What happens when a loved one chooses to cut connections for communal living?

Beloved Osho, my lover was going to leave the commune to live with me. Then she changed her mind and said that to be able to live happily in the commune she has to forget me and drop the connection with me. And she has really cut the connection. This is driving me crazy. I cannot understand it. Am I stupid, or is she? Or are we both?

Just you are stupid. And you wanted her also to be stupid like you. But she proved far more intelligent than you are. Rather than going away from the commune -- which is the only alternative today in the whole world where some transformation can happen -- if she dropped you and the connection with you, she did absolutely right. In fact, if you love her you should come back to the commune. Why should she leave the commune to live with you, out of the commune? You say it is driving you crazy. No, you are crazy, nobody can drive you crazy. You could not understand the woman. She loved you. She loved you so much that against her will, reluctantly, she was ready even to go with you and live outside. But it was so much against her whole being that finally she decided she had to choose.…

Shanti Deva. It means goddess of peace. Let it be a remembrance -- feel as peaceful as possible. And it is only a question of feeling. If you feel peaceful, you become peaceful. Nobody is barring you; there is no hindrance. The idea becomes the actuality. A continuous thought can be transformed into a thing. It becomes as material as anything else. Let it vibrate inside continuously. Whenever you forget, again remember, relax and bring peace. Move peacefully, sit peacefully, stand peacefully. Carry a grace, an elegance, and feel that you are surrounded by a small aura of peace. Within a few days there will be no need to remember it. It will be there whether you remember it or not, but in the beginning remembrance helps to materialise it.

Osho, the joy I have found in coming to you is something I had never known before. Yet I am so ungrateful that again and again the wicked thought arises to leave you and go away. And still, some unseen thread keeps me bound to you. Am I worthy of forgiveness?

If a husband does not love his wife, the wife will start being ill. Because when she is ill the husband comes and sits, puts his hand on her head—even if unwilling, irritated inside: “I came home tired from the office, I thought I would sit and watch television, or listen to the radio, or read the paper, or lie down and rest—but that’s not in my fate. The wife is already in bed.” If the wife is fine, no need to fuss. But if she is ill, the husband must at least show some humanity. He will put a hand on her head, ask after her… And the wife’s deepest longing was love! If there were love in the world, seventy percent of diseases would disappear—at least seventy percent. But society is against love, the state is against love… love is a sin. We cut love at the root.…

In a lecture you said that the really aware were able to live alone. How does this fit with the dream of a community?

Family members are dependent on each other, they cling to each other. It gives a certain comfort, security, safety. Then the family depends on other families. People depend on the church, people depend on clubs, people depend on societies. It is a great world of dependent people, childish ungrownups. A commune is a totally different world. It is not a society. A commune is a gathering of people who are all capable of being alone, and they would like to be together to create a great orchestra of being. A commune is not a dependent phenomenon, it is an independence. That's why many times in this ashram people come and tell me, "Everybody here seems to be so happy with himself that it looks as if nobody is interested in anybody else." Particularly the newcomers feel it, that it is as if people are indifferent. It is not so; they…

[A sannyasin, looking close to tears as he talked, told Osho that he was feeling very sad and was easily hurt, and had felt like this for several weeks but he was unable to say what he felt was the reason for this. Osho asked his wife, who was also present, if she could comment, as her husband was not very clear about what was happening. Osho said that perhaps, unconsciously, he was avoiding facing up to the problem for fear that he would not be able to cope with it. He added that women are more perceptive than men about things pertaining to relationships, so perhaps she could be helpful.