Is it as easy to hate as it is to love?

Beloved master, you have always pointed out that most things and states are two extremes of one state, polar opposites. Then hate is the other end of love. Does this mean it is as easy to hate as it is to love? Love is so beautiful. Hate is so ugly, and yet it happens too.

Love sharpens intelligence, fear dulls it. Who wants you to be intelligent? Not those who are in power. How can they want you to be intelligent? -- because if you are intelligent, you will start seeing the whole strategy, their games. They want you to be stupid and mediocre. They certainly want you to be efficient as far as work is concerned, but not intelligent; hence humanity lives at the lowest, at the minimum of its potential. The scientific researchers say that the ordinary man uses only five percent of his potential intelligence in his whole life. The ordinary man, only five percent -- what about the extraordinary? What about an Albert Einstein, a Mozart, a Beethoven? The researchers say that even those who are very talented, they don't use more than ten percent. And those whom we call geniuses, they use only fifteen percent. Think of a world where…

Osho, you say that love and hate are one; but I see more hate in the world than love. At the same time, you say that enlightenment is neither love nor hate. Are you speaking of two different qualities of love? How does this fit with your message of love?

And it is only you who can find what is right for you and what is wrong for you. Then keep the thread of awareness running through all your actions, and in your life you will not find any hate, any anger, any jealousy. Not that you have dropped them, not that you have repressed them, not that you have somehow got rid of them, not that you have practiced doing something against them. No, you have not done anything, you have not even touched them. This is the beauty of awareness: it never represses anything; but there are things which simply melt in the light of awareness and change. And there are things which become more solid, more integrated, more profound, more strong: love, compassion, kindness, friendliness, understanding. All the religions up to date have been focusing people's minds on actions; and labeling -- this is bad, this is…

Osho, you have titled this series of talks “Sahaj Yoga.” Do “sahaj” and “yoga” not seem mutually opposed?

Anand Maitreya! They don’t just seem opposed, they are opposed. But no ultimate truth of life can manifest without contradiction. Life is made of opposites—darkness and light, day and night, woman and man, negative electricity and positive electricity, birth and death. The very structure of life is woven of opposites. Hence the opposites are not only opposed; they are complementary to each other. If you have labored hard all day, you will be able to sleep deeply. Labor and rest are opposites, yet only the one who has worked can rest deeply—and the one who has not worked cannot. So the opposites are not only opposed, they complete each other. And only the one who has rested deeply at night can rise in the morning and engage in work again. One who has not rested through the night will not be able to work in the morning. Look closely at…

[A sannyasin asks about his relationship which is bringing up some hatred and aggression on both sides.] Mm, it's natural. When you allow love to come out, hate will also come out. That's why many people repress their love -- because they have been taught to repress their hate and they are both aspects of the same energy. They are not two; they are one. So when love comes up, hate will also, and if you repress hate, love will be repressed simultaneously. ... If you understand, you will not think in terms of wanting or not wanting. It is a fact. Your wanting or not wanting does not make any difference. One has to accept it, one has to accept whatsoever is. What can you do? If you repress hate -- and your dislike will repress it -- then immediately love will be repressed.

It seems very difficult to love someone for twenty-four hours a day. Why does it happen so? Should love be a continuous process? And at which stage does love become devotion?

That is why those who are too much obsessed with thinking cannot love, because even when they are there, even if they reach to the original divine source, even if they meet God, they will go on thinking about him and they will miss him completely. You can go on thinking about and about and about, but it is never the fact. A moment of love is a timeless moment. Then there is no question of thinking how to love twenty-four hours. You never think about how to live twenty-four hours, how to be alive twenty-four hours. Either you are alive or you are not. So the basic thing to be understood is not time, but now - how to be here and now in a state of love. Why is there hate? When you feel hatred, go to the cause of it. Only then can love flower. When do…