[NOTE: This is an unedited tape transcript of an unpublished darshan diary, which has been copy-typed. It is for reference purposes only.]
Love is my message. But don't cling to the word 'love' Don't make a gospel out of it. It is to be experienced.
My function here Is just to point towards god. You are not to become attached to me And my words. You have to remain absolutely free So that you can move towards the moon The ultimate experience.
All gods other than the god of love are false, created by our crafty, cunning mind. They are just pseudo realities, they exist only as concepts. But the god of love is not our creation, on the contrary we are his creation. The god of love is not our creation because it is beyond the capacity of the mind. It is of the heart. Everything else falls within the territory of the mind. Only love is beyond its reach.
That's why love is the only pure experience. Mind has not been able to corrupt it, pollute it, contaminate it, poison it. Mind is very afraid of love because to be in love is dangerous for the mind's existence. Mind calls it blind, mind calls it mad. These are condemnations so that you don't move towards it.
Even the ordinary love of two persons is beyond the comprehension of the mind -- and I am talking about the ultimate love, the love between you and the whole. That is absolutely beyond mind, mind cannot have any idea of what it is. But that's its beauty: mind cannot create it, it cannot visualise it.
Move from logic to love and you will be moving from this shore to the other shore. The name of the journey is sannyas.
The most godly experience in life is that of love. Everything else falls short. It is only on the wings of love that one approaches close to god.
Logic is very heavy. It keeps one tethered to the earth. Love is very light, so light that it makes you free from gravitation. When one is really in love with existence itself, when one becomes love, one starts rising upwards. And that's how one comes closer and closer to the ultimate.
It is only through the window of love that we have our first glimpse of the existence of god, that god is. And with that glimpse life starts having a different flavour, a different meaning. It is no more confined between birth and death -- it becomes eternity.
It is only when the heart is full of love that many flowers bloom. Everything that is valuable happens through love. Anything that is really of any significance cannot happen otherwise, it always grows in the garden of love -- all the roses and all the marigolds and all the lotuses. Compassion grows in the garden of love, meditation grows in the garden of love, creativity grows in the garden of love, sensitivity grows in the garden of love, awareness grows in the garden of love, and, ultimately, god grows in the garden of love.Devote yourself to love. Let love be your religion. That's my religion. If people ask you what your religion is say "Love;" not Christianity, nor Hinduism, nor Mohammedanism nor Judaism, but love. We have to spread the flower of love all over the earth.
Love has to be your path. Be consciously more and more loving. Avoid anything that is anti-love. Don't cooperate with any idea that is anti-love, and pour all your energies into anything that is loving. Slowly slowly, the shift happens, the gestalt changes.People are too invested in anti-love activities. Religions teach them anti-love, religions teach them to be against other religions; nations teach them to be against other nations; races teach them to be against other races. And all this creates a state of insanity. The whole of humanity is quarreling, constantly quarreling. Sometimes it is hot war, sometimes it is cold war, but it is war all the same.My sannyasins have to love the ways of love. My sannyasins are not to be part of any organized religion, they are not to be part of any fanatical nationalist ideologies. They have to look at the earth as one, undivided, they have to look at humanity as one family. And then, slowly slowly, love animals, love trees, love rocks -- let the love grow on growing.When you can love the whole of existence for no reason at all but the simple joy of loving, you will have discovered God.Each step towards love is a step towards God.
Love and only love is full of justice. Without love there is no justice possible. It is only love that gives you clarity, understanding, insight. It is only love that makes you compassionate, and out of compassion the flower of justice grows.The man of love is always just, always right. He cannot do wrong. It is impossible for him to do wrong, because on the tree of love the wrong cannot grow; it is not in the nature of things. Wrong grows only when your love is missing. When you live without love then whatsoever you do is wrong and unjust -- unjust to others and unjust even to yourself.You may even try to do the right thing, but you cannot do the right thing if your heart is not full of love. Your intentions may be good but your actions and the consequences of the actions will not prove to be right. The world is full of people who try to do good but only succeed in doing more harm. The good-doers, the public servants, the people who believe in service, the missionaries, all go on doing whatsoever they think and believe is right, but the total result is that the whole world is in a mess. These missionaries, these do-gooders, prove very mischievous -- unknowingly, of course. Their intentions are not bad but intentions are impotent.The real thing is love. If love is there, if overflowing love is there, then your life will have grace, beauty, your actions will have compassion. That's the only way for a man to be right.My emphasis is not on rules and regulations and commandments and ethical codes and morality. My emphasis is on love. If love is there all is well.
Love is the only helper of mankind.Without love mankind is lost.Without love there is no light. Without love there is no poetry.Without love there is no laughter.Without love there is no meaning.Without love all that is significant disappears.Then life is simply garbage, a drag, a boredom. It is love that makes life flowing, growing, gives it a sense of direction, gives it a center.When you have something so valuable in your life that you can sacrifice your life for it, only then has your life any value. Love makes you aware of something valuable, far more valuable than life itself.One can sacrifice only for love. But love cannot be sacrificed for anything because love is never a means, it is always the end. Everything else can be sacrificed for love. This is my whole teaching.Be a warrior in the service of love. People are warriors but not in the service of love. They are in the service of hate, in the service of all kinds of ugly things: nationalism, imperialism, socialism, communism, capitalism, Mohammedanism, Christianity, Hinduism... People are ready to sacrifice for all kinds of stupidities. But their fight is in vain, they are simply destroying themselves.The God they are serving is their own creation, it is their own projection. The true God means only one thing -- love. Jesus says God is love. Love is the only real statue of God, the real image of God; all other images are false. Serve love, and serve with totality. In that very service one becomes love itself. And that is transformation, that is a new birth, a birth into godliness. Love is the bridge.
Man is powerful when he is with god. Whenever he is not with god he is absolutely powerless. Plugged into god you have infinite power; unplugged you are just empty. And unfortunately millions of people are living their lives unplugged; hence so much misery, so much feeling of impotence, so much feeling of emptiness, so much feeling of futility.
Everybody once in a while finds life utterly absurd. There seems to be no sense in it. One goes on living because one is afraid to commit suicide, one is afraid of death -- at least one is acquainted with this empty life. One never knows what is going to happen in death and after death, so it is better to go on dragging yourself for the time being and hope for the best. But people are unplugged, that's the whole problem.
