When two masters meet

Question: Should one first come to terms with one's own Loneliness before entering into Relationship?

Osho: Yes, you have to come to terms with your loneliness, so much so that the loneliness is transformed into aloneness. Only then will you be capable of moving into a deep enriching relationship. Only then will you be able to move into love. What do I mean when I say that one has to come to terms with one's loneliness, so much so that it becomes aloneness?

Loneliness is a negative state of mind. Aloneness is positive, notwithstanding what the dictionaries say. In dictionaries, loneliness and aloneness are synonymous -- they are synonyms; in life they are not. Loneliness is a state of mind when you are constantly missing the other, aloneness is the state of mind when you are constantly delighted in yourself. Loneliness is miserable, aloneness is blissful. Loneliness is always worried, missing something, hankering for something, desiring for something; aloneness is a deep fulfillment, not going out, tremendously content, happy, celebrating. In loneliness you are off center, in aloneness you are centered and rooted. Aloneness is beautiful. It has an elegance around it, a grace, a climate of tremendous satisfaction. Loneliness is; beggarly; all around it there is begging and nothing else. It has no grace around it. In fact it is ugly. Loneliness is a dependence, aloneness is SHEER independence. One feels as if one is one's whole world, one's whole existence.

Now, if you move into a relationship when you are feeling lonely, then you will exploit the other. The other will become a means to satisfy you. You will use the other, and everybody resents being used because no man is here to become a means for anybody else. Every man is an end unto himself. Nobody is here to be used like a thing, everybody is here to be worshipped like a king. Nobody is here to fulfill anybody else's expectations, everybody is here just to be himself.
So whenever you move in any relationship out of loneliness, the relationship is already on the rocks. Even before it has started, it is already on the rocks. Even before the birth, the child is dead. It is going to create more misery for you. And remember, when you move from your loneliness you will fall in relationship with somebody who is in the same plight, because no man who is really living his aloneness will be attracted towards you. You will be too below him. He can, at the most, sympathize, but cannot love you. One who is on his peak of aloneness can only be attracted towards somebody who is also alone. So whenever you move out of loneliness, you will find a man of the same type; you will find your own reflection somewhere.

Two beggars will meet, two miserable people will meet. And remember, when two miserable people meet, it is not an ordinary addition, it is a multiplication. They create much more misery for each other than they could have created in their loneliness.

First become alone. First start enjoying yourself. First love yourself. First become so authentically happy that if nobody comes it doesn't matter; you are full, overflowing. If nobody knocks at your door it is perfectly okay -- YOU are not missing. You are not waiting for somebody to come and knock at the door. You are at home. If somebody comes, good, beautiful. If nobody comes, that too is beautiful and good.

THEN move into relationship. Now you move like a master, not like a beggar. Now you move like an emperor,. not like a beggar. And the person who has lived in his aloneness will always be attracted to another person who is also living his aloneness beautifully, because the same attracts the same. When two masters meet -- masters of their being, of their aloneness -- happiness is not just added, it is multiplied. It becomes a tremendous phenomenon of celebration. And they don't exploit, they share. They don't use each other. Rather, on the contrary, they both become one and enjoy the existence that surrounds them.

Two lonely people are always facing each other, confronting. Two people who have known aloneness are together, facing something higher than both. I always give this example: two ordinary lovers who are both lonely always face each other; two real lovers, on a full moon night, will not be facing each other. They may be holding hands, but they will be facing the full moon high in the sky. They will not be facing each other, they will be together facing something else. Sometimes they will be listening to a symphony of Mozart or Beethoven or Wagner together. Sometimes they will be sitting by the side of a tree and enjoying the tremendous being of the tree enveloping them. Sometimes they may be sitting by a waterfall and listening to the wild music that is continuously being created there. Sometimes, by the ocean, they will both be looking to the farthest possibility that the eyes can see.

Whenever two lonely persons meet, they look at each other, because they are constantly in search of ways and means to exploit the other: how to use the other, how to be happy through the other. But two persons who are deeply contented within themselves are not trying to use each other. Rather, they become fellow travellers; they move on a pilgrimage. The goal is high, the goal is far away. Their common interest joins them together.

Ordinarily the common interest is sex. Sex can join two persons momentarily and casually, and very superficially. Real lovers have a greater common interest. It is not that sex will not be there; it may be there, but as part of a higher harmony. Listening to Mozart's or Beethoven's symphony, they may come so close, so close, so close, that there may be love. They may make love to each other, but it is in the greater harmony of a Beethoven symphony. The symphony was the real thing; the love happens as part of it. And when love happens of its own accord, unsought, unthought, simply happens as part of a higher harmony, it has a totally different quality to it. it is divine, it is no longer human.

The word 'happiness' comes from a Scandanavian word 'hap'. The word'happening' also comes from the same Scandant the most, you can be available to it. Whenever it happens, it happens.

Two real loavian root. Happiness is that which happens. You cannot produce it, you cannot command it, you cannot force it. Avers are always available, but never thinking, never trying to find happiness. Then they are never frustrated, because whenever it happens it happens. They create the situation. In fact, if you are happy with yourself, you are already the situation, and if the other is also happy with himself or herself, she is also the situation. When these two situations come close, a greater situation is created. In that greater situation much happens -- nothing is produced.

