Question: What do you think of marriage? And what do you think the spiritual place of a man and a woman is in this life?

Sri Chinmoy: It entirely depends on the individual. If an individual feels the need of marriage, I tell him that if he gets married, he can feel that he has four hands, four eyes and so on. He has double strength, double capacity.

Then again, if someone is not meant for marriage, if he doesn’t feel the necessity of marriage, then I tell him that he should feel he is running the fastest. There is nothing holding him back from his goal, whereas if he is married and the marriage does not work out, there will be tremendous suffering and life will become unbearable. So the individual has to make the choice.

There is no hard and fast rule that one cannot realise God if he is married or if he is not married. No! It all depends on what God wants from him. If he feels from within that God wants him to get married, that God wants him to have that experience, then he is doing the right thing by getting married. If he feels that God does not want him to marry, then he should not do it.