According to Osho, in our present condition “soulmates” are mostly cellmates—intimate enemies—because ordinary love flips into hate. There are no true soulmates without first knowing the soul, which requires inner education: meditation, silence, love as lived experience. Transform yourself (and education) and love becomes sharing, compassion, and freedom; only then can partnership transcend the prison and become genuinely soulful.
If you don’t know your own soul, love feels like a cage; learn inner peace and real love, and your partner stops being a jailmate and becomes a true companion.
From the Discourses
Passages where Osho speaks to this question — each links to the complete discourse.
Question: BELOVED MASTER, CAN "SOULMATES" EVER BE ANYTHING OTHER THAN "CELLMATES"? Ramarshi, even if the soulmates can only be nothing but cellmates, that is a great achievement. They are intimate enemies. Ordinary love is nothing but the other side of the coin: on one side is hate, on the other side is love. And the coin can be turned at any moment -- in the middle of the night. In twenty-four hours it turns many times. There are no soulmates, because to be a soulmate you first have to understand what the soul is; you don't even know that `hey' is for horses! It is so clear that for our experiences of life we have learned only words -- love, soul, friendship -- but we don't know their meaning as experience, only as given in the dictionaries.
Question: BELOVED OSHO, IS THE CONCEPT OF SOULMATES MORE USEFUL THAN MARRIAGE? But in actual life, what we have been doing for centuries is asking the other to give; and the other is also asking you to give. And both are beggars, their bowls are empty; they don't have anything to give. It becomes a struggle, a warfare. You can change the concept from marriage to soulmates, but what about you? What about the people who will become soulmates? If they are the same people who were becoming a couple in a marriage, nothing will change. My suggestion is, neither marriage is needed nor soulmates are needed -- just friendliness is enough. You don't know anything about soul, how can you become a soulmate? If you can become just friendly with each other, that is more than can be expected from the present man.
Osho, to find a soulmate sounds nice, but almost impossible. Would you please say something more about it? And how can it even come close to finding a master?
IT IS CERTAINLY ALMOST IMPOSSIBLE to find the soulmate -- even if ALL facilities are available. The earth is big, millions and millions of people; and life is very short -- how are you going to find your soulmate? And remember, even if all the facilities are available... right now, no facilities are available. It becomes even more impossible when facilities are not available, when you are prevented in every way from finding the soulmate. But even if you are helped, educated in how to find the soulmate, then too it will be difficult to find them in a small seventy years' life. It rarely happens; it is a rare phenomenon. Man has seven centers. The lowest is the sex center and the highest is the samadhi center, and between these two there are five more centers. It is a ladder. When all the seven centers of a man are…
Beloved master, I am a strong man, but I cannot find a woman who truly loves me. What is missing in me? I have come here to find a soulmate. Can you help me?
That's exactly my feeling reading your question, Sudhiro -- that you are in a panic. Two little old ladies were chatting over the backyard fence. The first one boasted, "I went out with old man Cain last night and I had to slap him twice." "To stop him?" asked her friend. "No," she giggled, "to start him!" But it is good that you have come here. If you cannot start, we can slap you! Something is always possible. One thing that you need is: rather than searching for a soulmate, become a soul, become more conscious. When love is unconscious it is only lust and nothing else -- a beautiful name for an ugly thing. When love is conscious, only then it is love. But how many people are conscious? When love is meditative, only then it is love. And a meditative love will attract a meditative love energy. You…
Osho, can two souls not become acquainted—recognize one another?
As far as acquaintance is concerned, even two spirits, if they wish to become acquainted, can do so only by entering two persons. They cannot meet directly. It is almost like twenty people sleeping together in this room: we are here all night, yet in sleep we cannot become acquainted. Our acquaintance belongs only to wakefulness. When we wake up it can continue, but in sleep we cannot be acquainted; there is no relationship at all. Yes, it can happen that one person wakes up—then he can see everyone. This means that if one soul enters someone’s body, that soul can see all these souls—yet those souls will not see it. And if a soul enters a body, it can know something about other souls that are bodiless; but those souls will not be able to know anything about it. In truth, the knowing—the acquaintance—we speak of is possible only…