Is it possible to experience love and meditation at the same time?

Beloved master, is it possible to experience love and meditation at the same time?

No animal murders another animal of his own species. No lion will kill another lion, howsoever hungry; he would rather die than kill. But man is the only animal again. He is unique in many ways: he is the only one who kills people of his own species -- not only kills but eats. Just a few days ago in Palestine the people demanded from the government, "We should be allowed to eat the dead people because there is a shortage of food -- and it seems utterly uneconomical not to eat the dead people." Their demand was ugly but more ugly is that the Palestinian government has accepted their demand, saying that it is okay. The government cannot supply food. On what grounds can it deny them? First they will start eating people who died naturally and then they will start eating people who have been killed on purpose.…

And this is a beautiful moment to change it into a meditation. Just nobody has ever told them. In fact, just the opposite has been told to them: that love is against meditation, so people who are falling in love can never become meditators. The same people who make celibacy spiritual make love unspiritual, something dirty, condemned. But to me things are totally different. Love helps you to relax, which is part of meditation. Love helps you to be joyous, which is part of meditation. Love helps you, for a few moments at least, to be silent, which is the essential part of meditation. And finally, making love, if you attain to an orgasmic experience, gives you a glimpse of what meditation is, but it is millions of times more than this. So to me love is a basic experience which can help you to become meditators.

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…

You said if one can really love, then love alone is enough and the one hundred and twelve methods of meditation are not needed. As you have explained real love, I feel really that I love, I believe. But the bliss I encounter in meditation feels to be of quite another dimension than the deep contentment I experience from love, and I cannot imagine being without meditation also. So explain more about how love alone without meditation can be enough.

Tantra says, in the sex act be meditative. Feel the whole phenomenon as holy; do not feel guilty. Rather, feel blessed that nature has given you one source through which you can go deep into ecstasy immediately. And then, be totally free in it. Do not repress; do not resist. Let the sexual communion take hold of you. Forget yourself; throw all your inhibitions. Be absolutely natural, and then you will feel a deep music in the body. When both bodies become one harmony, then you will forget completely that you are -- and still, you will be. Then you will forget the "I": there will be no "I", just existence playing with existence, one being with another. And the two will become one. There will be no thinking; future will cease and you will be in the present this very moment. Without any guilt, without any inhibition, make it…

Meditation fulfils something, love fulfils something else. It is like telling a person 'Either you can eat or you can drink. If you eat, then you cannot be allowed to drink anything; if you want to drink anything then you cannot eat. Choose one -- whatsoever you want.' Now, you will drive that man crazy! He needs both. You tell somebody 'Either you can remain awake or you can go to sleep -- choose.' These are opposite activities, and you cannot choose opposite things because that will create troubles for you, so either be awake or be asleep.' Now, nobody can choose one. You will need a certain rhythm between waking and sleeping; you will have to move from one to the other. Waking you will create the necessity for sleep, sleep will create the necessity for waking.