According to Osho, love expresses itself as whatever you are inside; your words and energy will carry your inner fragrance or stench. So don’t force polite behavior—awaken awareness. See your abuses, loosen their grip, and cleanse yourself. When guilt-making habits drop through watchfulness, your being becomes light, undivided, and then love naturally flows—prayerful, respectful, and unpolluted.
Clean up your inside with awareness, and love will come out clean on its own.
From the Discourses
Passages where Osho speaks to this question — each links to the complete discourse.
Question: BELOVED OSHO, HOW CAN I LOVE BETTER? My effort here, Indradhanu, is to give your center back to you. I call this centering, meditation. I want you simply to be yourself, with a great self-respect, with the dignity of knowing that existence needed you -- and then you can start searching for yourself. First come to the center, and then start searching for who you are. Knowing one's original face is the beginning of a life of love, of a life of celebration. You will be able to give so much love because it is not something that is exhaustible -- because it is immeasurable, it cannot be exhausted. And the more you give it, the more you become capable of giving it. The greatest experience in life is when you simply give without any conditions, without any expectations of even a simple "Thank you.
And only when one is full of light.... The first child of light is love. And love contains all that is beautiful, all that is divine: compassion, prayer, creativity, grace. They all follow love, you need not think about them, they are by-products, consequences of love. But love itself happens only through light. All meditation techniques are devices to bring you out of your sleep, to help you wake up. OSHO (to Aige) : Your heart starts pulsating in a different rhythm. The whole world remains the same but your eyes are no more the same; hence you start seeing things which you have never seen before and you stop seeing things which you have always been seeing. So in a sense the world remains the same and in another sense it is no more the same, because when the seer changes, the seen changes.
Osho, how will you know that I am in love, and how will I know that you have accepted my love?
If there is love, it will not hide even if you try; if there is no love, no amount of telling can convey it. The very fact of love is its expression. When the sun rises, what further proof do you need that the sun is there? Its being is proof enough. The light of love is greater than the sun’s; you do not see it because you have eyes to see the sun, but no eyes to see love. When love is, it cannot be concealed. The happening of love is the most condensed event in existence; nothing is subtler, nothing more vast. Love is a glimpse of the divine. That is why, when you fall in love with someone, the divine begins to be seen in them. If you cannot see God in your beloved, love has not happened; it must be something else you have mistaken for…
Question: Second question: Osho, is love life itself? Is it aliveness? What is a well, after all? Merely a window through which the ocean peeks. The well is connected below to the ocean, to endless springs. It is just a little aperture where the ocean has looked out. Do not be afraid. You too are an aperture through which the Divine looks. Do not fear. You are connected. Pour yourself out and you will find you expand. Hold back and you will shrink and rot. And then a vicious circle begins: if you hold back, do not share, do not give love, fear arises—“Everything is already drying up; if I give, I will have even less.” You clamp down even more. The more you hold, the less you have; you keep drying up. Be brave. Give—and see.
Osho, I have never been able to express my love. Not only ordinary worldly love—even the love I feel for you I keep hidden. I don’t know what fear has crippled me! How will this underdeveloped love become devotion?
It is humanity’s misfortune that the culture and civilization that have evolved on earth so far are anti-love. They side with war and oppose love. This is not much of a civilization; it is very primitive. It lives by war, not by love. It is hostile to love—deeply afraid of it. You can see it—thousands of obstacles are raised against the expression of love. Thousands of walls are built so that love does not happen. For centuries child marriage continued only to prevent love: before love’s tide could rise, marry them off—then the tide won’t rise and there will be no trouble. Men and women are kept apart, large distances are imposed between them. Boys and girls are not allowed to study together in school or college; and even if they are, their seating is kept separate. All kinds of barriers are erected. And every kind of fear is instilled:…