
a priest and do solemnly curse and swear 00:08:20
that you will be faithful to each other 00:08:22
until death do you part 00:08:25
which leads often to murder 00:08:28
[Laughter] 00:08:30
and it seems to me perfectly obvious 00:08:33
that two young people who are extremely 00:08:37
anxious to get into each other's 00:08:40
embraces and the only way of doing so 00:08:43
under the circumstances is entering into 00:08:45
this contract will naturally be ready to 00:08:47
promise anything to fulfill this desire 00:08:53
and while there are indeed many many 00:09:00
married legally married couples who have 00:09:04
a very very happy alliance that goes on 00:09:07
all their lives and we don't hear about 00:09:10
them because good news is never news 00:09:14
it's only the unhappy couples who make 00:09:17
the news papers and there are enormous 00:09:20
numbers of them but they are mainly I 00:09:22
think people who were lucky there is no 00:09:26
way of making a marriage work so far as 00:09:30
I know because every attempt to make a 00:09:33
marriage work is secretly within the 00:09:36
breasts of each partner builds up 00:09:38
hostility you can I know all this I'm 00:09:45
speaking from a certain amount of bitter 00:09:46
experience you can work very hard to 00:09:51
keep a marriage together and as you do 00:09:54
so you may fail to recognize you see 00:09:59
that you are being untrue to your own 00:10:01
emotions and you think well I must 00:10:05
control my emotions for the sake of 00:10:07
children for the sake of society for the 00:10:10
sake of everything like that and so you 00:10:12
work and work and one of the ways of 00:10:15
working is to try to convince yourself 00:10:17
that you're in love and you go through 00:10:20
the pretenses of love you hypnotize 00:10:24
yourself with loving language towards 00:10:26
your partner you go out of your way you 00:10:30
make little lists to remember attentions 00:10:33
you must pay you keep a diary in which 00:10:34
you remember your wedding anniversary 00:10:35
because you were very liable to forget 00:10:37
it and or all these things and you 00:10:40
really work it now the more you work it 00:10:42
the more you're building up promise 00:10:43
and expectations for something that you 00:10:46
are probably not going to come through 00:10:47
with at the level of deep feeling and 00:10:50
everyone is well aware of that is a hint 00:10:54
ergonomic you know it in the back of 00:10:56
your mind 00:10:57
and so you build yourself increasingly 00:11:00
into a wall-to-wall trap and so the 00:11:08
mutual hostility grows worse and worse 00:11:11
and worse so that one psychologist was 00:11:14
recently known to ask a patient with 00:11:16
whom are you in love against the most 00:11:26
Awkward cost form of falling in love is 00:11:29
between people who are already married 00:11:32
to someone else and because you see this 00:11:37
is a cataclysmic and disruptive 00:11:39
experience in our present social order 00:11:41
and we know of I mean Victorian novels a 00:11:45
lot of people are still living out 00:11:47
Victorian novels but in Victorian novels 00:11:50
the great thing is we're a couple madly 00:11:55
in love with each other say to each 00:11:56
other well it's best for us that we 00:11:59
don't see each other anymore this is 00:12:02
becoming bigger than either of us and so 00:12:08
this this fantastically married 00:12:13
experience is denied swept under the rug 00:12:17
and strangled what should one do well as 00:12:26
I've often said I'm not a preacher and 00:12:28
therefore I don't know what you should 00:12:31
do but I would like to make some 00:12:36
reflections on this particular form of 00:12:38
madness and to raise again a very 00:12:39
disturbing question and this disturbing 00:12:43
question is as follows is it only when 00:12:47
you are in love with another person that 00:12:50
you see them as they really are and in 00:12:54
the ordinary way when you are not in 00:12:55
love with people you see only 00:12:57
a fragmented version of that being 00:13:00
because when you're in love with someone 00:13:02
you do indeed see them as a Divine Being 00:13:04
and suppose that's what they are truly 00:13:09
and your eyes have by your beloved been 00:13:13
opened in which case your beloved is 00:13:16
serving to you as a kind of guru an 00:13:20
initiator and that is why there is a 00:13:24
