In love, should there be a question, an answer, or silence?

Osho, what question could I ask, and what answer could you give! You are the question and the answer too. In love, should there be a question, or an answer, or silence?

Life’s ultimate peaks are peaks of paradox. Words are noise, a spectacle; in the ocean of feeling they are sugar-candy that melts. Do not speak the heart’s secret with your lips; silence alone is the language of feeling. Weep—your tears will speak. Dance—your gestures will tell. Hum. Yesterday evening it so happened. Vani, a sannyasin, has come from Germany. I asked her, “Is there something you want to say?” And I felt she had so much to say; her heart was full. She had come from so far, and could stay only for a day or two. She cannot remain long. Every two or three months she rushes here. Even if time allows only two or three days, sometimes only a single day—she comes from Germany to Poona even for a single day! Once she stayed only five hours. So she comes to say something, to make some offering. I…

You said in an interview that when somebody says `I love you' to the other, the love is already gone. Why?

I said it because when you are in love there is no need to say it. It shows itself -- from your eyes, from your every gesture. And moreover, for the first time you understand that you are experiencing something which cannot be put into words. You can say, "I love you," but you will suddenly see that the feeling that you are calling love is so vast, and the word `love' is so small, it does not do justice to it. Hence, when people are in love, they understand in their silence the feeling of each other. Lovers may sit for hours in the full-moon night, by the sea, not even speaking a single word, just holding hands, as if they are not two -- with whom to talk, and what is there to talk about? In silence the love is so great, overpowering, that any word is going…

Osho, it is surprising that only when you speak do we get a slight glimpse of your peak through words. Why is that?

No one understands silence. If someone loves you and does not say so, you will not be able to grasp that he loves you. If in no way does he express it—through gesture, through the eyes, through words—these are all “words”—if he remains silent, you will never recognize that someone loves you. It has to be said; it has to be expressed. And then a very amusing thing happens. Even if there is no love, if someone is skilled in expressing, you will feel that there is love. Many times, the one who is skilled in expression becomes the lover. It is not necessary that there be love—because you do not understand love; you only understand words. Husbands and wives begin to feel depressed—how long can one keep saying the same words? Then they no longer carry any flavor. But as soon as words are lost, the relationship is lost.…

Osho, My only wish is to merge into a speck of dust, so that I may lie near the temple and, as you come and go, sometimes cling to your blessed feet.

Veena! What you have asked for has already happened. Often it is so that even what has happened does not come to our notice. The experience occurs in the heart; by the time the news reaches the mind, it takes time. Sometimes it takes years. And sometimes lifetimes. There can even be a distance of births. For a heart’s experience to be expressed in the mind’s web of words is not an easy matter. The heart’s experience is silent—an undercurrent of humming, an unheard song, wordless; a stream of feeling freed from language. How is the mind to understand it? The mind understands words, arguments, thought; it has no movement in feeling. For the mind, feeling simply does not exist. And the supreme religious experience is of feeling, of the heart. Therefore the mind remains barren, hollow. If a little echo reaches it, that is much. If a slight shadow…

Osho, why is love indescribable? The moment it is remembered in the heart, speech falls silent. One cannot say what happens then. The eyes grow half-lidded and everything is lost! Why does this happen? I can’t understand it. What is this form of love?

The more science advances, the heavier life becomes. Everything becomes understandable, and then nothing remains worth living for. If life becomes all prose, nothing remains but suicide. There must be some poetry in life. Poetry means: ungraspable—there is a glimpse, but it won’t be caught. There must be something like mercury too—close your fist and it scatters. And there is much of this in life. Love is exactly like mercury: the more you try to grasp it in explanations, the more it slips away. In the silent night, how is it that suddenly my heart brimmed over? I know not which sweet dreams stretched upon the inner screen. What unfamiliar remembrance filled my life-breath with monsoon rains? With the drizzling of my own eyes I put the rainy season to shame; and the world too, with moist eyelashes, raised this innocent question: These little pitchers, my eyes—how did they hold…