What guidance do you have for understanding love?

Osho, I think a lot about love. Your words seem right—sometimes they do and sometimes they don’t. What guidance do you have for me?

I think I should turn aside from love, make the heart a stranger to allurements and desires. I think love is a notorious madness, a crowd of a few useless, absurd notions, a craving to bind the free, a delusive effort to make a stranger one’s own. I think love is intoxication and ecstasy; by its radiance the skies of existence shine. I think love is man’s very nature— to erase it, to make it vanish, is very difficult. I think life gleams because of love— to snuff out this flame with one’s own hands is very hard. I think love carries harsh conditions; in this civilization, heavy terms are set upon joy. I think love is a kind of lifeless, dejected corpse, shrouded in the sheet of honor and modesty, a disgraced being crushed by the age of capital, rejected at the thresholds of religion and morality. I think…

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…

Question: BELOVED OSHO, HOW CAN I LOVE BETTER? Love is something eternal. It is the experience of the buddhas, not the unconscious people of whom the whole world is full. Only very few people have known what love is, and these same people are the most awakened, the most enlightened, the highest peaks of human consciousness. If you really want to know love, forget about love and remember meditation. If you want to bring roses into your garden, forget about roses, and take care of the rosebush. Give nourishment to it, water it, take care that it gets the right amount of sun, water. If everything is taken care of, in the right time the roses are destined to come. You cannot bring them earlier, you cannot force them to open up sooner, and you cannot ask a roseflower to be more perfect.

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.

Osho, you say love is God, but I have been so singed by love that even the word “love” irritates me. Please guide me.

Do not remain like that—untasted. Drink the essence of life. Break these little cups. And if but once His glance falls upon you, your life will be transformed. “Among millions you made it worthy of being chosen— The heart you looked upon, you made into a heart.” Just place yourself at His feet. Bow a little. Let but one glance of His fall upon you, one ray touch you—and you are transformed. Iron becomes gold. In the dust, flowers of nectar bloom. “What was in that last cup, O cupbearer? Whoever drank it fell silent—and remained silent.” Here you have drunk many kinds of cups. I speak of the last cup. “What was in that last cup, O cupbearer? Whoever drank it fell silent—and remained silent.” Drink that, and a profound stillness will happen. All quiet, all empty, all silent. Within, not even a ripple of thought will arise. That…