Religion simply means the art of getting plugged in to god again. Then you are so full of power that it starts overflowing from you. You can share it and it is not exhausted. In fact the more you give it to others, the more you have it.
Lust is not love. Lust is untrue love. It is only an appearance of love, a facade, a strategy. But there is no truth in it. The moment your lust is fulfilled, your love is finished. Your love was only a diplomacy.Real love is a totally different phenomenon. It is not lust in the first place. Lust uses the other person as a means. And love? -- love respects the other person as an end unto himself. Lust is momentary, it is instinctive; it is the lowest phenomenon of our life. And love is non-instinctive, it is conscious; it is the highest phenomenon of our life. Lust is the lowest rung of the ladder and love, the highest rung of the ladder. It is the same ladder.So I am not saying to be against lust. We have to make it a stepping stone, we have to use it to go beyond it. Use it to go beyond it, but don't remain confined in it. The moment you start loving for the sheer joy of love, for no instinctive urge, then something tremendously beautiful opens up in you.That is the only proof of god. When one starts loving one knows that god is. There is no other proof; love is the only proof. Hence Jesus is right when he says that god is love.
Love is a paradox. It is the most fragile phenomenon in existence and yet the strongest. It is as fragile as a flower and as strong as a rock. Those who have tasted of love have tasted something of deathlessness. Those who have missed love have missed all: they may believe in god but they know nothing of god; they may pretend to be religious but they cannot be truly religious.
God, truth, bliss -- all that is really valuable is born out of love. Hence love is the only shelter in this homeless world, love is the only home, the only protection, the only castle. Remember it and try to live it.
It should not remain just an intellectual understanding, it should become your very being. Then each moment is divine and each breath is such a bliss and each beat of the heart brings so much benediction that one cannot believe it, one cannot imagine it. Even when it starts happening one is constantly taken by surprise, because as you grow deeper in lover, more and more goes on happening.
For me love is the only true prayer and the only true bridge to god. Take shelter in love. Let that be your only religion.
Friendship is the very essence of love, the purest form of love. Love has something earthly about it because love has something biological about it. Friendship is beyond biology. It is love without the earthly element of lust in it; hence friendship is one of the greatest *achieveme3nts in life. And if one can be friendly, friendly to all, friendly to everything, even to oneself -- which is the hardest, remember... It is easy to be friendly with others.
Jesus says: Love your enemies as you love yourself. But to love your enemies is easy -- to love yourself is the most difficult phenomenon in the world -- because enemies are far away and you see only their appearance. You see your reality from within and you know all its ugliness, all the anger and the hatred and the jealousy. It is impossible to accept all this.
But once you start accepting life as it is, once you start becoming friendly to everything -- whatsoever god has giving to you -- even friendly to your sex, to your anger, to your greed... It is only through friendship that they can be transformed; through enmity there is no transformation possible. And if one lives in friendliness towards all this very earth becomes paradise. Then not only is one changed through one's friendliness, one's total universe is changed. It is no more the same universe because your eyes are different; they have a clarity, they have insight.
It is out of friendliness that one comes to feel the invisible. And the name of the invisible is god or truth or tao or dhamma. They are different names for the same invisible reality which surrounds us. We cannot touch it; it is intangible. We cannot see it with the ordinary eyes. But when your heart is full of love, pure love, that is friendliness. It is seen, it is known, it is realised. And that is the goal of sannyas.
I am creating here: a world of love. Love is its foundation.Become more and more loving... not for any particular reason. Start enjoying the very phenomenon of love. Share whatsoever you can share. Don't be miserly, don't hoard, because the more you give, the more you have. The more you give, the more you get; the less you give, the less you have. And if you don't give at all, you have simply an empty shell, hollow; there is nothing inside you. Life happens only to the givers. Love is the art of giving.I teach only two things: love and awareness. Awareness is something that you have to do inside your being, and love is something that you have to do with others. Love is relating with others, it is bridging yourself with others. And awareness is bridging you with yourself. If one can fulfill these two simple processes of love and awareness nothing else is needed. This is my whole religion. These two words contain my whole philosophy of life.You start with love, and the other will come of its own accord -- the other always comes. If you start with awareness, one day love comes. If you start with love, one day awareness comes.
There are only two possible ways to reach to god. One is meditation, the other is love. They are not really as separate as they appear, in fact they are two sides of the same coin. But to a few people meditation appeals, it suits them, and to a few other people love appeals and suits. So there can be only two kinds of religions in the world: the religion of the meditators and the religion of the lovers. Both reach to the same peak but through different routes. Let love be your route. Love more and more. Enjoy loving. Let love love itself! Let love be your beloved, and then you are not far away from god. He is just around the corner. The meeting can happen at any moment.
Love has to become your meditation, it has to become your work upon yourself. It is the greatest work one can do, but it is arduous too because you have to drop your jealousies, you have to drop your ego trips, you have to drop your possessiveness, you have to drop all kinds of politics of dominating people. Only then can love well up within you.
Love is there -- everybody is born with it. Inexhaustible sources of love are there but so many rocks are preventing its flow. And rather than removing those rocks we think they are very precious, we protect them.
One has to consciously remove all rocks on the path of love, only then one day will love start flowing. And the day it flows from your heart you start expanding, you start becoming bigger and bigger, you start becoming oceanic. The small dewdrop disappears, you become something vast. That vastness is god, that infinity is god.
Love is the surest bridge to god. If anything succeeds, succeeds absolutely in finding god, it is love.
There have been religions which concentrated only on awareness; for example, Buddhism, Zen, Tao. And there have been religions which have concentrated only on love; Sufism and many many Hindu sects of devotion, bhakti.
My effort here is to create a synthesis between love and awareness, because if you are simply aware and not loving, you become dry, you lose all juice. You become stonelike.
It is not an accident that Gautam Buddha was the first man whose statutes were made in marble and stone. He looked like stone, he looked like marble, so still, so silent, almost cold. That too has a beauty of its own but the beauty is that of a desert, no the beauty of a jungle.
There have been lovers, the Sufis: Jalaluddin, Bahauddin, Al Hillaj. These people are pure love, drunk with love, but something is lacking. They are much too drunk with love, the awareness is missing. They are beautiful people. If one has to choose then their company is far better than the company of the Buddhists. As far as company is concerned, Bahauddin is a better friend, to be with him will be an ecstatic journey. If you want to worship then Buddha is perfectly good. But to be with a Buddha is going to be a little hard, difficult; it is living in a desert. Both have their beauties but my feeling is that both are one-dimensional.
