Can an escapist truly love and be nonviolent?

Should I take it, Osho, that an escapist cannot love and cannot be nonviolent?

Yes, an escapist can neither love nor be nonviolent. But an escapist may appear to love, and he can even put on the costume of nonviolence—and often he will do exactly that. The escapist cannot love because he has not yet been born; he is not yet there. Who will love? As I have said, it does not depend on the one who is loved; it depends on the one who loves. Only one whose individuality has dawned within, whose person has been born, can love. And the person is born out of struggle and challenge, by fighting every day—just as a sculptor chisels a stone. If the stone refuses to be cut and struck, no statue appears; it remains a rough rock. The struggles of life polish the statue within. If we refuse them, we remain stone. If individuality, soul, being, have not yet arisen within, who is there…

I USED TO THINK A GREAT DEAL ABOUT NON-VIOLENCE, but everything I ever heard about it seemed so superficial. It touched my intellect but not my heart. And slowly I understood why. The non-violence everyone talked about was negative. The negative can never go deeper than the intellect; to touch life something positive is needed, If by non-violence one means nothing more than the renunciation of violence then it can never have any relation to real renunciation, something positive as well as something negative. It is the negative character of the term "non-violence" that has made it so deceptive. The word is negative, but the experience to which it refers is a positive one. Non-violence is an experience of pure love, of a love that is not attached to anything at all.

Osho, continuing in the same thread, a small question: In a state of violence and in a state of nonviolence, how does the condition of the life-energy, the life force, differ?

Water rushing down from the mountains runs toward the low; it looks for ruts, ravines, lakes—it descends, it hurries downward. Then the same water, heated, becomes vapor. It starts racing toward the sky. The very same water begins to seek heights, rides upon the bosoms of clouds, sets out on the sun’s journey. The water is the same, the energy is the same, but a transformation has taken place, a revolution has happened. A violent mind seeks pits and ravines; it flows downward. A nonviolent mind becomes vaporous; it starts seeking mountain peaks, the journey to the sky begins, the upward flight begins; it sets out on the sun’s path, oriented toward liberation and the divine. The violent mind always seeks the other; the other is the abyss. The nonviolent mind seeks itself. To seek oneself is the height. For whenever we seek the other, we have already started moving…

Beloved Osho, sometimes after moments of clarity and lightness, it seems old intimates like violent feelings, jealousy, feeling furious, etcetera, come back even stronger than before, as if they were just waiting around the corner to have their chance again. Can you say something?

Devam Kranti, I can say something, but those feelings of violence and jealousy and furiousness will still be waiting by the corner. Just by my saying something, they are not going to disappear -- because without knowing, you are nourishing them; without knowing, your desire to get free of them is very superficial. You are not doing exactly what I have been emphasizing continually; you are doing just the opposite. You are fighting with the darkness, and you are not bringing the light in. You can go on fighting with the darkness as long as you want -- you are not going to be victorious. That does not mean that you are weaker than darkness, it simply means that what you are doing is irrelevant to darkness. Darkness is only an absence. You cannot do anything directly to it -- just bring light in. And it is not that when…

Bahaudin el-shah, great teacher of the naqshbandi dervishes, one day met a confrere in the great square of bokhara.

THE NEWCOMER WAS A WANDERING KALENDAR OF THE MALAMATI, THE "BLAMEWORTHY". BAHAUDIN WAS SURROUNDED BY DISCIPLES. "FROM WHERE DO YOU COME?" HE ASKED THE TRAVELER, IN THE USUAL SUFI PHRASE. "I HAVE NO IDEA," SAID THE OTHER, GRINNING FOOLISHLY. SOME OF BAHAUDIN'S DISCIPLES MURMURED THEIR DISAPPROVAL OF THIS DISRESPECT. " WHERE ARE YOU GOING?" PERSISTED BAHAUDIN. "I DO NOT KNOW," SHOUTED THE DERVISH. WHAT IS GOOD?" BY NOW A LARGE CROWD HAD GATHERED. "I DO NOT KNOW." " WHAT IS EVIL?" "I HAVE NO IDEA." " WHAT IS RIGHT?" "WHATEVER IS GOOD FOR ME." "WHAT IS WRONG?" "WHATEVER IS BAD FOR ME." THE CROWD, IRRITATED BEYOND ITS PATIENCE BY THIS DERVISH, DROVE HIM AWAY. HE WENT OFF, STRIDING PURPOSEFULLY IN A DIRECTION WHICH LED NOWHERE, AS FAR AS ANYONE KNEW. "FOOLS" SAID BAHAUDIN NAQSHBAND. "THIS MAN IS ACTING THE PART OF HUMANITY. WHILE YOU WERE DESPISING HIM,' HE WAS DELIBERATELY…