What is the nature of love as a projection of the mind?

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, how can one differentiate between a projected experience and an authentic feeling?

The old woman said, "I have served him for thirty years, but still I feel that his purity is a maintained purity. It is not yet effortless. So before dying I want to know whether I was serving a right man or whether I was just deluded as he is deluded -- because I have been a part in this. So just before my death, let me know it. I want to know." So the prostitute went. It was midnight and the monk was meditating -- the last meditation of the night. The moment he saw that the prostitute was coming... he knew her, and he knew well. She belonged to the same village. And he knew well, moreover, because he had been attracted to her so many times before. Really, he was fighting against this prostitute for years. He was bewildered. He just ran out of the hut and…

OSHO: Love is the most intoxicating phenomenon. It is the wine that wells up within. It is not something chemical that comes from the outside, it is not even part of the body, not part of the mind either. It is the dance of the heart in tune with the whole. Love is your heart in deep harmony with the heart of the universe. Then there is great intoxication. And yet the intoxication does not make you unconscious; on the contrary it makes you more conscious than ever. That's the paradox of love: on one hand one is intoxicated, on the other hand one has never been so aware before. It is an intoxication that makes you wake up. HER SIX-YEAR-OLD DAUGHTER: PREM GARIMA, GLORY OF LOVE. NENE BECOMES MA PREM KUNDAN OSHO: It is by passing through the fire of love that one becomes one's real self.

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.

Osho, what is the definition of God?

Words are very small. If you say God is light, then what of darkness? The scriptures have said that God is light. Suppose we accept this as a definition—then what about darkness? Where will darkness go? Darkness is too; in fact it is far more than light. Light sometimes is and sometimes is not; darkness is always, eternal. Where will you place darkness? If you say God is light, darkness is left out. If you say God is darkness, then light is left out. If you say God is both darkness and light, a contradiction arises: they cannot be together. Try to have both darkness and light in the same room. If you bring in light, darkness disappears; if you preserve darkness, you cannot have light. Then how can both be together? That becomes an impossibility. So you cannot say “both” either. Then the fourth device is to say: it…