There is a possibility of a new religion in the world, a new kind of religiousness rather than a religion, which combines the beauties of both. You have a beautiful garden and also a patch for a desert in the garden; you can make a beautiful oasis in the desert. You can enjoy both. And my approach is: when you can enjoy more, never settle for less!
Be a loving awareness. Love and be aware too, and you will find a far richer experience than has ever been found.
My sannyasins are moving towards a tremendously new synthesis. It is not visible, it cannot be visible on the surface; it is something inner. You know it only when you experience it. But you can also feel the vibe around if you are sensitive and receptive. You can see here people who are utterly drunk, drunkards, and yet fully alert.
One becomes a beloved by loving more, because existence always returns whatsoever you give to it, and returns it a thousandfold. If you pour love into existence love is poured on you in many many ways, from many dimensions, from all directions. You give just a little and you get so much, it is unbelievable.
But people don't give at all. They go on holding back, and holding back is the only cause of misery, is the only cause of premature death, of untimely death. Hence the earth is full of dead people; they walk, they talk, they do all kinds of things, but they are dead. They are living a posthumous existence. They died the day they started holding back.
Start pouring again. Don't be a miser at all, because to be miserly is to be miserable. As far as love is concerned be a spendthrift. And existence returns whatsoever you give to it in so many ways and with such grandeur, glory, splendour, that one cannot even see the relationship. Because what we give are just stones and what we get are diamonds, there seems to be no relationship.
But only a giver gets, only a lover becomes a beloved. Remember that simple law and that can transform your whole life and being.
Very few people are capable of giving love. Although everybody wants to be loved, nobody is ready to love. This is the whole misery of the world. Everybody wants to be loved and nobody loves; hence everybody suffers. Everybody remains a beggar, begging for love. In fact one need not beg for love because love is our intrinsic nature. We can give it, and it is by giving it that it grows. The more you give, the more you have it. And when you start giving it you become aware of such an inexhaustible source within your own being, that you can give to the whole world within any conditions, without even thinking about whether the other is worthy or not. There is no need to worry about that -- giving in itself is such a joy.And the miracle is that if you give, the whole world loves you; if you beg nobody loves you. Nobody loves a beggar, remember it. Emperors are liked, not beggars. And as far as love is concerned one should learn the art of being an emperor, never a beggar. Give, and the world will respond. Ask, and there is no answer; beg and the whole world turns its back towards you.
Ester is a beautiful name. From one source it is the name of a plant with every green leaves and fragrant white flowers. The evergreen leaves represent love, symbolise love. Love is always green. It never dies, it is always alive. If it is at all, it is forever. If it disappears that only means it was never there in the first place. Those evergreen leaves symbolise the ever-flowing life juices of love.
And the white flowers are also very significant. White is the combination of all the colours, the synthesis of all the colours. White in itself is not a colour; it is the ultimate synthesis of all the seven colours. The whole rainbow has merged, mingled into oneness, and out of that oneness arises white. White symbolises union, the ultimate union. Love is ultimate union.
From another source ester also symbolises love. It comes from the name of a goddess, Ester, who is a goddess of love. But the first is far more significant; the second is only mythological. The first is far more real.
Become evergreen love. When the season is ripe, when the time has come, you will be showered with white flowers.
God gives many gifts but meditation is the greatest, because one becomes aware of god only through meditation. There are many other gifts: life is a gift, love is a gift, joy is a gift, creativity is a gift. One remains with these gifts but never becomes aware of the hand that gives them gifts.
It is only through meditation that you become aware of the hand, the hidden hand, the hidden energy, the unmanifest source of all. Hence meditation is the greatest gift, because it not only gives you joy, love, peace, silence, it also gives you the giver; it gives you god himself.
Beatriz is a beautiful name. It means one who is capable of blessing others.
It is possible only when one has achieved blissfulness. When one is overflowing with bliss one can bless others, not otherwise. If one is miserable one goes on making others miserable. Even though one does not want to, it is almost inevitable because you can only give that which you are. In your relationships you are bound to reflect your being, you are bound to share yourself.
It is impossible to remain miserable and to go on pretending that you are happy. Those pretensions are not going to help anyone. Everybody will be able to see through them, nobody is deceived. And unconsciously you go on creating the vibe of darkness, of misery, of sadness, around you.
The same happens when you become blissful; you start showering flowers of bliss, a great fragrance is released from you. And it is possible to be blissful, it is possible to be a blessing to the whole existence. Remember it -- it is within your capacity, it is within everybody's grasp. If we miss it, we miss only because we never make any endeavour to get it.
We use the expression 'falling in love' because our ordinary love is certainly a fall. It is falling from consciousness into unconsciousness, it is falling into the hands of blind biology, blind nature, blind instincts.
But there is another kind of love too, which is not a fall but a rise. Only that love, which is not a fall but a rise, can fulfill. And the distinction between the two is simple: when you are falling you are becoming more unconscious, when you are rising you are becoming more conscious. Let that be the criterion, the touchstone. Everything that helps you to be more conscious is good, is virtue; anything that helps you to be more unconscious is vice, is sin.
Learn the alphabet of the new love. It has to be unconditional. Don't make any condition, don't ask for anything in return. It has to be unmotivated. Let it be for the sheer joy of giving. It has to be a gift, not a bargain. And then slowly slowly you will see that you are growing wings, that you are rising towards the sun.
And the unconditional love, the unmotivated love, is never a bondage; it never creates a prison for you, it always helps you to be more free. Ultimately it gives you absolute freedom -- and that is the goal of sannyas.
Love more and more, for no other reason than for love's sake. Be in love with love itself so that you can love people, trees, birds, rocks, starts, clouds without any motive. When on learns to love without motive a miracle happens: one becomes love. If you go on loving for some motive you never become love.
This is the whole secret on the path of love: unmotivated love transforms your whole being into love energy, and to become love energy is to become divine. Nothing more is needed. That is more than one can as for, that is more than one can dream of. It brings absolute fulfilment, it brings flowering. You bloom. Flowers of consciousness start opening within you.
