What is the relationship between witnessing and love?

Osho, in Ashtavakra’s entire scripture there is no mention of love anywhere. But in your Mahageeta, alongside the witness there is always a stream of love flowing. Why is that? Is there an inner relationship between witnessing and love?

Certainly. Love is the music of the witness. Love is the fragrance of witnessing. Only when one becomes a witness does love begin to shower. And certainly Ashtavakra did not speak of this love—deliberately. Knowing well that what you call love, you might mistakenly take to be the same. So Ashtavakra spoke of witnessing and left love aside. He spoke of the seed and the tree, and left the fruit out—the fruit will come. You sow the seed, tend the tree, water it, keep gardening—the fruit will come. When it comes, it comes; why talk about it beforehand? Deliberately he left love aside because there has always been a danger in speaking of love: you also believe you love; you have known a certain kind of love. Hearing the word “love,” you might assume your love and Ashtavakra’s love are the same. To save you from this danger, Ashtavakra kept…

Osho: would you please say something about the relationship between spontaneity and working on oneself? Shouldn't we be loving as much as we can? If there are certain things to do or ways to be to increase our capacity for joy, shouldn't we do them? Shouldn't we let our egos drop? Many good men have written that love can begin as an impulse of the will, and trying to be spontaneous seems to be a contradiction. Would you comment on this?

You have forgotten what real love is. You fall in love with the color of the hair -- now, what has that to do with love? After two days you will not look at the color of the hair at all. Or you fall in love with a certain shape of nose or a certain kind of eyes, but after the honeymoon these things are just boring! And then you have to go on managing somehow, pretending, cheating. Your spontaneity has been corrupted and poisoned, otherwise you would not fall in love with parts. But you only fall in love with parts. If somebody asks you, 'Why do you love this woman or this man?" your answer will be, "Because she looks so beautiful," or, "Because of her nose, eyes, proportion of the body, this and that" -- and all this is nonsense! Then this love cannot be very deep…

How can you be a witness when totally in love with the moment? I feel confused, because when involved with the beloved it seems phoney to be watching the situation.

I'm not saying watch, because the moment you watch you have become the eyes and the whole being is lost. When you are alert, you are alert as a whole totality. Every cell of your body is alert. The whole body is alert. Alertness has a totally different quality. But words create trouble. And we have become so knowledgeable; we can always find ways in words. We can always go on playing games. It happened: "In a museum, Muskovitch, having spent considerable time tramping the corridors, paused for a refreshing cigar. He had not been smoking long when a museum guard appeared, approached him angrily and said, 'Do you see that!' He was pointing to a sign on the wall which said in glaring red letters: NO SMOKING. Muskovitch regarded it for a moment, then said to the guard, 'It doesn't say positively.' You can always find ways, means, through…

Osho, would you please speak a little on witnessing and the heart. Can they be experienced simultaneously?

WITNESSING AND THE HEART ARE ONE AND THE same thing. Witnessing is not of the mind; mind can never be a witness. When you start witnessing, mind becomes the witnessed not the witness, it is the observed not the observer. You see your thoughts moving, your desires, your fantasies, your memories, your dreams -- just as you see things moving on the screen of a film. But you are not identified with them. That non-identification is what is meant by witnessing. Then who is the witness? Mind is being seen, then who is the seer? It is the heart. So the heart and witnessing are not two things. If you witness, you will be centered in the heart; or if you are centered in the heart, you will become a witness. These are two processes to reach the same goal. The lover, the devotee, never thinks of witnessing; he simply…

Someone has asked, “Is there an inner relationship between shraddha and witnessing?”

Certainly. Shraddha is the door; the witness—the image enthroned in the temple. Without shraddha no one has ever reached the witness, nor reached truth. Without shraddha you can be a pundit, not a knower. Without shraddha you can be a believer, not one who has experienced. So there are two kinds of wanderers in the world. One we call atheists; the other we call theists. Both wander. Both are filled with belief—one for, one against. Neither the atheist knows that God is, nor the theist knows that God is. That is why I place the religious apart from both; he is neither atheist nor theist. He has slowly attempted to see. Your notions are not needed at all for seeing. Your notions become obstacles; your prejudices bring hindrances. You set out having assumed something in advance; because of that, seeing does not remain pure. If you have already assumed, you…