What can I do about my love-life drama?

I have come across Jaina monks who have renounced everything, even clothes -- naked they live -- but they are still Jainas. And when I say to them, "This is something! If you have renounced society why have you not renounced the knowledge that society, the same society, gave you? If you have renounced the family why have you not renounced all the conditionings that the same family imposed upon you? Why are you still a Jaina? That means nothing has been renounced; deep down you are the same person. The Christian becomes a monk, he leaves the home and goes to the monastery; somebody becomes a Buddhist, somebody takes the path of a Hindu or a Mohammedan -- but they remain the same people. By changing outer circumstances nothing is changed; the change has to happen inside. And the first step is to put the mind aside.

Osho, yesterday you said not to throw anger, hatred and the like onto others. But when one goes into meditation and the repressed sexual energy leaps out, doesn’t it require another person for its catharsis? And when this sexual energy erupts like a fierce primordial storm, neither control nor witnessing seems to work—it demands expression. Yet all our moral values are tied to sex. So if the existing husband or wife does not have enough depth for such expression, should the seeker look for a suitable partner? And won’t that create many entanglements?

And semen is not some fixed treasure stored within you, such that if some goes out, the stock diminishes. It is being produced every moment: as the body breathes, eats, exercises, semen is produced. Modern medical research is quite different, even opposite: the more a man uses semen, the longer his virility lasts. The one who, out of fear, stops sexual use early loses semen production early, because when you use semen, the whole body engages again in producing it. When you do not use it, the body need not engage; slowly the capacity to produce declines. This may look paradoxical: those who have more sex can remain capable longer; those who have less, empty out sooner. Thus in the West doctors advise that if intercourse can continue even into seventy, eighty, ninety, the chance of living longer increases—the body remains fresh. Old semen becomes stale and inert; with the…

If you really want to change your misery you have to go to the root cause. The root cause is that you don't know what love is, so how can you be a lover? How can you share love when you don't know what it is? The root cause is that you are not blissful so when you relate with somebody, in the beginning you manage to act blissfully, but how long can you act? As things settle you start coming back to your normal self because one cannot live continuously acting. Those honeymoon days when you are smiling, when there are songs on your lips, are just days of acting but soon they disappear, you come back to your natural and normal pace. One has to, otherwise it is very tiring; one cannot go on putting on a face for long.

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…

If you want to be together for a long time, don't be together too much. When people are in love, they are almost mad. They think this is sadhana and everything is perfect. Nonsense! It is good but it cannot be a substitute for sadhana. It can be a help, it can be a hindrance, but it can never be a substitute for sadhana. And if you think it is a substitute, it will become a hindrance. Soon you will feel lost in the desert. Make it a help. It is good to be with the beloved -- just enjoy being there but continue meditations, otherwise you will feel guilty. The guilt has a message. It is not wrong. It is simply saying that you also know what you are doing. It is a sort of infatuation, not a sadhana.