Man has not to do anything to be happy. Man has just to flow and let go.
So, the question is: should one first come to terms with his own loneliness before entering into relationship? Yes; yes, absolutely. It has to be so, otherwise you will be frustrated, and in the name of love you will be doing something else which is not love at all.

Source - Osho Book "Come Follow To You, Vol 4"

Brockwood Park: 1st Question & Answer Meeting, 30th August 1983

And then suddenly it is there

I feel that whatever I do, even in beautiful things, there is always something missing, something that is somewhere out of tune. Even in my relationship - I have been now one year with my boyfriend - and still even in the beautiful moments I feel that something is tense somewhere, something is fighting somewhere....

You can make a problem out of it, and then there will be no solution. In the first place don't make a problem out of it. It is not a problem. If you understand it well you will feel it to be a blessing.

Every lover feels that something is missing, because love is unfinished. It is a process, not a thing. Every lover is bound to feel that something is missing - but don't interpret it wrongly. It simply shows that love in itself is a dynamic thing. It is just like a river, always moving, always moving. In the very movement is the life of the river. once it stops it becomes a stagnant thing; then it is no longer a river. The very word river shows a process, the very sound of it gives you the feeling of movement.

Love is a river, it is not a thing, a commodity. So don’t think that something is missing; it is part of love's process. And it is good that it is not completed. When something is missing you have to do something. That is a call from higher and higher peaks. Not that when you reach them you will feel fulfilled; love never feels fulfilled. It knows no fulfillment, but it is beautiful because then it is alive forever and ever.

And you will always feel that something is not in tune. That too is natural, because when two persons are meeting, two different worlds are meeting. To expect that they will fit perfectly is to expect too much, is to expect the impossible, and that will create frustration. Something will always be out of tune. If you fit completely and there is nothing out of tune, the relationship will become stagnant. At the most there are a few moments when everything is in tune. Rare moments. Even when they come you may not be able to catch them they are so swift, so rare. They have not come and they are already gone - just a glimpse. And that glimpse will make you more frustrated, because then you will see more and more that things are out of tune.

This is how it has to be.

Make all efforts to make that in-tuneness, but always be ready if it doesn’t happen perfectly. And don’t be worried about it, otherwise you will fall more and more out of tune.

It comes only when you are not worried about it. It happens only when you are not tense about it. When you are not even expecting it - just out of the blue. It is a grace, a gift of existence.

Love is not a thing you can do. But by doing other things, love will happen. There are small things you can do - sitting together, looking at the moon, listening to music - nothing directly to do with love.

Love is very delicate, fragile. If you look at it, gaze at it directly, it will disappear. It comes only when you are unaware, doing something else. You cannot go directly, arrow-like. Love is not a target. It is a very subtle phenomenon... it is very shy. If you go direct, it will hide. If you do something direct, you will miss.

The world has become very stupid about love. They want it immediately. They want it like instant coffee - whenever you want, order, and it is there. Love is a delicate art; it is nothing you can do rally.

Sometimes those rare blissful moments come... then something of the unknown descends. You are no longer on the earth, you are in paradise. Reading a book with your lover, both deeply absorbed in it, suddenly you find that a different quality of being has arisen around you both; something surrounds you both like an aura, and everything is peaceful.

But you were not doing anything directly. You were just reading a book, or just going for a long walk, hand in hand against the strong wind - suddenly it is there. It always takes you unawares. So learn to do things together.

I have watched so many people, thousands of couples. People have completely forgotten the language of doing things together, or not doing anything, just being together, just being. People have forgotten that. If they have nothing to do they make love. Then nothing happens, and by and by they are frustrated by love itself. and then the whole of life loses meaning, because if love loses meaning, life loses meaning.

Man and woman are different - not only different, they are opposite; they cannot fit together. And that s the beauty - when they fit together it is a miracle, a magic moment. Otherwise they conflict and fight. That is natural and can be understood, because they have different minds. Their outlooks are polar opposites. They cannot agree on anything, because their ways are different their logic is different.

To fit in a deep tune, to fall in deep harmony, is almost miraculous. It is like a Kohinoor and one should not ask for it every day. One should not ask for it as part of a routine. One should wait for it. Months, sometimes years pass, and then suddenly it is there. And it is always out of the blue, uncaused,mm? Do you follow me? Don’t be worried - it will take care of itself. And don’t become a seeker after love; otherwise you will miss it completely.

Osho

Above All Don't Wobble

So, is it possible for man to be totally free of fear?

So, is it possible for man to be totally free of fear? And what is fear? Does fear exist in the past, the present or the future? Do I know I was afraid or do I know I am afraid or that I shall be afraid? Is there such a thing as immediate fear or when you know you are afraid, is it not already over?