Love is true when it is unconditional, love is true when it is non-possessive. Love is true when it enjoys giving and is not hankering to get something, when it is not a bargain, when it is not business, when it is for the sheer joy of sharing.
Share whatsoever you have. Share your life with people, with animals, with trees, with stars, with clouds, mountains, rivers. Share, because this whole universe is our family, we are part of it.
And the miracle is: the more you give, the more you get. But don't desire. Love is true when it is not a desire, when it is unmotivated. And if love is attained then there is no need for any other region -- it is enough. it will give you all that is needed. It will give you truth, it will give you god, it will give you liberation.
People are very bitter. Even if they are sweet sometimes, their sweetness is diplomatic. It is not their true face, it is just a facade. They smile because smiling pays, but deep down they are only thorns; inside their being there are no roses. They maintain a certain surface, a certain superficial beauty. They cultivate a certain character -- appealing, influential, attractive, but that is all part of their ambitious ego. And ego can never be sweet -- it is pure poison. You can sugar-coat it, that is possible, but it can never be sweet.
A sannyasin has to drop all superficial smiles, all facades, all cultivated so-called manners and etiquette. He has to be more spontaneous, he has to be really loving -- not in a diplomatic way, not with any motive, not to get anything out of it, but just to share his being.
And the moment one starts sharing one's being without any motive life becomes a sweet fragrance. It is all honey. Then everything remains the same, yet nothing is the same any more. When your heart beats in harmony, in love, in joy, when you are no longer greedy, when there are no desires and no ambitions, and when there are no ego trips any more, one is simply, ordinary, but sweet. That taste is the taste of god.
The Eastern mystics have defined god as satyam, shivam, sunderam. Satyam means the truth, shivam means the good, sunderam means the beautiful.
The Christian trinity looks very poor -- this is the true trinity. These are the three approaches towards god, three doors to enter into the ultimate.
Either you enter as a seeker of truth... That is the approach of the philosopher. And by philosophy I do not mean that which is taught in the universities. That is not philosophy at all. By philosophy I mean the original meaning of philosophy: love of wisdom. Lovers of wisdom enter from the door of truth. It is a different path but they reach the same peak, the peak is the same.
And the person who enters through the door called good is the person who tries to live a life of simplicity, innocence, purity -- the virtuous one. And by the virtuous I don't mean the moralist. The moralist is an egoist. He is cunning, calculative. His morality is not much, his morality is just a policy; hence he says 'Honesty is the best policy.' It is politics. He is playing a game. He is trying to deceive even god. He is only pretending to be good, he is not good.
To be virtuous is totally different. It is not a question of having a good character. It is a question of having more consciousness in your being, not conscience but consciousness. Conscience makes character, consciousness creates virtue. When you are alert, more alert than people ordinarily are, you have the capacity to see what is right and what is wrong. And each moment you decide; you don't carry ready-made answers.
The man of so-called character lives out of ready-made answers; hence he is never in tune with life, never in step with life. His answers are old and life always raises new questions. But the virtuous man is spontaneous. He enters from the door of good.
And the poet and the painter and the sculptor and all those who love beauty enter from the third door. If one can enter from the third door, my preference is for the third. If it si impossible then my next preference is fo the second door, the door of spontaneous virtue. If that too is difficult, then only should one choose the path of wisdom, because that is the hardest path, the most arduous. And there is no need to be a martyr unnecessarily. When one can go easily, when one can go dancing and singing, why carry a cross?
Let that be your path -- creativity. Create something beautiful, out of your being create something beautiful. And whatsoever you do be creative -- that will be your religion, that will be your meditation.
In the past religion has not been creative. That's why religion has existed for thousands of years but has failed, utterly failed. It has not been able to transform human consciousness, not at all. Just a Jesus, a Buddha, a Lao Tzu, here and there -- this is not success. Out of millions of people one person, Jesus... it does not prove anything. The exception simply proves the rule. And what did we do to these people? -- we poisoned them, we killed them, we crucified them. We are closer to Judas than to Jesus. The whole humanity is closer to Judas than to Jesus. If Jesus comes back we will kill him again.
Religion has failed for the simple reason that it was uncreative. Anything uncreative cannot succeed. God is a creator. The only way to succeed in god's existence -- and there is no other existence -- is to be creative.
Create beauty, appreciate beauty, love beauty. Let beauty be your god. Worship beauty.
In the past all religions have been very uncreative; that's why they became a dead burden on humanity. My effort here is to create a new quality of religiousness, and that quality has to be rooted in creativity.
God is the creator, and the only way to know him to be a creator; there is no other way. When you create something you participate with god. When the painter is lost in painting he is part of god, he is no more himself. When the musician is lost in his music he is part of god, there is a meeting and a merging. In those moments he is vast, enormous. He is not ordinary, he is not human. He has transcended all limitations.
And it happens in all kinds of creativity, so it does not matter what you create, just create. Let creativity be your prayer, your worship, your religion.
Meditation brings many flowers, many gifts. One of those gifts is creativity. Suddenly you are so full of energy that you would like to create something, paint something, sing something, play on the guitar or on the flute. When one is overflowing with energy, the energy is bound to be creative.
It is a strange phenomenon that the uncreative people are the people who are lacking in energy, the destructive people are the people who are lacking in energy. They are impotent people. Because they cannot create they start destroying. Destruction is easy -- anybody can do it. How much energy is needed to destroy a painting? A painter may have worked on it for months, but to destroy it... just a child can destroy it. How much energy is needed to destroy a flower? The gardener may have worked for years...
Destruction needs no energy; hence my observation is that Adolf Hitler and Mussolini and Josef Stalin are not really powerful people, they are people who are lacking in energy, they are impotent people. Because they cannot create they have to destroy, that seems to be the only way to prove themselves. Those who can create will not bother to destroy at all. But to create one needs great energy, more energy than you need for your day-to-day activities, so much energy that you cannot contain it, that it starts overflowing.
When it starts dancing on its own then something beautiful is going to be born out of you. If your meditation does not make you creative then it is not meditation; then you are taking something else as meditation.
Creativity has to be the criterion. My sannyasins particularly have to prove their meditation in their creative acts. To be creative means sharing your joy with others. To be creative means bringing something from the unmanifest into the manifest world. Creativity means sharing something with god, because he is the creator and whenever you create something you are participating with him. You become a partner -- of course a small partner, but a partner is a partner.