form of sexual yoga based on the idea 00:13:29
that man and woman are to each other as 00:13:32
mutual guru and student and through a 00:13:37
tremendous outpouring of psychic energy 00:13:40
in total devotion and worship to this 00:13:43
other person who is respectively the 00:13:45
goddess or the God 00:13:46
you realize by total fusion and contact 00:13:51
with the other organism you go down to 00:13:55
the divine center in them and it bounces 00:13:58
back and you discover your own or you 00:14:00
could put it in this way which is 00:14:02
another aspect of it that by falling in 00:14:05
love and regarding falling in love not 00:14:10
just as a sort of sexual infatuation 00:14:15
because it's always more than that isn't 00:14:16
it 00:14:18
I mean you you can have a great sexual 00:14:24
enjoyment with a pleasant friend you 00:14:27
know but you may do so simply because he 00:14:32
or she appeals to your aesthetic senses 00:14:36
but when you fall in love it's much more 00:14:39
serious involvement you just cannot 00:14:42
forget this person you feel miserable 00:14:45
we're not in their presence 00:14:47
you're always yearning let's get see 00:14:50
more of each other let's get together 00:14:51
that's we're completely entangled and 00:14:55
then you see you've actually a kind of 00:14:57
out what I will call spiritual element 00:14:59
has been introduced and the Hindus were 00:15:03
sensible enough to realize that this was 00:15:08
a means of 00:15:11
awakening enlightenment and therefore it 00:15:14
was surrounded with a sort of rigid 00:15:20
religious ritual meditative art with a 00:15:28
form of sexual yoga that is designed to 00:15:34
allow the feeling of mutual love butter 00:15:39
the extent of grand passion to have an 00:15:43
extremely fitting fulfillment and 00:15:45
expression falling in love is a thing 00:15:53
that strikes like lightning and is 00:15:59
therefore extremely analogous to the 00:16:03
mystical vision we don't know how really 00:16:09
people attain the mystical vision there 00:16:15
is not as yet a very clear rationale as 00:16:18
to how it happens because we do know 00:16:20
that it is opened to many people who 00:16:23
never did anything to look for it many 00:16:27
people especially in adolescence have 00:16:29
had the mystical vision all of a sudden 00:16:31
without the slightest warning and with 00:16:33
no previous interest in that kind of 00:16:35
thing on the other hand many people who 00:16:39
have practiced yoga or Zen disciplines 00:16:43
or what you will for years and years and 00:16:45
years have never seen it and in both 00:16:52
classes there are of course exceptions 00:16:54
there are those who have never had the 00:16:57
spontaneous experience and there are 00:16:59
those who through yoga or Zen have 00:17:01
attained this insight but as yet we are 00:17:04
not clear as to why it comes about and 00:17:07
if there is any method of attaining it 00:17:09
the best one is probably to give up the 00:17:11
whole idea of getting it 00:17:11
but you see it is completely unpredictable and so it is in that way 00:17:21
like falling in love 00:17:29
capricious and therefore crazy but if 00:17:36
you should be so fortunate as to 00:17:40
encounter either of these experiences it 00:17:43
seems to me to be a total denial of life 00:17:47
to refuse it and what we therefore have 00:17:53
to admit in our society so that we can 00:17:57
contain this kind of madness we must be 00:18:03
far more realistic about the marriage 00:18:06
arrangement so that it can contain the 00:18:12
possibility of falling in love when you 00:18:15
base marriage you see unfallen in love 00:18:18
and you go into a pseudo love affair 00:18:21
which is simply hot pants and set up a 00:18:26
rigid family in which you expect of the 00:18:29
other person that they will always be in 00:18:33
love with you and then in that context 00:18:38
you go and fall in love then you're 00:18:42
falling in love is of necessity 00:18:44
disruptive of the marriage and of the 00:18:46
family but you see it could only disrupt 00:18:52
it because the love relationship between 00:18:55
the two partners was false was pretended 00:18:59
but if marriage were based more on the 00:19:06
old idea of the the reasonable contract 00:19:10
between two people to bring up children 00:19:12
who are maybe expected at the best to be 00:19:16
good friends and to allow each other to 00:19:24
