What can I do to feel loved and accepted?

I have spent all my life trying to meet somebody who will really love me and who will accept to be really loved by me. All my attempts have been painful failures and I feel utterly desperate and rejected. What is wrong with me? How can I feel the love inside of me? How can I really meet and love myself?

You say: I HAVE SPENT ALL MY LIFE TRYING TO MEET SOMEBODY WHO WILL REALLY LOVE ME... And what do you mean by 'really love me'? You must have an idea -- that is the second thing that went wrong. You have some idea of what real love is. You must be a perfectionist, and in life nothing is perfect. That's why things are beautiful! If in life things were perfect, life would have been utter boredom. Bertrand Russell seems to be right when he says, "I would not like to go to heaven if there is any heaven, because there you will find only perfect people, and life will be utterly boring." Just think of living with perfect people... everybody is perfect. That means there will be no growth any more, no evolution; nothing new will ever happen now. The people who live in heaven, if there is any…

You said the other day 'just love and accept yourself.' gradually self acceptance has been growing in my life. I have had several moments of experiencing unconditional love from the universe. In these three weeks since becoming a sannyasin, the most difficult and mind-blowing experience for me has been the reality of your unconditional acceptance of me and everything I am and do. I feel it like a soft caressing smoke from some distant fire enveloping me and penetrating the walls of my ego. Through so many ways your unconditional acceptance comes to me for the first time in my life. I weep as I

PREM Samma, life is happening, God is happening. This is what life is all about. The moment you accept yourself you become open, you become vulnerable, you become receptive. The moment you accept yourself then there is no need for any future, because there is no need to improve upon anything. Then all is good, then all is good as it is. In that very experience life starts taking a new color, a new music arises. If you accept yourself, that is the beginning of accepting all. If you reject yourself you are basically rejecting the universe; if you reject yourself you are rejecting God. If you accept yourself you have accepted God. Then there is nothing else to do but to enjoy, to celebrate. There is no complaint left, there is no grudge; you feel grateful. Then life is good and death is good, then joy is good and…

The most basic and the most fundamental commandment is to love oneself. I don't say only accept, because that word is not enough -- you can accept and you may not love. You may accept, because what can be done? -- you are in a deep helplessness, but that is not acceptance. Unless you accept yourself as a blessing, unless you accept and welcome yourself, unless you accept yourself in deep gratitude, unless you love yourself, you will never become an overflowing energy. Then the energy can flow in song, in dance, in painting. A thousand and one ways of creativity can be found; or it can simply flow in deep silence. And whomsoever comes in contact with that deep silence will be transformed and will hear for the first time the music which is celestial. So not only accept, but accept with deep gratitude.

Question: BELOVED OSHO, WHAT DOES IT MEAN TO LOVE MYSELF? Prem Kabir, one has to begin not by loving oneself, because you don't know who you are. Who are you going to love? If you start by loving yourself, you will love only your ego, which is not your self, which is your false personality. Almost everybody loves his personality; everybody loves his ego. Even the ugliest woman, if you say to her, "How beautiful you are," will not refuse to accept it. I have heard... Two old men meet on a street corner. "Where have you been for the past eight weeks?" "In jail," says the second man. "In jail? How come?" says the first man.

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.