Please follow this carefully step by step because to understand clearly time is involved, and without understanding the whole structure of time we will not be able to understand fear. Now how do I know that I am afraid? When I am face to face with danger, at the very moment of confrontation, am I conscious of fear or is the response to danger so immediate that fear does not exist at all? The response is immediate. When you know the danger of nationalism which is spreading more and more throughout the world, when you know it, not theoretically but actually, then there is an immediate response to that danger and therefore you are free from nationalism because you see very clearly it is a threat to the security of man.

So fear is the product of thought. Right? Otherwise there is no fear. Fear is related to pleasure and pleasure is the product of thought as fear. I wonder if you are following this? You know, this is not an analytical talk. Analysis, however deep or clever, however true does not solve any problems. Analysis is merely a description of what is, and we are not analysing but just observing. It is very important to understand this, the art of looking, the art of seeing. We are seeing fear, listening to fear, to all its murmurs, not theoretically but actually. If we could see fear with eyes that are very clear then fear would completely come to an end. And that's what we are doing.

Fear, as we said, is the result of thought. Yesterday I was healthy and enjoyed walking through the woods, but today or tomorrow I am afraid that I may fall ill. Do go into this with me! Please, if I may suggest, don't just listen but observe this thing operating in yourself. Yesterday there was a beautiful sunset and I enjoyed it tremendously. There is the memory of it and I want that pleasure repeated and when it is not repeated then I am afraid, which is all part of thinking. I am afraid of death, the tomorrow and the many tomorrows; thought is observing the fact of living - what it calls living - and also the fact that it is going to end, so thought is afraid of the thing it calls death. Therefore it puts death far away in the distance. This is very clear isn't it? Thought creates distance as well as time, so thought breeds fear.

After all, there is in the Christian world original sin, whatever that may mean, and Christians everywhere have been conditioned through propaganda to believe in this original sin. And, of course, that has bred a great deal of fear. That original sin is the invention of thought, so thought is responsible for fear. The ending of fear therefore is the understanding of the whole structure and mechanism of thought. No doubt you will say that if fear is to end, thought must also stop; we are not saying thought must stop, but that thought is responsible for fear. That is obvious.

Then one begins to enquire what is the nature of thought. To understand the structure of thought, not intellectually, you must see it as you would see a sensuous thing, feel it and then you will realize - if you go into it very deeply - that thought begins to understand itself as the origin of fear and it will act upon itself. You will see this for yourself if you go into it very deeply with the speaker.

Thought is the product of time, time being memory, the accumulated knowledge of the many days, the many yesterdays, the many experiences. From that accumulated knowledge, experience, memory, there is a response which is thought and thought is matter. A mind that is concerned with going beyond the sensual, beyond matter, must understand thought; thought breeds sorrow as well as fear and pleasure. Yesterday you had an experience - sensual, sexual, or otherwise - and that experience leaves an imprint on the mind, on the brain. We mean by that word 'mind' not only the whole nervous organism, the brain cells, but the totality of all human intelligence, its activity, fears, thoughts, despairs and anxieties. All that is included when we use the word 'mind'.

As long as thought is seeking pleasure, there must be fear because pleasure means pain. We will go into that a little bit and you will see it for yourself. Please follow this carefully because it is your life, not mine! You and I together are making this terrible world; we are causing so much destruction, so much misery and we are responsible. And without understanding the nature of this thought with its pleasure and pain, its fear and its sorrow, we shall continue to bring about tremendous chaos in the world through our actions, our selfishness and our violence. As we said, thought breeds pleasure.

Yesterday you had an experience which gave you pleasure and thought wants that pleasure repeated, so it thinks about it. The more it thinks about it, the greater the pleasure it derives from that experience. Thought also thinks about pain and it doesn't want that pain; so thought creates both pleasure and pain and gives them continuity. Right? And fear is also bred by thought. I am afraid of tomorrow; I don't know what is going to happen, I may lose my job, I may fall ill and I haven't fulfilled myself and I may die. I haven't understood this monstrous life and there's nobody to tell me; I am lost and afraid, I seek somebody, an authority to tell me what to do.

So thought creates fear of tomorrow, tomorrow being death. Actually if you observe, there is no tomorrow at all; if you really faced that fact psychologically you would no doubt be terribly afraid because tomorrow matters very much - psychologically. Tomorrow is going to give you a great deal of pleasure, you are going to paint a better picture or compose with greater feeling, you'll make it up with your wife or husband. So for you tomorrow is extraordinarily important. And is there tomorrow psychologically or has thought invented it? And if there is no fear, there is no tomorrow; then one lives with that complete sense of wholeness, always in the present.

To understand the present you have to understand the nature of time which is yesterday with all its memories, the culture and the tradition, today and tomorrow. You cannot live totally, completely in the present when there is the image of the past or the concept of the future. To live in the present is only possible when there is love, and love has no tomorrow. But love is not pleasure nor desire; pleasure and desire have a tomorrow, have a future - I am going to be happy tomorrow.

So thought creates fear, thought gives continuity to desire as pleasure. Thought puts together yesterday, today and tomorrow as time; that's how we live. And beyond this we are seeking immortality through the son, through the family, through ideas. Fear breeds authority and obedience; and that obedience - whether of the son to the father or the wife to the husband - is violence because in it fear and dependence are involved.

