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Osho on Can one really miss someone when love and a strong connection are present?

Can one really miss someone when love and a strong connection are present?

Even in deep love, the ego's fear can create distance; only awareness and surrender can bridge the gap and bring true connection.

— Osho
According to Osho, even deep love and a powerful pull do not guarantee you won’t miss; unconsciousness, hidden expectations, and the ego’s fear of dissolving can turn a nearness of one foot into miles, as with Judas. Closeness often breeds subtle ambition. Only awareness prevents going astray. Enlightenment isn’t transmissible; love must be joined with alertness, surrender, and dropping desire to truly meet the master.

Even if you feel very close and loving, you can still lose your way if you act unconsciously from secret wants and fear—so stay awake and let go.

In His Own Words

From the Discourses

Passages where Osho speaks to this question — each links to the complete discourse.

Sat Chit Anand · Discourse 2
1987-11-22 · Chuang Tzu Auditorium · English

Beloved Osho, can one really miss you? When love and this incredible pull are there, can one really go astray?

You are saying, "When love and this incredible pull are there, can one really go astray?" One should not go astray if one is conscious, but the possibility cannot be denied. You have to forgive me, the possibility cannot be denied. The closer you come to a master, the more you are lost, the more you are dissolved. In the fear of dissolution, the fear of your personality being lost, you may start backing off. You have to understand that this fear is there. Even the moth that is magnetically attracted towards a flame does not go directly into the flame. I have been watching moths -- strangely enough, they never go directly into the flame. They first go round and round, perhaps hesitating, perhaps having another thought, perhaps taking time, a little more time before they take the jump. Because the jump into the flame is going to be…
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The Invitation · Discourse 3
1987-08-22 · Chuang Tzu Auditorium · English

Beloved Osho, I feel warm love in your presence and now I realize that when I am not close to you it does not happen in the same way. Is it still true that time and space do not make any difference in the great affair between master and disciple?

People's understanding was absolutely wrong that Ananda, who had burst into tears, must have loved the master more. Asked, he said, "I am crying because he was alive, and for forty-two years I have been his most intimate disciple -- intimate in the sense that I was always with him. In these forty-two years not even for a single day was I separate; even in the night I used to sleep in his room, just to be present in case he needed something. I am not crying because I was the most intimate, I am crying because even with such a long physical intimacy I have remained separate from him. Something has remained like a barrier." Gautam Buddha was not dead yet. He had closed his eyes, and he was relaxing into the eternal. He came back, opened his eyes, and said to Ananda, "Don't be worried. It was my…
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Geeta Darshan · Vol 18 · Discourse 11
Hindi · English translation

Osho, you have said before that bliss is the touchstone of finding the path. But even after reaching the true Master, why is bliss not found?

Because in truth you do not come close. Do not mistake nearness for real closeness. Do not take being near to mean being truly close. Physical proximity is very easy. Many times you have brushed shoulders with Buddhas and passed by. But don’t imagine that means you came close to them. Many times on the endless roads of life you have met awakened ones. For a moment you walked with them, exchanged a few words—said a little of yours, heard a little of theirs. But don’t take that to mean togetherness happened. If true togetherness had happened, you would long since have dissolved into the Vast. Togetherness did not happen. To be in togetherness is a wondrous event. That is why we value satsang so much. We have called satsang the doorway to truth. Truth is the greatest of happenings; its majesty has no end. And its doorway, too, we…
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Ka Sovai Din Rain · Discourse 4
1978-04-03 · Pune · Hindi · English translation

Osho, I want to go very, very far away from you. It feels that if I stay close, you will erase me.

People are afraid of love, have always been afraid. That is why the earth has become loveless. That is why master and disciple have been lost; only the names remain, only the words remain. In place of masters there are teachers; in place of disciples there are students. Between student and teacher there is no dying, no love—it is a matter of transaction. The student buys something from the teacher, gives something in return—the matter is finished. There is no exchange of life-breath. O heart, do not revive the tale of worn-out love; do not entangle the people of the gathering in this thorn-thicket. People have begun to fear. They think love is a thorn, a thicket in which, if you get caught, you won’t be able to free yourself. People walk around it. Ordinary love entangles so much—what then to say of extraordinary love! When the thought arises in…
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The Hidden Splendor · Discourse 20
1987-03-22 · Chuang Tzu Auditorium · English

Beloved Osho, lately, I have begun to realize how even my lover is a stranger to me. Still, there is an intense longing to overcome the separation between us. It almost feels as if we are lines running parallel to each other but destined never to meet. Beloved Osho, is the world of consciousness like the world of geometry -- or is there a chance that parallels can meet?

People go on repeating the same thing, again and again. If you look at the faces of people in the world, you will be surprised: why do all these people look so sad? Why do their eyes look as if they have lost all hope? The reason is simple; the reason is repetition. Man is intelligent; repetition creates boredom. Boredom brings a sadness because one knows what is going to happen tomorrow, and the day after tomorrow... until one goes into the grave, it will be the same, the same story. A Jewish man and a Polack are sitting in a bar watching the news on television. On the news, they are showing a woman standing on a ledge, threatening to jump. The Jewish man says to the Polack, "I will tell you what. I will make a bet with you: If she jumps, I get twenty dollars. If she…
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