Is it necessary to solve life's sorrows and problems before experiencing love and devotion?

Osho, there is much sorrow in life and so many problems. Isn’t it necessary to solve them before plunging into love and devotion?

My brother, how will you solve them? The very tangle is the absence of love. Life’s problems exist because our connection to the fountain of love has been cut. There is no flow of devotion, so puddles of problems have collected in life. You are saying, “People are very sick right now—what is the point of talking about medicine? First let people get well, become healthy, then we’ll worry about medicine.” Your question is like that. Devotion is the medicine. What does devotion mean? The way to be joined to God. Not being joined to that is precisely the misery. Having broken from That is the pain. Forgetting That—falling into oblivion—is the darkness. We’ve turned our backs to That and become oriented toward trash. We have connected ourselves to wealth and disconnected from awareness. We’ve tied ourselves to position and broken from the Divine. We’ve clung to the body and…

Osho, I think to get free of sorrow I should lean on someone, sit in the shade of someone’s love. But even when I don’t find that, there is still a kind of consolation that at least my own suffering is there—along with someone’s neglect. Please tell me, why does this happen?

Every door is the door of Rama—bow your head to all as you go: if you have loved someone, the door of Rama opens. Wherever love knocks, there the door of Rama opens. Never avoid love. Enter love. Do not be afraid of love. Love will give great pain; love will burn; love will become fire—but only by passing through fire does one become pure gold. Do not be frightened of the fire of love; do not run away; otherwise you will remain half-baked, incomplete, full of clay. So I do not say that love will give you only happiness. I do not say love is a bed strewn with flowers. Love is a path of great pain. But it is necessary to pass through it. Only by passing through it do you become worthy of prayer, mature for prayer. The moment someone is immersed in love, a taste begins;…

When I say love will come, I don't mean that you have become unloving or that you don't love people. You love people, you are loving, but you are not following love as the path to the divine. Human love is perfectly okay. It is good, it is helpful, but technically you are not moving towards God through love. You enjoy love, you share love. That's perfectly good. That has nothing to do with God. That's your delight. But technically you are moving on the path of meditation. Soon you will see more and more love arising. Go on loving People, dispersing love, sharing your life, your being, with others, but always remember that is not the path for you to be on. That may be your expression of meditation but not the means to the goal.

Osho, my condition has become like Trishanku. I can neither return to the past nor see any road ahead. If I am to go, where should I go?

And once the inner resonance becomes audible to you—call it Om, or whatever you like—once you hear that inner sound, then whether you are in the marketplace or at a shop or anywhere, it makes no difference. The veena within goes on playing. It has always been playing. Only you have not cultivated the habit of listening. You have not developed the capacity. You have not found the rhythm with it. So it is good that your condition has become like Trishanku: no path backward—give thanks to God! No way forward—great good fortune! Now sit down. Sit right where you are. Do not look back, nor forward. Close your eyes. There is nowhere to go. Come to yourself. What you seek is hidden within you. Where you are going is where it already resides. In the end it is discovered that what we were searching for was concealed in the…

A friend has written a letter asking: There is so much suffering, wretchedness, and poverty in the world—Is this the time to talk of meditation and devotion? First let the world’s suffering and exploitation end; only then can one search for God.

Man’s hope is being exploited. Your hope remains that “something is going to be set right—if not today, tomorrow.” Nothing is ever set right here. Let this sink one hundred percent into your heart: nothing here is ever set right. Only when you are utterly disillusioned with the world does your inner journey begin; then you look up. Otherwise you remain stuck—“Now the door will open; now the wall will be removed; now the true revolutionaries have come to remove the wall—now they will break all chains!” They will forge new ones. They have brought chains; the color may be different, perhaps cast in different factories, but they are new chains. Your feet and your neck will never be free—until you find within that which is nectar. In that very moment revolution happens. Then there is no prison, no suffering. Even in this world full of suffering, it is possible…