One of the major factors of fear is death; the older one grows, the more one is afraid of death. You know what is happening in the world; the older people are pretending to be very young because they are afraid of old age, disease and death, so to be free of fear one must understand death. And if you don't understand death, you can't possibly know what love and beauty are. We don't know love; we only know jealousy and pleasure and the beauty that's put together by man.

We are talking of beauty in a totally different sense of that word. And therefore we must understand, not intellectually but actually, what it means to die. You know, it's only when a thing ends that there is a new beginning; whatever has continuity, goes on day after day, week after week, the same old repetition becomes tiresome and rather boring. It's only the thing which comes to an end that has a possibility of newness. After all, innocency is not a symbol - it is a fact.

It is only the innocent mind that can see clearly, that can see something new. You may have looked at that flower by the roadside a hundred times, but if the mind and the eye of the mind are not innocent, you can't see the total beauty and the newness of that flower. That which has continuity cannot possibly be innocent.

Therefore belief - please follow this - destroys innocency. Belief is the result of fear. Whether you believe in God or don't believe in God, there's very little difference; they are both the result of your conditioning. You are conditioned to believe in God and the Communist is conditioned not to believe. But the believer and the non-believer has his own continuity and therefore there is no innocency to find what truth is. There is only innocency when every psychological memory comes to an end and out of that comes a totally new dimension. Death is after all a fact; we are all going to die whether we like it or not, through disease, through an accident or naturally, that is inevitable.

Some scientist perhaps may discover a drug that will keep us alive fifty years longer, but it will be the same chaos. Death then is inevitable; through usage, through conflict, through constant struggle the physical organism wears itself out. Emotional stress and strain wear out the heart more quickly than actual physical activity. So there is physical death.

And is there any other form of death? We shall see. You are brought up, as most of the world, to believe in a soul, in a spiritual entity which is constant; that is, you will be resurrected. And in Asia they believe in reincarnation; that is, the believer is born over and over again until in time he becomes perfect. And when he has reached perfection - through being born over and over again and passing through these thousands of experiences - he is at one with whatever it is. That's the whole concept of reincarnation; you also have a similar concept only you put it a different way.

Now fear is at the bottom of these concepts otherwise how do you know that there is anything permanent, like a soul or the atman, as the Hindus call it, within you? How do you know there's anything permanent in you? Is there anything permanent?

Do please examine it, forgetting your belief! Is your relationship with anybody permanent? Aren't your thoughts changing every day, either being modified or added to? And isn't your physical organism undergoing tremendous changes all the time? So one has to ask if there is anything permanent at all? And yet that's what the mind is seeking because it says: 'If I die tomorrow what have I lived for? There must he something permanent, lasting, enduring!' But if you observe very deeply, psychologically you will find there is nothing permanent, nothing! Whatever it is - your thoughts, your relationships, your ideas and ideals, your gods - nothing is permanent.

We know this very deeply and we are frightened of it, so we invent another god and say I cannot live without hope, but actually all we know is despair. Out of that despair we become cynical, bitter, hard, brutal and violent. Then one sees that the thing one imagined to be permanent is thought itself. It is thought which has said there is a permanent soul, a permanent entity that eventually will evolve, become more beautiful till it reaches perfection.

So the soul, the atman is the result of thought but the fact is, there is nothing permanent. When you face it as a fact it doesn't create despair; on the contrary, it is only when you do not face the fact that there is hope, fear and despair. So thought creates the fear of death because you think the little property in your name is permanent. You are afraid to let go and die every day to your house, your home, your wife, your children, your relationship with your husband, everything that thought clings to as me and mine. And to die to all that every day is a total renewal.

Last time we met we were saying that the relationship of human beings is based on images; the husband has an image about the wife and the wife has an image about the husband. These two images - which are memories and have no reality whatsoever except as memories - are related, they have a relationship, but if one dies to all images then relationship has quite a different meaning, then there is a direct, living relationship which is constantly changing. It does not mean that I pursue another man or a woman. Relationship means movement; it is not a static state as my wife, my husband, my family which is all based on an image. When the relationship is between two images then it becomes destructive and full of conflict.

So we have an image about death; the thing known and the thing not known. We are really afraid of letting go of the known, not of facing the unknown; you cannot be afraid of the unknown because you don't know what it is.

You can only know the unknown when there is freedom from the known, so you have to die to everything you have built up psychologically, inwardly, inside the skin as it were, this whole structure of experience to which the mind desperately clings. That is real death not the physical organism coming to an end, but to die psychologically to everything you have known. I wonder if you have ever tried it? Of course not.

To die to a single pleasure, an enchanting remembrance, without argument, without a motive, just to drop it. Do it some time and you will see what is involved, how frightened you are to have a mind that is constantly renewing itself. What is this thing called life to which you cling so desperately? Look at it factually, not imaginatively or intellectually, this thing you call living!

Have you ever examined it? If you have, you will see that from the moment you are born until you die life is a battlefield with the occasional joy and flutter of happiness. It is a long battle full of ambition, competition, comparison, envy and jealousy, the struggle for power, prestige, position, making a name for oneself; and that's what you call living. And you are afraid to let all that go; you would rather cling to this ugly, violent, confusing existence instead of trying to find out for yourself whether it is possible to be free from the known.

