Mirror, mirror on the wall, show me why I always fall
    
 
My partner acts jealous and it feels as if he makes me more important than I am.

“Not jealous — I think he feels that he is inferior. You are using the wrong word. He thinks that you are a goddess and he is worthless. Is that what it is? (she nods) Then it is not jealousy!

“That too is a way of manipulating people — to make them very important. That’s a kind of strategy, a very parasitical trip. When you make somebody very high, you have power over the person because it is in your power now to keep him high or throw him down. If anybody — for example, [your partner] — puts you very high on a pedestal, you think he is making you powerful. But he is also becoming powerful, because only he can keep you on that pedestal, nobody else. And he knows that — that you will have to depend on him otherwise you will not be on the pedestal; you will be an ordinary woman. He has made a goddess of you! So it is a very very subtle strategy to keep control over you.
“By being dependent on you, he makes you dependent on him. And you enjoy the trip — that he is making you so high. When you enjoy the trip, you have to fulfill a few conditions. This is the trick; this is very ancient. [He] has not invented it; it is very ancient.
“Man has always put woman on a pedestal so that she cannot come down. Man has either worshipped woman or condemned her. Either she is a worm crawling on the earth or she is a goddess, but he never makes her equal to himself; that is dangerous. Both are okay — either she is very high in the sky, untouchable, or she is very low, again untouchable, but she is never equal. When a woman is very low she can be repressed, punished for anything that the man feels is wrong. Or she is a goddess; then she can be thrown from the pedestal — that too is a kind of punishment.
“But woman needs to be equal to man — neither low nor high — and for that man is not ready, because to make the other equal means you cannot control her any more. You cannot control an equal. Low and high can both be controlled but the equal person is free; the equal is equal.
“So get down from the pedestal. Just tell him that you are a human being, not a goddess. Now what are you doing? — you must be pretending to be a goddess, so you are cooperating with him. Don’t cooperate! You simply tell him, ‘I am an ordinary woman as you are an ordinary man. I don’t want to be worshipped like a goddess. I have all kinds of desires as any woman will have. I am just plain ordinary.’ Get down from the pedestal rather than him throwing you; simply get down. You will feel good and you will unburden him also.
“If he cannot love you, then he will find some other woman whom he can put on a pedestal and worship. He may be in need of a mother and not in need of a beloved; then that is his business. But you get down from the pedestal. Never allow anybody to put you on high, otherwise he will manipulate you. He will say, ‘I have made you so high — now you have to follow me. Don’t do this; that doesn’t suit you. Don’t do that; that is below you. Keep your status.’
“So you enjoy the status but then you feel petrified. You would like to be an alive human being. So you are trying to do two contradictory things. If you want to be a fully warm-blooded woman, a real woman, then get down from the pedestal. All pedestals are a kind of disease I call ‘pedestalitis’.
“Get down and tell him that you are not going to become a goddess. Be natural and true and whatsoever happens has to be accepted. If he leaves you, that’s his business. If he remains with you, you will be more free; he will be more free. And this will be helping him too...because he is also wrong. He will never be happy. First you put a woman on a pedestal; then you cannot make love to her. How can you make love to a goddess? — it looks ugly. You cannot make love to your mother and you have put her up as a mother, a mother superior. Then you cannot make love to her, or even if you do, you feel guilt. He will not be happy, because he will continuously suffer from inferiority; he has made you superior.
“Tell him ‘I am just an ordinary woman. I don’t want any other respect.’ That is the greatest respect we can pay to each other as human beings! That will help.”