Can love be taught?

Beloved Osho, can love be taught? Can one be schooled in love? Can one without heart learn to have heart?

No one is without heart. You have the heart, but a nonfunctioning heart; it is there, but not functioning. It is there as a seed, it has not grown. Love cannot be taught, but situations can be created where the heart can grow; and when the heart grows love grows. Situations are needed. Love cannot be taught like mathematics. Mathematics can be directly taught, it is informative; love cannot be taught that way, it is not simply information. You have to grow, you have to change -- but situations can be created. In old Eastern universities -- Nalanda, Taxila -- there were many situations created where love became possible. For example, children were not taught under the roofs, in the rooms; they were always taught under the trees, in the shade of the trees. Have you ever felt any difference? Sit by the side of a concrete wall, and then…

One has to sow the seeds; one has to prepare the soil. One has to be very loving, careful. One has to defend the new sprouts, because there are a thousand and one dangers, and love is very delicate. One has to handle it carefully: love is very subtle and the world is very gross. Love is like a flower, and in the world you will find only rocks and rocks. The flower can be crushed very easily. Its beauty can be destroyed at any moment. It is a miracle that it happens in such a hard world, but it does happen. Love makes one aware that miracles are possible. There is no other miracle which is bigger than love. Be a gardener of love. Let your heart be the soil Tend the garden carefully in the right time, when the spring comes.

Question: Second question: Osho, is love life itself? Is it aliveness? Such is the fear. Therefore I say: for the first lessons in love, go to rocks, mountains, rivers, trees. Then slowly advance. And when you learn that love has no concern with whether the other returns it or not—that love is simply giving—when you delight in giving to trees and a tree-like greenness fills you; when you delight in giving to the river, the moon and stars, and the same purity descends within you; then you stop worrying whether the other returns or refuses. You will give with a free heart. If the other does not return it, compassion will arise: “Poor fellow! He has become so incapable in love that I greeted him and he could not even return a greeting. How shrunken he must be!” You will feel compassion, not anger, nor hurt.

There are lovers and no love. Parents pretend they love their children, children pretend they love their parents, husbands pretend, wives pretend -- pretensions and pretensions... And it is not that they are doing it knowingly, they may be completely unaware of the fact. But the root cause is... If everybody was told from the very beginning that love is the greatest art in life because it is the greatest magic, the most miraculous phenomenon.... You cannot take it for granted, you have to explore it, you have to go deeply into it, you have to learn its ways. It is an art. People learn painting for years; then too, only in thousands of painters does one become a Picasso. People learn music for years and then only once in a while is there a Yehudi Menuhin or Ravi Shankar.

Question: BELOVED OSHO, HOW CAN I LOVE BETTER? Love is something eternal. It is the experience of the buddhas, not the unconscious people of whom the whole world is full. Only very few people have known what love is, and these same people are the most awakened, the most enlightened, the highest peaks of human consciousness. If you really want to know love, forget about love and remember meditation. If you want to bring roses into your garden, forget about roses, and take care of the rosebush. Give nourishment to it, water it, take care that it gets the right amount of sun, water. If everything is taken care of, in the right time the roses are destined to come. You cannot bring them earlier, you cannot force them to open up sooner, and you cannot ask a roseflower to be more perfect.