You know, it is only the innocent mind, the new mind that can be free from the known, not the old mind with its thousands of experiences which are pouring in consciously or unconsciously all the time. When you are outside, waiting for a bus, seeing people, looking at the sky or a beautiful sunset, or when you see a bird on the wing, a passing cloud, all these leave an imprint on the mind. And only a mind that is free from experience can be innocent.

We think experience is necessary. I wonder if it is. As human beings we have had twenty-five or thirty million years of experience. Historically during the last five thousand years there have been twelve thousand wars; that means two and a half wars every year. We have experienced sorrow, disease, confusion, misery, aching loneliness, separation, guilt and agony. After so many experiences, have we learnt anything? Is the mind chaste, virgin? Technologically, scientifically, we may learn from experience, but psychologically it doesn't teach us a thing.

So only a mind which is free from the known, dying every day and therefore renewing itself, can possibly understand this whole business of time, fear, pleasure and sorrow. And it is only such a mind that can see what is truth.

Truth is not a word, it is not a concept; it isn't your truth and my truth, the Christian truth and the Muslim truth. Truth, like love,has no nationality, but to love and to see truth there must be no hate, no jealousy, no division and no anger. So one has to die to all that, to all the things which we call living and only then is there a possibility of that dimension in which time does not exist.

J. Krishnamurti Talks in Europe 1968 Rome 3rd Public Talk 17th March 1968

On Love and Compassion

Beloved Osho, You speak about love and compassion. I know of and feel different forms of love and compassion. Can You explain the different forms of love, and what You mean by compassion?

Osho: Love is a ladder, a ladder of three rungs. The lowest rung is sex, the middle is love, and the highest is prayer. Because of these three rungs there are a thousand and one combinations possible.Real compassion appears only at the third rung when sex energy becomes prayer -- the compassion of a buddha, the compassion Atisha is talking about. When passion has been transformed so totally, so utterly that it is no more passion at all, then compassion appears.

Real compassion appears only when your sex energy has become prayer.But compassion can appear on the second rung too, and compassion can appear on the first rung also. Hence there are so many different compassions. For example, if compassion appears on the first rung, when you are living at the lowest level of love-energy, sex, then compassion will be just an ego trip.

Then compassion will be very egotistic: you will enjoy the idea of being compassionate. You will really enjoy the other's suffering, because it is the other's suffering that is giving you the opportunity to be compassionate.

Somebody has fallen in the river and is drowning. The sexual person can jump in and save him, but his joy is that he was so good, that he did something beautiful, something great. He will talk about it with pride, he will brag about it. Compassion on the lowest rung, that of sex, will appear only as an ego trip.

That's what millions of missionaries all over the world are doing -- serving the poor, serving the ill, serving the uneducated aboriginals, primitives. But the whole joy is that, "I am doing something great." The 'I' is strengthened. That is an ugly form of compassion. It is called duty. Duty is a four-letter dirty word.

The second kind of compassion appears when love has arrived. Then compassion is sympathy: you feel, you really feel for the other. You fall into a harmony with the other, the other's suffering stirs you. It is not something to brag about.

On the second rung, you will never talk about your compassion, never; it is not something to be talked about. In fact you will never feel that you have done anything special, you will simply feel you have done whatsoever was to be done. You will see that it was human to do it. There is nothing special in it, nothing extraordinary; you have not attained some spiritual merit in doing it.

There is nothing like merit in it: it was natural, spontaneous. Then compassion is becoming more soft, more beautiful.At the third rung, where sex energy becomes prayer, compassion appears as empathy -- not even sympathy, but empathy. Sympathy means feeling the other's suffering, but you are still at a distance; empathy means becoming one with the other's suffering -- not only feeling it but suffering it, actually going into it.

If somebody is crying, sympathy means you feel for the one who is crying, empathy means you start crying. You are not only in a feeling space, you become attuned, you become really one: at-one-ment happens.

A man came to Buddha and asked, "I am very rich and I have no children, and my wife has also died. Now I have all the money in the world. I would like to do some meritorious work. I would like to do something for the poor and the downtrodden. Just tell me, what should I do?"And it is said Buddha became very sad and a tear rolled down from his eye.

The man was very much puzzled.

He said, "Tears in your eyes? And you look so sad -- why?"Buddha said, "You cannot help anybody, because you have not even helped yourself yet. And you cannot do anything compassionate, because your energies are still at the lowest. Your base metal has not yet become gold. In fact," Buddha said, "I am feeling so sorry for you. You want to be of some help to people, but you are not. You don't exist yet, because awareness has not happened, and without awareness how can you be? You don't have a real center from where compassion can flow."

Compassion can have these three categories, and love also has three categories. First, sex. Sex simply means: "Give me -- give me more and more!" It is exploitation, it is what Martin Buber calls the I-it relationship: "You are a thing and I want to use you." The man uses the woman, the woman uses the man, the parents use the children and the children use parents, friends use friends.

