How can I maintain love while breaking the dreams associated with it?

Osho, yesterday you said that jealousy is included in respect. I have immense respect for you, but the jealousy inherent in it keeps poisoning it, and I feel guilt and pain. Does reverence transcend this poison-laced respect?

It needs a little explaining—it's a delicate point. Whenever you respect someone, you do so because you see in that person something you do not have. You respect because you glimpse in the other something you would also like to possess. A beggar respects an emperor because he, too, longs to be an emperor. So on the one hand he respects, and inside he also envies. Because he is not yet an emperor but wants to be. You have attained what he wants to attain. He respects you as skillful, successful: “I stand far back in the line; you have gone ahead to where I should have been.” So you are powerful, clever, intelligent, strong—he respects you. But inside a fire of jealousy also burns—if he gets the chance, he would like to be in your place and push you aside. And if the beggar gets that chance, he will…

Osho, how to know how much of love is a dream and how much is real?

The man was shocked—he had expected praise: “Ah, you are a great devotee! Blessed one! Fruits of births of merit!” None of that—on the contrary Ramakrishna seemed annoyed: “You have given me a problem.” Reluctantly the man picked up the sack and went to the river. He did not dare say no; having offered, who is he to argue? Many times he thought of running away midway—who knows if Ramakrishna is following? But he was scared—people fear saints may curse them; and “they see within,” read thoughts with the third eye! “Not good. Let what has happened be finished.” He delayed and did not return. Ramakrishna said, “It is taking too long; where is he? Let’s go see.” What was the man doing? He had gathered a crowd at the ghat. He would ring each coin on the stone—cling, cling—count: five hundred seventy-seven, then throw into the river; five hundred…

One day or other you will have to come back to earth. Dreams cannot be your nourishment; real nourishment is needed. The second phase also passes but it is very difficult to pass through it. It is very easy to pass through the first because nothing is a demand; it is not a challenge. In fact you would like to cling to it. Now the second will give you a great challenge. It will repel you. It will force you in every way to drop out of the relationship, to change the partner and to again fall into a dream. That's the whole trick of the mind. But I would like you to stick to the relationship. Always remember that pain is a great awakener and pleasure is a tranquilliser. Suffering helps more than all the happiness put together.

Question: First question: Osho, In my sleep, you; in my dreams, you. We have become lost in your love; the veena of the mind is singing its tune— we have fallen silent, lost in your love. Osho, sometimes you say that dreams are not true, and sometimes you have said that the dream state is very receptive and that in dreams no doubt arises. For nine years I remained connected with you only through dreams; no other link bound me to you. Even now, whatever I have to say to you, or whatever you wish to say to me, all keeps happening only in dreams. What kind of state is this? What is the truth in it? Please grace me with guidance. Veena! In love, distinctions fall—outer and inner; mine and yours; dream and truth. Love establishes non-division. In love duality disappears; twoness vanishes; only oneness remains.

So whenever people say that they have fallen in love, they are just fantasising, projecting. Whatsoever they need, they go on projecting onto the other. They make the other to look as they would like, they paint the other's face in their own colours. Falling in love is not a real phenomenon -- it is dreamstuff. You both create two ideal natures which are unreal and which cannot bear up long enough. The moment you start settling, reality starts asserting itself and problems arise. Now you are not alone -- the other is there. The problem arises when you have to make concessions for the other and his reality, his way of being. In the beginning each lover is alone and the other is just like a screen onto which he goes on fantasising; the other is passive.