Can one enjoy life alone?

Cannot one enjoy life alone? Because I am not so aware, that moving into water without getting wet, or going through fire without getting burnt can be possible for me. Cannot one enjoy life alone?

When you are moving with people, in relationship, you are always in danger. Life becomes sharp. Then you have a tone; then your energy is not just rusting, it is flowing. Look at the people who have lived too long in the caves or in the monasteries: you will see that a certain rust has settled on their faces. They will not look alive. They will be dull almost to the point of being stupid. That's why monks have not created anything beautiful in the world. Nothing has come out of them. They are wastages; they are not fertile soil. They proved impotent. All escape makes you more of a coward, impotent. And the more you escape, the more you want to escape. All escape is suicidal. Then what do I mean? Am I saying to you, never be alone? No, not at all. But I am saying, never be…

Beloved Osho, I am loving my aloneness. I am feeling fulfilled, nourished, fresh with new energy and ecstatic. However, there are days when I feel lonely. Then I get sad, unmeditative and even grumpy. Osho, can you talk about how to go through the transition period from loneliness to aloneness?

You just have to make your aloneness more and more strong. So you don't have to do anything with your sadness or your grumpiness, or your fear that the old habit may come back again. You have not to think about that at all. You have to pour your whole energy into the joy of being alone. You have only a certain amount of energy -- either you can dance or you can be sad. If you dance half-heartedly, then you are saving energy for sadness. That's why I insist: live every moment totally and so intensely that no energy is left to be invested in sadness, in misery, in anger; there is simply no energy left. So the whole effort has to be very positive. Feed and nourish your aloneness with all that you have, pour your love, and you will be surprised that those gaps of sadness and…

The deeper into myself, the more alone I feel. There is only nothingness. And sometimes, looking into your eyes, I get the same feeling of a vast emptiness. If it is natural -- if being alone is basic, the very essence of my being -- then how could the illusive idea of becoming one, of falling in love with somebody eternally, come into being in the first place? And why is it so painful to become aware that it is an illusion? Please clear my doubts.

You just try it, go for a few weeks to the mountains and sit alone and you will feel very good. Everybody is tired of relationship and fed up and bored. Go to the mountains and sit silently and you will feel so beautiful, but after three or four days, five days, seven days, three weeks, you will start thinking of the other. Your woman again starts being attractive to you. You forget all the nastiness and all the nagging. You forget all that she has been doing to you, you completely forget all. She is again beautiful, she is again lovely, she is again fantastic, mm? -- you put value again. Then you have to come down from the mountains to the plains, and for two or three days with the woman things are going beautifully -- a new honeymoon and after two or three days things become difficult…

Beloved Osho, you said the other day that we are born alone, we live alone and we die alone. Yet it seems as if from the day we are born, whatever we are doing, whoever we are, we seek to relate to others; in addition, we are usually attracted to being intimate with one person in particular. Would you please comment?

Only very rare marriages are not failures -- and I hope God should save you from those marriages which are not failures, because they are psychologically sick. There are people who are sadists, who enjoy torturing others, and there are people who are masochists, who enjoy torturing themselves. If a husband and wife belong to these two categories, that marriage will be a successful marriage. One is a masochist and one is a sadist -- it is a perfect marriage, because one enjoys being tortured and one enjoys torturing. But ordinarily it is very difficult to find out in the first place whether you are a masochist or a sadist, and then to look for your other polarity.... If you are wise enough you should go to the psychologist and enquire who you are, a masochist or a sadist? and ask if he can give you some references which can…

Should one first come to terms with one's own loneliness before entering into relationship?

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…