Osho's Commentary
Love is my message.
But don't cling to the word 'love'
Don't make a gospel out of it.
It is to be experienced.
My function here
Is just to point towards god.
You are not to become attached to me
And my words.
You have to remain absolutely free
So that you can move towards the moon
The ultimate experience.
All gods other than the god of love are false, created by our crafty, cunning mind. They are just pseudo realities, they exist only as concepts. But the god of love is not our creation, on the contrary we are his creation. The god of love is not our creation because it is beyond the capacity of the mind. It is of the heart. Everything else falls within the territory of the mind. Only love is beyond its reach.
That's why love is the only pure experience. Mind has not been able to corrupt it, pollute it, contaminate it, poison it. Mind is very afraid of love because to be in love is dangerous for the mind's existence. Mind calls it blind, mind calls it mad. These are condemnations so that you don't move towards it.
Even the ordinary love of two persons is beyond the comprehension of the mind -- and I am talking about the ultimate love, the love between you and the whole. That is absolutely beyond mind, mind cannot have any idea of what it is. But that's its beauty: mind cannot create it, it cannot visualise it.
Move from logic to love and you will be moving from this shore to the other shore. The name of the journey is sannyas.
The most godly experience in life is that of love. Everything else falls short. It is only on the wings of love that one approaches close to god.
Logic is very heavy. It keeps one tethered to the earth. Love is very light, so light that it makes you free from gravitation. When one is really in love with existence itself, when one becomes love, one starts rising upwards. And that's how one comes closer and closer to the ultimate.
It is only through the window of love that we have our first glimpse of the existence of god, that god is. And with that glimpse life starts having a different flavour, a different meaning. It is no more confined between birth and death -- it becomes eternity.
It is only when the heart is full of love that many flowers bloom. Everything that is valuable happens through love. Anything that is really of any significance cannot happen otherwise, it always grows in the garden of love -- all the roses and all the marigolds and all the lotuses. Compassion grows in the garden of love, meditation grows in the garden of love, creativity grows in the garden of love, sensitivity grows in the garden of love, awareness grows in the garden of love, and, ultimately, god grows in the garden of love.Devote yourself to love. Let love be your religion. That's my religion. If people ask you what your religion is say "Love;" not Christianity, nor Hinduism, nor Mohammedanism nor Judaism, but love. We have to spread the flower of love all over the earth.
Love has to be your path. Be consciously more and more loving. Avoid anything that is anti-love. Don't cooperate with any idea that is anti-love, and pour all your energies into anything that is loving. Slowly slowly, the shift happens, the gestalt changes.People are too invested in anti-love activities. Religions teach them anti-love, religions teach them to be against other religions; nations teach them to be against other nations; races teach them to be against other races. And all this creates a state of insanity. The whole of humanity is quarreling, constantly quarreling. Sometimes it is hot war, sometimes it is cold war, but it is war all the same.My sannyasins have to love the ways of love. My sannyasins are not to be part of any organized religion, they are not to be part of any fanatical nationalist ideologies. They have to look at the earth as one, undivided, they have to look at humanity as one family. And then, slowly slowly, love animals, love trees, love rocks -- let the love grow on growing.When you can love the whole of existence for no reason at all but the simple joy of loving, you will have discovered God.Each step towards love is a step towards God.
Love and only love is full of justice. Without love there is no justice possible. It is only love that gives you clarity, understanding, insight. It is only love that makes you compassionate, and out of compassion the flower of justice grows.The man of love is always just, always right. He cannot do wrong. It is impossible for him to do wrong, because on the tree of love the wrong cannot grow; it is not in the nature of things. Wrong grows only when your love is missing. When you live without love then whatsoever you do is wrong and unjust -- unjust to others and unjust even to yourself.You may even try to do the right thing, but you cannot do the right thing if your heart is not full of love. Your intentions may be good but your actions and the consequences of the actions will not prove to be right. The world is full of people who try to do good but only succeed in doing more harm. The good-doers, the public servants, the people who believe in service, the missionaries, all go on doing whatsoever they think and believe is right, but the total result is that the whole world is in a mess. These missionaries, these do-gooders, prove very mischievous -- unknowingly, of course. Their intentions are not bad but intentions are impotent.The real thing is love. If love is there, if overflowing love is there, then your life will have grace, beauty, your actions will have compassion. That's the only way for a man to be right.My emphasis is not on rules and regulations and commandments and ethical codes and morality. My emphasis is on love. If love is there all is well.
Love is the only helper of mankind.Without love mankind is lost.Without love there is no light. Without love there is no poetry.Without love there is no laughter.Without love there is no meaning.Without love all that is significant disappears.Then life is simply garbage, a drag, a boredom. It is love that makes life flowing, growing, gives it a sense of direction, gives it a center.When you have something so valuable in your life that you can sacrifice your life for it, only then has your life any value. Love makes you aware of something valuable, far more valuable than life itself.One can sacrifice only for love. But love cannot be sacrificed for anything because love is never a means, it is always the end. Everything else can be sacrificed for love. This is my whole teaching.Be a warrior in the service of love. People are warriors but not in the service of love. They are in the service of hate, in the service of all kinds of ugly things: nationalism, imperialism, socialism, communism, capitalism, Mohammedanism, Christianity, Hinduism... People are ready to sacrifice for all kinds of stupidities. But their fight is in vain, they are simply destroying themselves.The God they are serving is their own creation, it is their own projection. The true God means only one thing -- love. Jesus says God is love. Love is the only real statue of God, the real image of God; all other images are false. Serve love, and serve with totality. In that very service one becomes love itself. And that is transformation, that is a new birth, a birth into godliness. Love is the bridge.
Man is powerful when he is with god. Whenever he is not with god he is absolutely powerless. Plugged into god you have infinite power; unplugged you are just empty. And unfortunately millions of people are living their lives unplugged; hence so much misery, so much feeling of impotence, so much feeling of emptiness, so much feeling of futility.
Everybody once in a while finds life utterly absurd. There seems to be no sense in it. One goes on living because one is afraid to commit suicide, one is afraid of death -- at least one is acquainted with this empty life. One never knows what is going to happen in death and after death, so it is better to go on dragging yourself for the time being and hope for the best. But people are unplugged, that's the whole problem.
