I have heard about a man who remained unmarried his whole life, and when he was dying, ninety years old, somebody asked him, “You have remained unmarried your whole life, but you have never said what the reason was. Now you are dying, at least quench our curiosity. If there is any secret, now you can tell it, because you are dying; you will be gone. Even if the secret is known, it can’t harm you.”
The man said, “Yes, there is a secret. It is not that I am against marriage, but I was searching for a perfect woman. I searched and searched, and my whole life slipped by.”
The inquirer asked, “But upon this big earth, so many millions of people, half of them women, couldn’t you find one perfect woman?”
A tear rolled down from the eye of the dying man. He said, “Yes, I did find one.”
The inquirer was absolutely shocked. He said, “Then what happened? Why didn’t you get married?”
And the old man said, “But the woman was searching for a perfect husband.”
Osho – The Dhammapada: The Way of the Buddha
