Should I love or not?

Osho, I have heard that a seeker has to pass through four stages of sadhana: tariqat, shari’at, marifat, and haqiqat. The last is haqiqat, where the seeker meets his beloved and comes face to face with Truth. Osho, please explain the first three states.

These words are from the Sufis—very significant, and very straightforward. The first is tariqat. Tariqat means: the way, the method, the discipline, the means, the yoga. Tariqat means: something has to be done; only then will you attain—without doing, you will not receive. One has to walk a path; find the way; make a footpath. One has to bring some discipline into life, give it an order. Tariqat means learning the way to become worthy of it. When you go to have an audience with an emperor, you learn the etiquette of his court. You don’t just walk in. If you do, you will not be accepted. You learn how to sit there, how to stand there, how to bow there. If you are going to meet an emperor, you must taste something of the flavor of the emperor’s way of life. If you are going to meet the Divine,…

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…

I have heard about a dog.... Somewhere in Japan on a railway station there is a statue of a dog. His master used to go to work every day by train and the dog would come to give him a send-off every day. And when the man would return by the evening train the dog would always be there waiting on the platform to receive him. This was a routine thing, year in, year out. Whether it was raining or it was hot or cold or snow was falling, there was no difference; the dog was there exactly on time. One day the dog came to receive his master but the master didn't turn up. He had died in an accident.

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…

One has to sow the seeds; one has to prepare the soil. One has to be very loving, careful. One has to defend the new sprouts, because there are a thousand and one dangers, and love is very delicate. One has to handle it carefully: love is very subtle and the world is very gross. Love is like a flower, and in the world you will find only rocks and rocks. The flower can be crushed very easily. Its beauty can be destroyed at any moment. It is a miracle that it happens in such a hard world, but it does happen. Love makes one aware that miracles are possible. There is no other miracle which is bigger than love. Be a gardener of love. Let your heart be the soil Tend the garden carefully in the right time, when the spring comes.