What is the difference between love and compassion?

Osho, what is the fundamental anguish of human life?

There is only one anguish: that a human being cannot become what he was born to be. There is only one anguish: that the seed remains a seed and does not bloom like a flower; that it cannot scatter its fragrance to the infinite winds; cannot converse with the moon and stars; cannot offer its colors to the sky; cannot be expressed. If the poem within the poet cannot be revealed—anguish. If the painter cannot paint—anguish. If the dancer cannot dance—if chains lie on his feet—anguish. Anguish means only this: that what we are meant to be—our innate nature and destiny—does not come to fruition, and we are forced to be something else. Then anguish is born. Then melancholy gathers over life. And all those countless people you see burdened with sorrow, living in a kind of hell—the reason is only this: each has come carrying the seed of becoming…

You speak about love and compassion. I know of and feel different forms of love and compassion. Can you explain the different forms of love, and what you mean by compassion?

Compassion can have these three categories, and love also has three categories. First, sex. Sex simply means: "Give me -- give me more and more!" It is exploitation, it is what Martin Buber calls the I-it relationship: "You are a thing and I want to use you." The man uses the woman, the woman uses the man, the parents use the children and the children use parents, friends use friends. They say, "A friend is a friend only; a friend in need is a friend indeed." Use, reduce the other into a commodity. To live in the I-it world is to miss the whole wonder of existence. Then you are surrounded by things -- not by persons, not by people, not by life, but just material things. The poorest man in the world is one who lives in the I-it relationship. Sex is exploitation. Love is totally different. Love is…

Osho, what is compassion?

Man goes on living like a robot, functioning well, efficiently. In fact, the more like a robot you are, the better you function, the better the society feels with you -- because it is a society of robots. To be awakened, alert, conscious here is dangerous. It is a society of blind people; to have eyes is to invite danger. But without creating consciousness you will never be able to know the beauty, the blessing that God has bestowed upon you. You will never know the great opportunity that has been given for you to grow, to become. You can be sunlit peaks and you are just dark holes! "Shit!" said Polaris. "I got a real jolt in court this morning. The judge fined me five hundred dollars for attempting to rape some broad I met on the subway. And then when he took a good look at her he…

You have spoken of sex, love and compassion. I know what sex without love is, and I have known romantic love based on unfulfilled desires. But what is real love without sex? What is compassion?

When you are in sexuality you don't bother much to whom you are making love -- any body will do. You just need a woman or a man, any body will do. You just need the other's body. In love, any body won't do, anybody's body won't do. You need a person who is in deep love with you, who has a certain affinity and harmony with you, in whose presence your heart starts singing, a deep bell starts ringing... in whose presence you feel a blessing. Then only is it possible for you to make love to the other person. To make love is possible only if the meeting -- the inner meeting -- has happened. Otherwise it is simply impossible to think, even to imagine that you are making love to a person you don't love. In the state of compassion, sex completely disappears. In the state of…

Another friend has asked: How do you differentiate among compassion, nonviolence, pity, and love? Don’t they all mean the same?

Pity does not bring revolution; that is why revolution has not come to India. Pity rather blocks revolution. Because pity gives a beggar two coins, but it does not go in search of why beggars are produced in the first place. And when the beggar gets two coins, he too feels relief. He too does not reach that limit where he grabs the donor by the neck and says, “We will not take this charity. First you pick our pockets and then you give us alms. First you make us beggars and then you arrive to give us charity. First you suck our blood and then you build hospitals for us where ‘blood donation’ is conducted. What kind of net is this?” No, pity does not allow even this to happen. Pity becomes a consolation. And the poor feel that the rich are so “pitiful.” Nothing has shielded the rich…