Is this feeling of softness and calmness within me love?

Beloved Osho, lately, I have experienced something soft and calm -- a beauty which arises in me from within. Something which fills me stronger now than ever before. I can't say that it belongs to me, and still it feels as if it is me. Is it love?

Yes, it is love. And in other words, it is the beginning of a great pilgrimage which only begins and never ends, which goes on becoming bigger and bigger. Whatever you are feeling, go on deeper into it. Don't be afraid of anything because we have nothing to lose, and we have the whole universe to gain. You are right on the doorstep of the temple of God. Love is the beginning, God is the journey. God is not the goal, God is the pilgrimage. I am reminded of Al Hillaj Mansoor, a great Sufi mystic. He was young, but very poor. He collected money, borrowed money, tried to earn, because he wanted to go to Mecca for a pilgrimage. For Mohammedans, one of the essential things is that at least one time in your life, you should go for a pilgrimage to Mecca, the place where Mohammed created the…

Ordinarily psychologists don't think that meditation can do anything because they are not aware of the roots -- and meditation's whole function is to cut the roots. Once the roots are cut the tree withers away by itself. Love makes man an ocean, an infinity. It gives a kind of unboundedness. It helps you to know that you are not defined by any limits, that you are not confined by the body or the mind, that you are not confined at all, that you are as vast as the sky; in fact, even the sky is not the limit. There is no limit to you. This is the beauty of love, it makes you aware of vastness. That is the first experience of godliness. And if the first experience happens, then other things follow in their own time. The first experience triggers a process.

Beloved Osho, it is strange... The closer I come to you, the more ordinary it feels. It is a calmness and a coolness and a nothingness, and yet out of this space I find myself dancing, clapping, laughing, and rejoicing with you. But it feels so different -- as though something has gone, but I can't remember what. And if I look for words to describe this new feeling, I can only say, "love." but I say it uncertainly, insecurely. Oh, beloved Osho, what is going on?

A bird on the wing looks so beautiful, so representative of freedom. The whole sky belongs to it... no limits, no boundaries. You can catch the bird; you can keep it in a cage. It is the same bird in a way, but it is not the same bird because, where is its sky? Where is its freedom? Where is its joyful dance in the air? All that was alive in it is gone. It is only a faraway echo of the real bird that you had seen in the sky. It resembles it, it is a carbon copy, but it is not the original. When love comes to you -- and it comes only when the ego is absent -- when love comes to you, you cannot be certain about it and you cannot be secure about it. You can only be grateful. You can only be amazed --…

Existence gives you love without any conditions. Whatsoever you want, you do -- that's your freedom. God loves you as you are. But we have destroyed even the idea of god. The Old Testament god says 'I am a very jealous god. If you worship some other god I will take revenge.' Now this is not god's voice. This is so ugly, the very idea that some jealous man is speaking in the name of god, that some jealous priest is wearing the mask of god, is so stupid. It is not god's face, not god's voice; god's love is unconditional. And god is not a person, hence he cannot be jealous. Jesus is far more right when he says god is love. But Christians misunderstood even that. They thought love was one of the qualities of god -- that is not so.

And only when one is full of light.... The first child of light is love. And love contains all that is beautiful, all that is divine: compassion, prayer, creativity, grace. They all follow love, you need not think about them, they are by-products, consequences of love. But love itself happens only through light. All meditation techniques are devices to bring you out of your sleep, to help you wake up. OSHO (to Aige) : Your heart starts pulsating in a different rhythm. The whole world remains the same but your eyes are no more the same; hence you start seeing things which you have never seen before and you stop seeing things which you have always been seeing. So in a sense the world remains the same and in another sense it is no more the same, because when the seer changes, the seen changes.