How can one reach the highest stage of love if partners keep changing?

Osho, in today's lecture you said there are three stages -- sex, love and prayer. But if one keeps on changing the partners how can one go into depth? How can one reach the highest stage at all?

Love is the goal. So if it is not happening with this person, let it happen with somebody else, but LET IT HAPPEN! Allow it a continuity. That continuity, that flow of love constantly happening, will take you deeper into it, will bring depth, will bring new dimensions, will bring new realisations. So remember, if it is going good with one person... and by 'good' I don't mean what is ordinarily meant when somebody says 'They are a good couple' or 'Very nice'. I don't mean that; those words just hide facts. A 'nice family' means no conflict, no problem, things are going smoothly, the wheels of the mechanism are moving smoothly, that's all. But a really beautiful relationship is not just nice; it IS FAR OUT! Never settle for less. Only a far out relationship can bring depth. If it is not happening, be courageous enough to say good-bye…

[The first sannyasin Osho addressed had sent him a letter earlier saying that she was in a deep loving relationship with her husband, but at the same time she felt attracted to someone else.] Two things to remember. The first: love grows only in deep intimacy and trust. If you change persons, from A to B, from B to C, it is as if you are transplanting your being from one place to another. You will never grow roots. And the tree will grow fragile and weak. To gain strength, deep roots are needed; and to gain roots, time is needed. And for love even eternity is not enough. Even eternity is not enough, remember, because love can grow and grow and grow -- and there is no end to it. There is a beginning, but there is no end. So don't take love as a superficial thing.

In the east, it has been stressed that one should stay with a person, one person, in a love relationship. In the west, now people float from one relationship to another. Which are you in favor of?

By meeting the woman outside, by really meeting, loving her, committing yourself to her being, dissolving into her, melting into her, you will, by and by, start meeting the woman that is within you; you will start meeting the man that is within you. The outer woman is just a path to the inner woman; and the outer man is also just a path to the inner man. The real orgasm happens inside you when your inner man and woman meet. That is the meaning of the Hindu symbolism of ardhanarishwar. You must have seen Shiva: half man, half woman. Each man is half man, half woman; each woman is half woman, half man. It has to be so, because half of your being comes from your father and half of your being comes from your mother. You are both. An inner orgasm, an inner meeting, an inner union is…

That first shock makes you feel like you are dying because that's what you had always known as your life. Your very identity has disappeared as if the earth beneath your feet has suddenly disappeared: you look and there is no earth and you are falling into an abyss. But soon -- and you cannot do anything you have to go on falling, there is nothing to do -- soon you start feeling a great joy instead of fear. The shock disappears, and instead of the fear a great joy arises in you because now for the first time there is space for the joy to happen. It needs space, and thoughts are occupying your inner space so much that it is impossible for bliss to happen. My sannyasins have to do only one thing, that is, they have to become watchers of the mind, not controllers, just watchers.

Question: BELOVED OSHO, SITTING IN MY ROOM THOUSANDS OF KILOMETERS AWAY FROM YOU, I CAN FEEL YOU. AND IF HAD HAVE EYES TO SEE, I WOULD SEE YOU STANDING RIGHT IN FRONT OF ME. I REMEMBER WHEN YOU SAID TO US IN DISCOURSE `IF YOU DON'T FEEL ME WHEN YOU ARE NOT HERE, YOU HAVEN'T LET ME IN.' IT'S SO TRUE -- BUT WHAT A GIFT THAT YOU REALLY, REALLY CAME WHEN I WAS OPEN, THAT YOU REALLY FILLED MY BEING. IN SOME MOMENTS SITTING IN FRONT OF YOU I GOT IT. IN OTHER MOMENTS IT HAPPENED BUT I WASN'T AWARE OF IT AT THAT MOMENT. PUTTING THIS OUT TO YOU MY HEART IS BEATING FASTER AND MY HANDS ARE TREMBLING. FOR THE FIRST TIME I FEEL TO SHOW SOMETHING OF MYSELF. THIS IS A GIFT ALSO.