Religion simply means the art of getting plugged in to god again. Then you are so full of power that it starts overflowing from you. You can share it and it is not exhausted. In fact the more you give it to others, the more you have it.
Lust is not love. Lust is untrue love. It is only an appearance of love, a facade, a strategy. But there is no truth in it. The moment your lust is fulfilled, your love is finished. Your love was only a diplomacy.Real love is a totally different phenomenon. It is not lust in the first place. Lust uses the other person as a means. And love? -- love respects the other person as an end unto himself. Lust is momentary, it is instinctive; it is the lowest phenomenon of our life. And love is non-instinctive, it is conscious; it is the highest phenomenon of our life. Lust is the lowest rung of the ladder and love, the highest rung of the ladder. It is the same ladder.So I am not saying to be against lust. We have to make it a stepping stone, we have to use it to go beyond it. Use it to go beyond it, but don't remain confined in it. The moment you start loving for the sheer joy of love, for no instinctive urge, then something tremendously beautiful opens up in you.That is the only proof of god. When one starts loving one knows that god is. There is no other proof; love is the only proof. Hence Jesus is right when he says that god is love.
Love is a paradox. It is the most fragile phenomenon in existence and yet the strongest. It is as fragile as a flower and as strong as a rock. Those who have tasted of love have tasted something of deathlessness. Those who have missed love have missed all: they may believe in god but they know nothing of god; they may pretend to be religious but they cannot be truly religious.
God, truth, bliss -- all that is really valuable is born out of love. Hence love is the only shelter in this homeless world, love is the only home, the only protection, the only castle. Remember it and try to live it.
It should not remain just an intellectual understanding, it should become your very being. Then each moment is divine and each breath is such a bliss and each beat of the heart brings so much benediction that one cannot believe it, one cannot imagine it. Even when it starts happening one is constantly taken by surprise, because as you grow deeper in lover, more and more goes on happening.
For me love is the only true prayer and the only true bridge to god. Take shelter in love. Let that be your only religion.
Friendship is the very essence of love, the purest form of love. Love has something earthly about it because love has something biological about it. Friendship is beyond biology. It is love without the earthly element of lust in it; hence friendship is one of the greatest *achieveme3nts in life. And if one can be friendly, friendly to all, friendly to everything, even to oneself -- which is the hardest, remember... It is easy to be friendly with others.
Jesus says: Love your enemies as you love yourself. But to love your enemies is easy -- to love yourself is the most difficult phenomenon in the world -- because enemies are far away and you see only their appearance. You see your reality from within and you know all its ugliness, all the anger and the hatred and the jealousy. It is impossible to accept all this.
But once you start accepting life as it is, once you start becoming friendly to everything -- whatsoever god has giving to you -- even friendly to your sex, to your anger, to your greed... It is only through friendship that they can be transformed; through enmity there is no transformation possible. And if one lives in friendliness towards all this very earth becomes paradise. Then not only is one changed through one's friendliness, one's total universe is changed. It is no more the same universe because your eyes are different; they have a clarity, they have insight.
It is out of friendliness that one comes to feel the invisible. And the name of the invisible is god or truth or tao or dhamma. They are different names for the same invisible reality which surrounds us. We cannot touch it; it is intangible. We cannot see it with the ordinary eyes. But when your heart is full of love, pure love, that is friendliness. It is seen, it is known, it is realised. And that is the goal of sannyas.
I am creating here: a world of love. Love is its foundation.Become more and more loving... not for any particular reason. Start enjoying the very phenomenon of love. Share whatsoever you can share. Don't be miserly, don't hoard, because the more you give, the more you have. The more you give, the more you get; the less you give, the less you have. And if you don't give at all, you have simply an empty shell, hollow; there is nothing inside you. Life happens only to the givers. Love is the art of giving.I teach only two things: love and awareness. Awareness is something that you have to do inside your being, and love is something that you have to do with others. Love is relating with others, it is bridging yourself with others. And awareness is bridging you with yourself. If one can fulfill these two simple processes of love and awareness nothing else is needed. This is my whole religion. These two words contain my whole philosophy of life.You start with love, and the other will come of its own accord -- the other always comes. If you start with awareness, one day love comes. If you start with love, one day awareness comes.
There are only two possible ways to reach to god. One is meditation, the other is love. They are not really as separate as they appear, in fact they are two sides of the same coin. But to a few people meditation appeals, it suits them, and to a few other people love appeals and suits. So there can be only two kinds of religions in the world: the religion of the meditators and the religion of the lovers. Both reach to the same peak but through different routes. Let love be your route. Love more and more. Enjoy loving. Let love love itself! Let love be your beloved, and then you are not far away from god. He is just around the corner. The meeting can happen at any moment.
Love has to become your meditation, it has to become your work upon yourself. It is the greatest work one can do, but it is arduous too because you have to drop your jealousies, you have to drop your ego trips, you have to drop your possessiveness, you have to drop all kinds of politics of dominating people. Only then can love well up within you.
Love is there -- everybody is born with it. Inexhaustible sources of love are there but so many rocks are preventing its flow. And rather than removing those rocks we think they are very precious, we protect them.
One has to consciously remove all rocks on the path of love, only then one day will love start flowing. And the day it flows from your heart you start expanding, you start becoming bigger and bigger, you start becoming oceanic. The small dewdrop disappears, you become something vast. That vastness is god, that infinity is god.
Love is the surest bridge to god. If anything succeeds, succeeds absolutely in finding god, it is love.
There have been religions which concentrated only on awareness; for example, Buddhism, Zen, Tao. And there have been religions which have concentrated only on love; Sufism and many many Hindu sects of devotion, bhakti.
My effort here is to create a synthesis between love and awareness, because if you are simply aware and not loving, you become dry, you lose all juice. You become stonelike.
It is not an accident that Gautam Buddha was the first man whose statutes were made in marble and stone. He looked like stone, he looked like marble, so still, so silent, almost cold. That too has a beauty of its own but the beauty is that of a desert, no the beauty of a jungle.
There have been lovers, the Sufis: Jalaluddin, Bahauddin, Al Hillaj. These people are pure love, drunk with love, but something is lacking. They are much too drunk with love, the awareness is missing. They are beautiful people. If one has to choose then their company is far better than the company of the Buddhists. As far as company is concerned, Bahauddin is a better friend, to be with him will be an ecstatic journey. If you want to worship then Buddha is perfectly good. But to be with a Buddha is going to be a little hard, difficult; it is living in a desert.