be persons that is to say in the 00:19:26
ordinary sense of the word person to 00:19:29
have their own freedom 00:19:31
then if love strikes it is tolerated 00:19:35
within this arrangement provided you not 00:19:39
go to be so unreasonable as to go on to 00:19:42
say well I've sympathize for 'ln in love 00:19:44
with somebody else I must marry them but 00:19:47
it's perfectly ridiculous there you see 00:19:52
in this way we can think about and 00:19:54
structure the necessary stable social 00:19:57
institution of family of some kind 00:20:00
without it being constantly threatened 00:20:03
of foundering on the rocks of love now 00:20:11
you see this this then means that when 00:20:14
when people marry if they take care any 00:20:17
vows at all to each other instead of 00:20:21
saying that they will always be true to 00:20:25
each other in the sense of meaning I 00:20:26
will always love you it means I will be 00:20:31
true to you 00:20:32
in the sense of I will always be 00:20:33
truthful to you I will not pretend that 00:20:37
my feelings towards you are other than 00:20:39
what they are because I marry you 00:20:43
because I think that you are a 00:20:45
reasonable person to live with and 00:20:47
therefore I want you to be you I don't 00:20:49
want you to be someone else 00:20:50
I want you believed rubber-stamp of me 00:20:53
how boring that would be so it is really 00:20:58
an arrangement not obviously we always 00:21:02
say jokingly did you get the ball and 00:21:04
chain on him but an arrangement in which 00:21:08
people set each other free and make an 00:21:12
alliance to cooperate with each other in 00:21:14
certain ways how if it should so occur 00:21:18
that they are of immense sexual 00:21:20
attraction to each other so much the 00:21:23
better but this should not be a primary 00:21:26
factor in entering into marriage and 00:21:30
admittedly you must be there to a 00:21:32
certain extent attractive to each other 00:21:34
otherwise there will be no progeny but 00:21:34
but this is this seems to me to be a sensible and reasonable view and just 00:21:45
because it is sensible and reasonable it 00:21:50
can accommodate what is not sensible and 00:21:53
reasonable which is falling in love we 00:21:58
week should regard then marriage as if 00:22:00
especially if it should possibly be 00:22:03
called holy matrimony as a mutual 00:22:08
setting free of two people to live 00:22:11
together in freedom and therefore in 00:22:14
responsibility because the present 00:22:17
situation although it's pretending to be 00:22:19
responsible is in fact extremely 00:22:21
irresponsible because it is dishonesty 00:22:26
with respect to the way you feel towards 00:22:30
another person well now really when we 00:22:34
go back then to falling in love and say 00:22:38
it's crazy falling you see we don't say 00:22:44
rising in to love there is in it the 00:22:49
idea of the fall and it is goes back as 00:22:53
a matter of fact two extremely 00:22:54
fundamental things that there is always 00:22:59
a curious tie at some point between the 00:23:05
fall and the creation taking this 00:23:11
ghastly risk is the condition of there 00:23:17
being life you see for all the life is 00:23:24
an act of faith and an act of gamble a 00:23:29
the moment you take a step you do so on 00:23:33
an act of faith because you don't really 00:23:35
know that the flaw is not going to give 00:23:36
under your feet the moment you take a 00:23:39
journey what an act of faith the moment 00:23:42
you enter into any kind of human 00:23:44
undertaking in relationship what an act 00:23:46
of faith see you've given yourself up 00:23:50
but this is the most power 00:23:53
thing that can be done surrender see and 00:23:55
love is an act of surrender to another 00:23:58
person total abandonment I give myself 00:24:04
to you take me do anything you like with 00:24:07
me see so that's quite mad because you 00:24:14
see it's letting things get out of 00:24:15
control all sensible people keep things 00:24:18
in control watch it watch it watch it 00:24:24
security vigilance watch it police watch 00:24:30
it guards watch it who's gonna watch the 00:24:32
guards so actually there for the course 00:24:42
of wisdom what is really sensible is to 00:24:46
let go is to commit oneself to give 00:24:48
oneself up and that's quite mad so we 00:24:50
come to the strange conclusion that in 00:24:53
madness lies sanity 00:24:53