Is spiritual love possible in a flawed world?

I know that I am not my body, but still I want to love and be loved. Is spiritual love possible in this rotten world?

Love your body. Accept yourself as your body. Receive it with gratitude, it is a gift. Otherwise it will be impossible. And even if somebody falls in love with you -- the question is from a woman -- if somebody falls in love with you, you will not allow him to love you. If he wants to hold your hand, you will shrink back. You will think, "Here comes a hedonist, a materialist. He wants to hold my hand! He should only hold my ghost hand, spiritual hand, not my real hand. This is just the rotten body." And he wants to hug you and you will escape because this is that same rotten lust. You won't allow anybody to approach you. And, naturally, when a person wants to have communion with you, he would like to hold your hand. It is not that he wants just to hold your…

Osho, what is the definition of God?

Words are very small. If you say God is light, then what of darkness? The scriptures have said that God is light. Suppose we accept this as a definition—then what about darkness? Where will darkness go? Darkness is too; in fact it is far more than light. Light sometimes is and sometimes is not; darkness is always, eternal. Where will you place darkness? If you say God is light, darkness is left out. If you say God is darkness, then light is left out. If you say God is both darkness and light, a contradiction arises: they cannot be together. Try to have both darkness and light in the same room. If you bring in light, darkness disappears; if you preserve darkness, you cannot have light. Then how can both be together? That becomes an impossibility. So you cannot say “both” either. Then the fourth device is to say: it…

Osho, most of the world’s religious leaders gave their male and female renunciates rules to keep as much distance as possible; yet you always emphasize love between the two. Do you wish to make some constructive use of love? Or do you want us to experience its futility?

Therefore I say: love is the first introduction to God. Whomever you fall in love with, you will begin to glimpse God in them. Where love happens, you will see transformation. The person you love is no longer ordinary; he becomes extraordinary. Your love begins to seek God within him. Love finds God—because without God, love cannot be. The faults of the one you love stop appearing; and the one you hate, you see only faults. In the one you hate you begin to see the devil; in the one you love you begin to see God. You see goodness upon goodness. Even if he does wrong, it seems right. Only fragrance seems to emanate. A temple begins to arise. This is the recognition, the acquaintance. If this acquaintance is with you, then some day, standing before God, you will recognize him. Without this, as is the case with your…

Osho, one kind of love becomes a prison and another becomes a temple. Is there a difference even between love and love?

A little girl! But every girl is born a mother, and a man remains a small child to his last breath. No man ever goes beyond being a little boy. Every man seeks the mother in a woman, and every woman seeks the child in a man. Therefore when a man loves a woman deeply, he becomes like a small child, and in the deep moments of love the woman becomes like a mother. The rishis of the Upanishads blessed newlyweds: may you have ten children, and in the end may the eleventh be your husband becoming your son. They spoke very rightly. But if a child does not learn love—unconditional love—from his mother, where will he learn it? The first school is missed. And if a girl does not receive love from her father, she will not be able to love any man; the well became poisonous at the…

There are lovers and no love. Parents pretend they love their children, children pretend they love their parents, husbands pretend, wives pretend -- pretensions and pretensions... And it is not that they are doing it knowingly, they may be completely unaware of the fact. But the root cause is... If everybody was told from the very beginning that love is the greatest art in life because it is the greatest magic, the most miraculous phenomenon.... You cannot take it for granted, you have to explore it, you have to go deeply into it, you have to learn its ways. It is an art. People learn painting for years; then too, only in thousands of painters does one become a Picasso. People learn music for years and then only once in a while is there a Yehudi Menuhin or Ravi Shankar.