What is the cause of frustration in love?

I have heard that the person whom one loves does not really exist but is a projection focussed through the lens of the mind onto whatever screen it has with the least distortion. Can you elaborate?

The question is from Neeravo. There is no need to elaborate. You heard absolutely rightly. That's how it is. It is a simple fact. We go on projecting, we go on seeing things which we want to see. We never allow reality to be as it is. We never allow that which is to be mirrored in us. We go on carrying thoughts, desires, ideas, and we project them. And in love that happens more because in love you are almost on a psychedelic trip. Love is psychedelic; some kind of inner LSD is released, some hormones are released, some chemical things change inside you. You are affected by those chemical changes and you start seeing things. You become a visionary, a dreamer. And the person you fall in love with may not have anything to do with it. He may be just a screen. But then you are bound…

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…

In everything there is a limitation, and when one understands one's limitations there is no problem. One follows the limitations -- one does whatsoever one can do and one enjoys doing it. Otherwise you can be bogged down with your own concepts and become burdened. My suggestion is that for one month you simply drop all concepts about love. Start from abc -- as if you don't know anything about love... and in fact you don't know; in fact nobody knows. Love is not an object of knowledge, nobody can know it. The people who really know it will always say that they don't know and the people who don't know will claim that they know, because the very experience of love is ineffable. So for one month, start from ABC. From this very moment start from abc: enjoy small things and don't hanker for the big.

By and by, when many more people work in it, many more experiences and things will be added and one day it will become a science. Right now people working in it work hard in many directions and many things happen. But it is as if you are going in many directions together and then suddenly you don't find where you are going. Up to a certain point things seem to happen and then everything seems to stop. You come to a plateau. But whatsoever you have done is valuable. It is just waiting for a right synthesis. Once the right synthesis happens, you can become one of the most happy persons on earth. Prem means love, and purantana means ancient, beginningless -- beginningless love. And we are ancient people. Nobody is new here. From the very beginning, we are.

Question: Third question: Osho, why does whoever I desire reject me? Because every person has the right to self-protection. Your wanting arises, and the other runs: “Watch out, friend—this fellow has arrived!” Wherever people have seen “wanting,” they have found bondage; and whenever they fell into someone’s so-called love, the noose tightened. What is your love? It’s like a fisherman putting dough on a hook to catch a fish. The fish gets caught because of the dough. The fisherman’s purpose is not to feed the fish dough; his purpose is that while eating the dough the hook should lodge in her mouth. The dough is just a trick. You ask: “Why does the one I desire reject me?” There is a hook in your desiring. You think it’s all dough, only dough. But look closely: did you not make miserable the life of the one you desired?