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Osho discourse on Love
Question
: What is Love?
Osho : It depends. There are as many
loves as there are people. Love is a hierarchy, from the lowest
rung to the highest, from sex to superconsciousness. There are
many many layers, many planes of love. It all depends on you. If
you are existing on the lowest rung, you will have a totally
different idea of love than the person who is existing on the
highest rung. Adolf Hitler will have one idea of love, Gautam
Buddha another; and they will be
diametrically opposite, because they are at two extremes.
At the lowest, love is a kind of politics, power politics.
Wherever love is contaminated by the idea of domination, it is
politics. Whether you call it politics or not is not the
question, it is political. And millions of people never know
anything about love except this politics -- the politics that
exists between husbands and wives, boyfriends and girlfriends.
It is politics, the whole thing is political: you want to
dominate the other, you enjoy domination.
And love is nothing but politics sugar-coated, a bitter pill
sugar-coated.
You talk about love but the deep desire is to exploit the other.
And I am not saying that you are doing it deliberately or
consciously. People are falling in love with horses, dogs,
animals, machines, things. Why? Because to be in love with human
beings has become an utter hell, a continuous conflict --
nagging, always at each other's throats. This is the lowest form
of love. Nothing is wrong with it if you can use it as a
steppingstone , if you can use it as a meditation.
If you can watch it, if you try to understand it, in that very
understanding you will reach another rung, you will start moving
upwards. Only at the highest peak, when love is not a
relationship any more, when love becomes a
state of your being, the lotus opens totally and great perfume
is released -- but only at the highest peak. At its lowest, love
is just a political relationship. At its highest, love is a
religious state of consciousness. I love you too, Buddha loves,
Jesus loves, but their love demands nothing in return.
Their love is given for the sheer joy of giving it; it is not a
bargain. Hence the radiant beauty of it, hence the
transcendental beauty of it. It surpasses all the joys that you
have known. When I talk about love, I am talking about love as a
state. It is unaddressed: you don't love this person or that
person, you simply love. You are love. Rather than saying that
you love somebody, it will be better to say you are love. So
whosoever is capable of
partaking, can partake.
Whosoever is capable of drinking out of your infinite sources of
being, you are available -- you are available unconditionally.
That is possible only if love becomes more and more meditative.
`Medicine' and `meditation' come from the same root. Love as you
know it is a kind of disease: it needs the medicine of
meditation. If it passes through meditation, it is purified. And
the more purified it is, the more ecstatic.
Nancy was having coffee with Helen.
Nancy asked, "How do you know your husband loves you?"
"He takes out the garbage every morning."
"That's not love. That's good housekeeping."
"My husband gives me all the spending money I need."
"That's not love. That's generosity."
"My husband never looks at other women."
"That's not love. That's poor vision."
"John always opens the door for me."
"That's not love. That's good manners."
"John kisses me even when I've eaten garlic and I have curlers
in my hair."
"Now, that's love."
Everybody has their own idea of love. And only when you come to
the state where all ideas about love have disappeared, where
love is no more an idea but simply your being, then only will
you know its freedom. Then love is God. Then love is the
ultimate truth. Let your love move through the process of
meditation. Watch it: watch the cunning ways of your mind, watch
your power-politics. And nothing else except continuous watching
and observing is going to help.
When you say something to your woman or your man, look at it:
what is the unconscious motive? Why are you saying it? Is there
some motive? Then what is it? Be conscious of that motive, bring
it to consciousness -- because this is one of the secret keys
for transforming your life: anything that becomes conscious
disappears. Your motives remain unconscious, that's why you
remain in their grip. Make them conscious, bring them to light,
and they will disappear.
It is as if you pull up a tree and bring the roots to the
sunlight: they will die, they can exist only in the darkness of
the soil. Your motives also exist only in the darkness of your
unconsciousness. So the only way to transform your love is to
bring all the motivations from the unconscious into the
conscious. Slowly slowly, those motives will die.
And when love is unmotivated, then love is the greatest thing
that can ever happen to anybody. Then love is something of the
ultimate, of the beyond.
That is the meaning when Jesus says, "God is love." I say to
you: Love is God. God can be forgotten, but don't forget love --
because it is the purification of love that will bring you to
God. If you forget about God completely, nothing is lost. But
don't forget love, because love is the bridge. Love is the
process of alchemical change in your consciousness.
Related Osho Article:
Osho Videos on Love
Osho on
Marriage and Friendship
Osho on Love - What does Love Mean
Osho
discourse on Love - Am I in Love
What is Jealousy and why does it Hurt so much
I very much doubt my wife. What should I do
Forget
Relationships and learn how to Relate
Osho on importance of
Commitment in a Relationship
Osho on
Relationship between Living Partners and Growth
Problems of Love - In my relationship I often
lose my Self
Difficulty in
relating with people, Relationship is not relating
Osho -
Before you can Love Yourself you have to know yourself
Osho on
Aloneness - We are born alone, we live alone, and we die alone
Osho on hell of
living with a woman and the hell of living without a woman
If love becomes
destroyed in Marriage, how are we to Live if we wish to share
love
Christian dictum is: love thy neighbour as thyself.
Can I love others if I don't love myself?
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