They say, "A friend is a friend only; a friend in need is a friend indeed." Use, reduce the other into a commodity.To live in the I-it world is to miss the whole wonder of existence. Then you are surrounded by things -- not by persons, not by people, not by life, but just material things. The poorest man in the world is one who lives in the I-it relationship. Sex is exploitation.Love is totally different.

Love is not exploitation. Love is not an I-it relationship, it is an I-thou relationship. The other is respected as a person in his own right; the other is not a thing to be used, to be possessed, to be manipulated. The other is an independent person, a freedom. The other has to be communicated with, not exploited. Love is a communication of energies.Sex is only "Give me, give me, give me more!" Hence the sexual relationship is continuously that of war, conflict, because the other also says "Give me!"

Both want more and more, and nobody is ready to give. Hence the conflict, the tug-of-war. And of course whosoever proves more strong will exploit the other. Because man has been muscularly stronger than woman, he has exploited, he has reduced women to utter nonentities; he has destroyed the soul of women. And it was easier for him if the soul was completely destroyed.

For centuries women were not allowed to read; in many religions women were not allowed to go to the temple, women were not allowed to become priests. Women were not allowed any public life, any social life. They were imprisoned in the houses; they were cheap labor, the whole day working, working, working. And they were reduced to sex objects. There has not been much difference between prostitutes and wives in the past.

The wife was reduced into a permanent prostitute, that's all. The relationship was not a relationship, it was an ownership.Love respects the other. It is a give-and-take relationship. Love enjoys giving, and love enjoys taking. It is a sharing, it is a communication. Both are equal in love; in a sexual relationship both are not equal.

Love has a totally different beauty to it.The world is slowly slowly moving towards love relationships; hence there is great turmoil. All the old institutions are disappearing -- they have to disappear, because they were based on the I-it relationship.

New ways of communication, new ways of sharing are bound to be discovered. They will have a different flavor, the flavor of love, of sharing. Nonpossessive they will be; there will be no owner.Then the highest state of love is prayer. In prayer there is communion. In sex there is the I-it relationship, in love the I-thou relationship.

Martin Buber stops there; his Judaic tradition won't allow him to go further. But one step more has to be taken: that is "neither I nor thou" -- a relationship where I and thou disappear, a relationship where two persons no more function as two but function as one.

A tremendous unity, a harmony, a deep accord, two bodies but one soul. That is the highest quality of love: I call it prayer.Love has these three stages, and compassion accordingly has three stages, and both can exist in different combinations.Hence, Dorothy Kaplan, there are so many kinds of love and so many kinds of compassion. But the basic, the most fundamental, is to understand this three-rung ladder of love.

That will help you, that will give you an insight into where you are, what kind of love you are living in and what kind of compassion is happening to you. Watch. Beware not to remain caught in it. There are higher realms, heights to be climbed, peaks to be attained.

Drop seeking and start living..

This is my effort here - to make you aware. That' s why I give you so many situations. Sometimes I force you to be alone and sometimes I force you to be together with someone.

Sometimes if you are not moving in a love affair, I will almost push you into one. Sometimes I will pull you out. It is just to give you many situations in which you can see how the mind functions, how the mechanism functions.

The mind is discontent with everything that is. If you become aware of that, you will start working in a different direction. Whatsoever is, be content with it, and then the mind disappears.

Contentenment is a great meditation to help the mind disappear. Whatsoever is, be content with it. Sometimes when you are alone, be content with that and enjoy that moment, because you will hanker for it when there is a relationship. Feel blessed that this moment is there, because sooner or later somebody is going to disturb it. There are fools and fools - somebody will come and start an affair.

Before he comes, enjoy this peace, this silence, this freedom of being yourself. There is no need to compromise. There is nobody to hamper your space' enjoy it. And when somebody happens and you feel an appetite to be in a relationship, be in a relationship. But then enjoy the passion and the fever, the excitement. Enjoy the situation that love brings; the pain, the pleasure. Because sooner or later it will disappear and you will be alone again. Before it disappears, have the taste of it totally.

Love and aloneness go on happening like day and night. You have to enjoy every situation. And don’t be too much in the mind, otherwise it will poison you. Just keep a little aloof. Forget what has gone; it has gone! It is no more. And don’t be too concerned with what is going to happen; remain with what is happening, and enjoy this moment before it flies, because it is already on the wing. It will not be there if you miss it and it cannot be repeated again.

It may grow into love, it may not, but friendship is good in itself. And one never knows when he becomes a lover you may miss his friendship and you will think 'Why did I destroy the friendship?'

Friendship has its own beauty, and if you can enjoy it, it is better than a love affair. A love affair is always jumpy. There are moments of happiness but they are few and far between. There are also many miserable moments. A friendship is a more solid thing; moves on plainer ground. Friendship has a deeper equilibrium than love.

In the Vedas, there is a sutra, Madbyam Abhyam - 'The one who is in the middle need not be afraid of anything.' The middle is beyond fear. The middle means the balanced and love is not balanced. Friendship is balanced. . Love is an extreme. Friendship is a very delicate middle, a very peaceful affair. So don’t be in a hurry. Just cherish each moment as it comes.