Both have their beauties but my feeling is that both are one-dimensional.
There is a possibility of a new religion in the world, a new kind of religiousness rather than a religion, which combines the beauties of both. You have a beautiful garden and also a patch for a desert in the garden; you can make a beautiful oasis in the desert. You can enjoy both. And my approach is: when you can enjoy more, never settle for less!
Be a loving awareness. Love and be aware too, and you will find a far richer experience than has ever been found.
My sannyasins are moving towards a tremendously new synthesis. It is not visible, it cannot be visible on the surface; it is something inner. You know it only when you experience it. But you can also feel the vibe around if you are sensitive and receptive. You can see here people who are utterly drunk, drunkards, and yet fully alert.
One becomes a beloved by loving more, because existence always returns whatsoever you give to it, and returns it a thousandfold. If you pour love into existence love is poured on you in many many ways, from many dimensions, from all directions. You give just a little and you get so much, it is unbelievable.
But people don't give at all. They go on holding back, and holding back is the only cause of misery, is the only cause of premature death, of untimely death. Hence the earth is full of dead people; they walk, they talk, they do all kinds of things, but they are dead. They are living a posthumous existence. They died the day they started holding back.
Start pouring again. Don't be a miser at all, because to be miserly is to be miserable. As far as love is concerned be a spendthrift. And existence returns whatsoever you give to it in so many ways and with such grandeur, glory, splendour, that one cannot even see the relationship. Because what we give are just stones and what we get are diamonds, there seems to be no relationship.
But only a giver gets, only a lover becomes a beloved. Remember that simple law and that can transform your whole life and being.
Very few people are capable of giving love. Although everybody wants to be loved, nobody is ready to love. This is the whole misery of the world. Everybody wants to be loved and nobody loves; hence everybody suffers. Everybody remains a beggar, begging for love. In fact one need not beg for love because love is our intrinsic nature. We can give it, and it is by giving it that it grows. The more you give, the more you have it. And when you start giving it you become aware of such an inexhaustible source within your own being, that you can give to the whole world within any conditions, without even thinking about whether the other is worthy or not. There is no need to worry about that -- giving in itself is such a joy.And the miracle is that if you give, the whole world loves you; if you beg nobody loves you. Nobody loves a beggar, remember it. Emperors are liked, not beggars. And as far as love is concerned one should learn the art of being an emperor, never a beggar. Give, and the world will respond. Ask, and there is no answer; beg and the whole world turns its back towards you.
Ester is a beautiful name. From one source it is the name of a plant with every green leaves and fragrant white flowers. The evergreen leaves represent love, symbolise love. Love is always green. It never dies, it is always alive. If it is at all, it is forever. If it disappears that only means it was never there in the first place. Those evergreen leaves symbolise the ever-flowing life juices of love.
And the white flowers are also very significant. White is the combination of all the colours, the synthesis of all the colours. White in itself is not a colour; it is the ultimate synthesis of all the seven colours. The whole rainbow has merged, mingled into oneness, and out of that oneness arises white. White symbolises union, the ultimate union. Love is ultimate union.
From another source ester also symbolises love. It comes from the name of a goddess, Ester, who is a goddess of love. But the first is far more significant; the second is only mythological. The first is far more real.
Become evergreen love. When the season is ripe, when the time has come, you will be showered with white flowers.
God gives many gifts but meditation is the greatest, because one becomes aware of god only through meditation. There are many other gifts: life is a gift, love is a gift, joy is a gift, creativity is a gift. One remains with these gifts but never becomes aware of the hand that gives them gifts.
It is only through meditation that you become aware of the hand, the hidden hand, the hidden energy, the unmanifest source of all. Hence meditation is the greatest gift, because it not only gives you joy, love, peace, silence, it also gives you the giver; it gives you god himself.
Beatriz is a beautiful name. It means one who is capable of blessing others.
It is possible only when one has achieved blissfulness. When one is overflowing with bliss one can bless others, not otherwise. If one is miserable one goes on making others miserable. Even though one does not want to, it is almost inevitable because you can only give that which you are. In your relationships you are bound to reflect your being, you are bound to share yourself.
It is impossible to remain miserable and to go on pretending that you are happy. Those pretensions are not going to help anyone. Everybody will be able to see through them, nobody is deceived. And unconsciously you go on creating the vibe of darkness, of misery, of sadness, around you.
The same happens when you become blissful; you start showering flowers of bliss, a great fragrance is released from you. And it is possible to be blissful, it is possible to be a blessing to the whole existence. Remember it -- it is within your capacity, it is within everybody's grasp. If we miss it, we miss only because we never make any endeavour to get it.
We use the expression 'falling in love' because our ordinary love is certainly a fall. It is falling from consciousness into unconsciousness, it is falling into the hands of blind biology, blind nature, blind instincts.
But there is another kind of love too, which is not a fall but a rise. Only that love, which is not a fall but a rise, can fulfill. And the distinction between the two is simple: when you are falling you are becoming more unconscious, when you are rising you are becoming more conscious. Let that be the criterion, the touchstone. Everything that helps you to be more conscious is good, is virtue; anything that helps you to be more unconscious is vice, is sin.
Learn the alphabet of the new love. It has to be unconditional. Don't make any condition, don't ask for anything in return. It has to be unmotivated. Let it be for the sheer joy of giving. It has to be a gift, not a bargain. And then slowly slowly you will see that you are growing wings, that you are rising towards the sun.
And the unconditional love, the unmotivated love, is never a bondage; it never creates a prison for you, it always helps you to be more free. Ultimately it gives you absolute freedom -- and that is the goal of sannyas.
Love more and more, for no other reason than for love's sake. Be in love with love itself so that you can love people, trees, birds, rocks, starts, clouds without any motive. When on learns to love without motive a miracle happens: one becomes love. If you go on loving for some motive you never become love.
This is the whole secret on the path of love: unmotivated love transforms your whole being into love energy, and to become love energy is to become divine. Nothing more is needed. That is more than one can as for, that is more than one can dream of. It brings absolute fulfilment, it brings flowering. You bloom. Flowers of consciousness start opening within you.
