We’re scared in relationships when we need and use each other; when love is generous and not clingy, the fear goes away.
From the Discourses
Passages where Osho speaks to this question — each links to the complete discourse.
I am very much afraid of my wife. Why? And nothing is wrong with her either. She is one of the most perfect women that one could ever find.
OUR LOVE is ALWAYS CONTAMINATED BY FEAR. The wife is afraid of the husband, the husband is afraid of the wife. The children are afraid of the parents, the parents are afraid of the children. We live in fear. Even in love, fear continues to poison our relationships. You ask: I AM VERY MUCH AFRAID OF MY WIFE. WHY? Who is not? Have you come across a person who is not afraid of his wife? Everybody is -- because we don't know how to love without fear. Love has to be learnt, it is an art. It needs great intelligence. You don't love; that's why there is fear. If love is there, love dispels all fear. If fear is there, that simply shows your love is bogus -- it must be something else pretending to be love. It may be lust pretending to be love. Yes, lust is bound to…
Beloved Osho, since you initiated me into sannyas, I have begun to fear you a little. Before that this fear was not there, although I have been frightened throughout my entire life. I know too that the freedom and love I have found in being close to you were not available to me even around my parents. If in the shadow of your overflowing love I am not going to find freedom from fear, then where else? How is this freedom from fear possible?
No, I am not talking of that love. I am talking of a love which is not related to anybody in any way, which is unassociated. This does not mean that you will run away from your wife, or keep the children at a distance, if this love is born in you. If this love is born in you, just your ideas of the wife as wife will dissolve; the very idea that your son belongs to you will dissolve. The ideas will be replaced by an understanding that everyone belongs to the universe, that you are just instrumental; and your love will go on showering, day in, day out. Questions about who is worthy of your love and who is unworthy will all wither away. You will flow like a river, and whoever is thirsty will be able to fill his cup and take it away with him. Your…
Osho, why am I afraid of women?
That lean, thin woman was going to decide. This is the situation. Man tries in his ways, somehow, to possess the woman; the woman tries to possess the man. The woman is afraid because man can be physically violent. The man is afraid because the woman is psychologically very very clever, very very powerful. You ask me, Prabhudas, "WHY AM I AFRAID OF WOMEN?" You are afraid of love; you are afraid of losing your ego. You are asking a wrong question. And remember always: the mind tries many times to give you a wrong question. A little twist, a little turn, and the question becomes wrong. Now you ask, "WHY AM I AFRAID OF WOMEN?" The question seems to be perfectly right; it is not. You should have asked: why am I afraid of love? and then it would have been right. It is a wrong question. But many…
And don't be prejudiced from the very beginning that 'fear is wrong', 'it should not be'. If you have that attitude you will not be able to enter into its innermost core. With no judgment enter into it and experience it in its totality, and you will be surprised -- it is just the beginning of a new space in you. And everything new makes the mind scared: the newer it is, the more fear. If it is absolutely new then one is really scared to death. Something unknown is hovering around you, and it is going to hover around every sannyasin. This is the fear every sannyasin has to pass through. And I am not here to give you explanations but to push you into it. I am not a psychoanalyst -- I am an existentialist.
Osho, ever since I took initiation from you, I have also begun to feel afraid of you. Earlier this fear was not in me, though I have been afraid all my life. I also know that the love and freedom I have found in your presence I never found even around my parents. And if, even in the shade of a master as utterly love-filled as you, I do not become free of fear, then where else will I? How is this freedom from fear possible?
Take this as a touchstone: if the reason for which you went to the master is the very reason he accepts and works upon, he too is standing in darkness. You have come to me because of fear—I know. But it is not my task to lessen your fear; it is to awaken abhaya. You did not come for abhaya. You came for nirbhayata, a little courage to fight—you would be satisfied with that. You are easily satisfied; your discontent is not very deep. A drowning man is content with a straw. You are looking for a straw; I know that no one is saved by a straw. Perhaps because of the straw you will drown—whoever takes a straw for a boat stops looking for a real boat. Whoever mistakes a false shore will find the true shore very far. Whatever reason you have come with is not my concern.…