[ a sanyasin says that she was frustrated at seeing her continual deceptions, her lying, and that she just didn’t seem to have any clarity about herself]

Once you are aware that you are being deceptive, it is not possible to continue for much longer. There are two problems that affect you - in fact that were not just your problems, but universal problems.

One is that you are missing meaning. You cant see what to live for. You somehow just drag. You get up in the morning, go to work, but there seems to be no meaning in it. This is a basic human problem.

People who are a little intelligent are bound to become aware that there is no meaning in life, but one has to live, so one has to befool oneself. One pretends that there is meaning - this meaning, that meaning - and one goes on doing this and that to help oneself believe that there is some meaning. But you know there is none.

You have to come to the understanding that there is no meaning as such in life and cannot be. Life is a meaningless energy and there is no need to find any meaning because all meanings are false, projected, man-made, do they are all lies.

This is very difficult to accept because it is very shattering. But once you understand it, many problems will disappear and you will be clear about your life.

Life is purposeless, meaningless. It is not going anywhere. There is nothing to be achieved. One has to live moment to moment but of sheer delight.

There is no need to connect one moment to another moment by a certain imposed meaning because there is none. Meaning is a lie. Somebody is living to impress people, somebody is living for political power. Somebody is living for money, somebody is trying to achieve god. And somebody is going to work out his liberation.

But a really liberated person is one who has understood that there is no meaning, so he is not seeking, searching for anything. He lives the moment. It is there - he enjoys it. If he is eating, he eats well. he enjoys. God has come in the form of food. The whole has extended its hand in the form of food. If he talking, he talks because god wants to say something and another form of god wants to listen to it, so let there be communication. If one sings, one sings totally. If one dances, one dances. Each moment in itself complete. One does not carry the past and one is not worried about the future. One lives herenow.

So this is one of the things that I see is your problem. So drop seeking meaning and start living. The second thing - and that too is nothing to do with you, that too, is human – it is that you don’t accept yourself. Deep down you feel a certain rejection of yourself. You would like to be in some other way, so whatever is there you try to overlook somehow. Then it becomes a lie. But this is my experience and observation, that nobody i came across loves himself and accepts himself. People always find excuses.

Deep down the human mind is a rejector. It goes on rejecting. You have to drop that. This is the way God wanted to be in you - fat and beautifully fat. This is the form that God wanted to take in you and he is enjoying, so why be worried? Just accept.

And when I say accept, I don’t mean accept in a frustrated state of mind. No. Accept with a deep welcome. If you can tackle these two things, your problems will disappear.

I accept you, so why cant you accept yourself?

Accept yourself, delight in your being. And there is no need to hanker for any meaning. Moment to moment is full of meaning. And whenever you lose trust, come back to Poona, so that I can hit it back into your head again, mm? you don’t have a thick head , so don’t be worried! ( a chuckle)

And sometimes stand in front of a mirror and look at yourself with very loving eyes. Sometimes touch your own face with a loving hands. One should learn how to love oneself. Lie down on the bed and feel yourself.

Don’t ask for a relationship out of loneliness

You meet people of the same plane.

So the first thing to remember is: a relationship is bound to be bitter if it has grown out of unhappiness. First be happy, be joyful, be celebrating, and then you will find some other soul celebrating and there will be a meeting of two dancing souls and a great dance will arise out of it. Don’t ask for a relationship out of loneliness, no. Then you are moving in a wrong direction. Then the other will be used as a means and the other will use you as a means. And nobody wants to be used as a means!

Every single individual is an end unto himself. It is immoral to use anybody as a means.

First learn how to be alone. Meditation is a way of being alone. If you can be happy when you are alone, you have learned the secret of being happy. Now you can be happy together.

If you are happy, then you have something to share, to give.

And when you give you get; it is not the other way.

Then a need arises to love somebody. Ordinarily the need is to be loved by somebody.

It is a wrong need. It is a childish need; you are not mature. It is a child's attitude.

A child is born. Of course, the child cannot love the mother; he does not know what love is and he does not know who is the mother and who is the father. He is totally helpless. His being is still to be integrated; he is not one piece; he is not together yet.

He is just a possibility. The mother has to love, the father has to love, the family has to shower love on the child. Now he learns one thing: that everybody has to love him. And he never learns that he has to love. Now the child will grow, and if he remains stuck with this attitude that everybody has to love him, he will suffer his whole life, his body has grown, but his mind has remained immature. A mature person is one who comes to know the other need: that now I have to love somebody.

The need to be loved is childish, immature. The need to love is mature. And when you are ready to love somebody, a beautiful relationship will arise; otherwise not."Is it possible for two people in a relationship to be bad for each other?" Yes, that's what is happening all over the world.To be good is very difficult. You are not good even to yourself.How can you be good to somebody else?You don't even love yourself!How can you love somebody else?Love yourself,be good to yourself.

I teach you that the first and foremost thing is to be loving towards yourself.

Don't be hard; be soft.

Care about yourself.