Love is true when it is unconditional, love is true when it is non-possessive. Love is true when it enjoys giving and is not hankering to get something, when it is not a bargain, when it is not business, when it is for the sheer joy of sharing.
Share whatsoever you have. Share your life with people, with animals, with trees, with stars, with clouds, mountains, rivers. Share, because this whole universe is our family, we are part of it.
And the miracle is: the more you give, the more you get. But don't desire. Love is true when it is not a desire, when it is unmotivated. And if love is attained then there is no need for any other region -- it is enough. it will give you all that is needed. It will give you truth, it will give you god, it will give you liberation.
People are very bitter. Even if they are sweet sometimes, their sweetness is diplomatic. It is not their true face, it is just a facade. They smile because smiling pays, but deep down they are only thorns; inside their being there are no roses. They maintain a certain surface, a certain superficial beauty. They cultivate a certain character -- appealing, influential, attractive, but that is all part of their ambitious ego. And ego can never be sweet -- it is pure poison. You can sugar-coat it, that is possible, but it can never be sweet.
A sannyasin has to drop all superficial smiles, all facades, all cultivated so-called manners and etiquette. He has to be more spontaneous, he has to be really loving -- not in a diplomatic way, not with any motive, not to get anything out of it, but just to share his being.
And the moment one starts sharing one's being without any motive life becomes a sweet fragrance. It is all honey. Then everything remains the same, yet nothing is the same any more. When your heart beats in harmony, in love, in joy, when you are no longer greedy, when there are no desires and no ambitions, and when there are no ego trips any more, one is simply, ordinary, but sweet. That taste is the taste of god.
The Eastern mystics have defined god as satyam, shivam, sunderam. Satyam means the truth, shivam means the good, sunderam means the beautiful.
The Christian trinity looks very poor -- this is the true trinity. These are the three approaches towards god, three doors to enter into the ultimate.
Either you enter as a seeker of truth... That is the approach of the philosopher. And by philosophy I do not mean that which is taught in the universities. That is not philosophy at all. By philosophy I mean the original meaning of philosophy: love of wisdom. Lovers of wisdom enter from the door of truth. It is a different path but they reach the same peak, the peak is the same.
And the person who enters through the door called good is the person who tries to live a life of simplicity, innocence, purity -- the virtuous one. And by the virtuous I don't mean the moralist. The moralist is an egoist. He is cunning, calculative. His morality is not much, his morality is just a policy; hence he says 'Honesty is the best policy.' It is politics. He is playing a game. He is trying to deceive even god. He is only pretending to be good, he is not good.
To be virtuous is totally different. It is not a question of having a good character. It is a question of having more consciousness in your being, not conscience but consciousness. Conscience makes character, consciousness creates virtue. When you are alert, more alert than people ordinarily are, you have the capacity to see what is right and what is wrong. And each moment you decide; you don't carry ready-made answers.
The man of so-called character lives out of ready-made answers; hence he is never in tune with life, never in step with life. His answers are old and life always raises new questions. But the virtuous man is spontaneous. He enters from the door of good.
And the poet and the painter and the sculptor and all those who love beauty enter from the third door. If one can enter from the third door, my preference is for the third. If it si impossible then my next preference is fo the second door, the door of spontaneous virtue. If that too is difficult, then only should one choose the path of wisdom, because that is the hardest path, the most arduous. And there is no need to be a martyr unnecessarily. When one can go easily, when one can go dancing and singing, why carry a cross?
Let that be your path -- creativity. Create something beautiful, out of your being create something beautiful. And whatsoever you do be creative -- that will be your religion, that will be your meditation.
In the past religion has not been creative. That's why religion has existed for thousands of years but has failed, utterly failed. It has not been able to transform human consciousness, not at all. Just a Jesus, a Buddha, a Lao Tzu, here and there -- this is not success. Out of millions of people one person, Jesus... it does not prove anything. The exception simply proves the rule. And what did we do to these people? -- we poisoned them, we killed them, we crucified them. We are closer to Judas than to Jesus. The whole humanity is closer to Judas than to Jesus. If Jesus comes back we will kill him again.
Religion has failed for the simple reason that it was uncreative. Anything uncreative cannot succeed. God is a creator. The only way to succeed in god's existence -- and there is no other existence -- is to be creative.
Create beauty, appreciate beauty, love beauty. Let beauty be your god. Worship beauty.
In the past all religions have been very uncreative; that's why they became a dead burden on humanity. My effort here is to create a new quality of religiousness, and that quality has to be rooted in creativity.
God is the creator, and the only way to know him to be a creator; there is no other way. When you create something you participate with god. When the painter is lost in painting he is part of god, he is no more himself. When the musician is lost in his music he is part of god, there is a meeting and a merging. In those moments he is vast, enormous. He is not ordinary, he is not human. He has transcended all limitations.
And it happens in all kinds of creativity, so it does not matter what you create, just create. Let creativity be your prayer, your worship, your religion.
Meditation brings many flowers, many gifts. One of those gifts is creativity. Suddenly you are so full of energy that you would like to create something, paint something, sing something, play on the guitar or on the flute. When one is overflowing with energy, the energy is bound to be creative.
It is a strange phenomenon that the uncreative people are the people who are lacking in energy, the destructive people are the people who are lacking in energy. They are impotent people. Because they cannot create they start destroying. Destruction is easy -- anybody can do it. How much energy is needed to destroy a painting? A painter may have worked on it for months, but to destroy it... just a child can destroy it. How much energy is needed to destroy a flower? The gardener may have worked for years...
Destruction needs no energy; hence my observation is that Adolf Hitler and Mussolini and Josef Stalin are not really powerful people, they are people who are lacking in energy, they are impotent people. Because they cannot create they have to destroy, that seems to be the only way to prove themselves. Those who can create will not bother to destroy at all. But to create one needs great energy, more energy than you need for your day-to-day activities, so much energy that you cannot contain it, that it starts overflowing.
When it starts dancing on its own then something beautiful is going to be born out of you. If your meditation does not make you creative then it is not meditation; then you are taking something else as meditation.
Creativity has to be the criterion. My sannyasins particularly have to prove their meditation in their creative acts. To be creative means sharing your joy with others. To be creative means bringing something from the unmanifest into the manifest world. Creativity means sharing something with god, because he is the creator and whenever you create something you are participating with him. You become a partner -- of course a small partner, but a partner is a partner.