Learn how to forgive yourself

and again and again

seven times,

seventy-seven times,

seven hundred seventy-seven times.

Learn how to forgive yourself.

Don't be hard;

don't be antagonistic towards yourself.

Then you will flower.

And in that flowering you will attract some other flower.

It is natural. Stones attract stones; flowers attract flowers.

And then there is a relationship which has grace, which has beauty, which has a benediction in it.

And if you can find such a relationship, your relationship will grow into prayer…

your love will become an ecstasy…

and through love you will know what God is.

Osho - Ecstasy - The Forgotten Language

quote from Chapter 2

The Honeymoon that Never Ends

by Osho

Love is not a relationship.. Love relates, but it is not a relationship. A relationship is something finished. A relationship is a noun; the full stop has come, the honeymoon is over. Now there is no joy, no enthusiasm, now all is finished. You can carry it on, just to keep your promises. You can carry it on because it is comfortable, convenient, cozy. You can carry it on because there is nothing else to do. You can carry it on because if you disrupt it, it is going to create much trouble for you… Relationship means something complete, finished, closed.

Love is never a relationship; love is relating. It is always a river, flowing, unending. Love knows no full stop; the honeymoon begins but never ends. It is not like a novel that starts at a certain point and ends at a certain point. It is an ongoing phenomenon. Lovers end, love continues– it is a continuum. It is a verb, not a noun.

And why do we reduce the beauty of relating to relationship? Why are we in such a hurry? Because to relate is insecure, and relationship is a security. Relationship has a certainty; relating is just a meeting of two strangers, maybe just an overnight stay and in the morning we say goodbye. Who knows what is going to happen tomorrow? And we are so afraid that we want to make it certain, we want to make it predictable. We would like tomorrow to be according to our ideas; we don't allow it freedom to have its own say. So we immediately reduce every verb to a noun.

You are in love with a woman or a man and immediately you start thinking of getting married. Make it a legal contract. Why? How does the law come into love? The law comes into love because love is not there. It is only a fantasy, and you know the fantasy will disappear. Before it disappears settle down, before it disappears do something so it becomes impossible to separate.

In a better world, with more meditative people, with a little more enlightenment spread over the earth, people will love, love immensely, but their love will remain a relating not a relationship. And I am not saying that their love will be only momentary. There is every possibility their love may go deeper than your love, may have a higher quality of intimacy, may have something more of poetry and more of godliness in it. And there is every possibility their love may last longer than your so-called relationship ever lasts. But it will not be guaranteed by the law, by the court, by the policeman. The guarantee will be inner. It will be a commitment from the heart, it will be a silent communion.

If you enjoy being with somebody, you would like to enjoy it more and more. If you enjoy the intimacy, you would like to explore the intimacy more and more. And there are a few flowers of love which bloom only after long intimacies. There are seasonal flowers too; within six weeks they are there, in the sun, but within six weeks again they are gone forever. There are flowers that take years to come, and there are flowers that take many years to come. The longer it takes, the deeper it goes. But it has to be a commitment from one heart to another heart. It has not even to be verbalized, because to verbalize it is to profane it. It has to be a silent commitment; eye to eye, heart to heart, being to being. It has to be understood, not said.

Forget relationships and learn how to relate.

Once you are in a relationship you start taking each other for granted– that's what destroys all love affairs. The woman thinks she knows the man, the man thinks he knows the woman. Nobody knows either! It is impossible to know the other, the other remains a mystery. And to take the other for granted is insulting, disrespectful.

To think that you know your wife is very, very ungrateful. How can you know the woman? How can you know the man? They are processes, they are not things. The woman that you knew yesterday is not there today. So much water has gone down the Ganges; she is somebody else, totally different. Relate again, start again, don't take it for granted.

And the man that you slept with last night, look at his face again in the morning. He is no more the same person, so much has changed. So much, incalculably much has changed. That is the difference between a thing and a person. The furniture in the room is the same, but the man and the woman, they are no more the same. Explore again, start again. That's what I mean by relating.

Relating means you are always starting, you are continuously trying to become acquainted. Again and again, you are introducing yourself to each other. You are trying to see the many facets of the other's personality. You are trying to penetrate deeper and deeper into his realm of inner feelings, into the deep recesses of his being. You are trying to unravel a mystery which cannot be unraveled. That is the joy of love: the exploration of consciousness.

And if you relate, and don't reduce it to a relationship, then the other will become a mirror to you. Exploring him, unawares you will be exploring yourself too. Getting deeper into the other, knowing his feelings, his thoughts, his deeper stirrings, you will be knowing your own deeper stirrings too. Lovers become mirrors to each other, and then love becomes a meditation. Relationship is ugly, relating is beautiful.

Hence I say relate. By saying relate, I mean remain continuously on a honeymoon. Go on searching and seeking each other, finding new ways of loving each other, finding new ways of being with each other. And each person is such an infinite mystery, inexhaustible, unfathomable, that it is not possible that you can ever say, "I have known her," or, "I have known him." At the most you can say, "I have tried my best, but the mystery remains a mystery."

In fact the more you know, the more mysterious the other becomes. Then love is a constant adventure.