If others won’t take your love, keep loving yourself, be patient, look for the right person, and use meditation to turn strong feelings into kinder, wiser love.
From the Discourses
Passages where Osho speaks to this question — each links to the complete discourse.
Osho, ever since contact with your disciples, your literature, and ultimately with you yourself has become available, a current of love has begun to flow in my life. Everyone and everything has begun to look good to me. But many times, when, filled with love, I want to embrace another, the other person becomes hesitant and then I withdraw. Please tell me what I should do at such times?
Yes, give him your experience. But let that experience not be an order. Hand over to him the wealth of what you have known. But give him the right to choose—whether to agree or not. If he does not agree, do not be angry. If he agrees, do not be elated. For it is through the politics of our pleasure and displeasure that we coerce children. A father tells his son, “Do as you wish.” But if the son acts against the father’s wish, the father looks unhappy; then the son wants to make the father happy: “All right!” If the son acts according to the father’s wish, the father is pleased; then the son wants to please the father: “All right!” In this way, slowly, the son’s soul is lost. That is why there is such a crowd in the world and so many soulless people. Where is the…Read the full discourse →
Osho, what if love is not accepted? I’ve never heard anyone say, “Love God—and it isn’t accepted.” So this must be about some other kind of love. You must have loved a woman and it wasn’t accepted. You are blessed. The real difficulty begins when it is accepted. Then you would be saying, “Osho, what if love is accepted?” Then you are in real trouble.
And I am not saying that if you have a wife or husband you should run away. Just understand this: the time has come to lift your eyes upward. You lift your eyes—and let your wife lift hers too. You have both loved each other and tormented each other enough. Now lift your eyes upward. Now both of you love That. And you will be amazed: if both of you become prayerful, if both of you fall in love with God, then between you a stream of love will begin to flow that never flowed before. It is an ancillary flowering of being connected to the Divine. On the wealth whose strength fueled your siege of love, today the bloom of that wealth has grown old. With the garment by which you veiled your edifice’s sores, the hand of mishap turned the garment inside out. In the palaces where you…Read the full discourse →
Saint Maharaj has asked: Osho, love is rippling in my heart, springing up in waves, leaping and surging. Whoever I offer it to, they just won’t take it. I’ve become very helpless. Revered Master, what should I do with this love?
Sexual desire is Punjabi. It will throw its weight around. Everyone’s lust is Punjabi—it will keep jumping up. You are right when you say, “It keeps leaping and surging.” Saint Maharaj is speaking absolute truth. That’s why I call him Maharaj. He speaks the truth; he doesn’t hide or prettify. He is right to say, “Love is taking waves in my heart.” Now if celibacy alone is proclaimed to be life, while in your heart love is swelling and “leaping and surging,” what will you do? Then you’ll put on a mask on the outside—the shawl of God’s name—and inside you’ll have to find some secret outlet. And then deception will happen. You will be dishonest with yourself. No—accept this love, embrace it. It is your life-energy. And don’t be afraid, Saint. You say: “Whoever I offer it to, they won’t take it.” People have become frightened; they’ve been taught…Read the full discourse →
Osho, I think a lot about love. Your words seem right—sometimes they do and sometimes they don’t. What guidance do you have for me?
I think I should turn aside from love, make the heart a stranger to allurements and desires. I think love is a notorious madness, a crowd of a few useless, absurd notions, a craving to bind the free, a delusive effort to make a stranger one’s own. I think love is intoxication and ecstasy; by its radiance the skies of existence shine. I think love is man’s very nature— to erase it, to make it vanish, is very difficult. I think life gleams because of love— to snuff out this flame with one’s own hands is very hard. I think love carries harsh conditions; in this civilization, heavy terms are set upon joy. I think love is a kind of lifeless, dejected corpse, shrouded in the sheet of honor and modesty, a disgraced being crushed by the age of capital, rejected at the thresholds of religion and morality. I think…Read the full discourse →
Osho, I was in love with a young woman. She deceived me and became someone else’s. I am living on, but life has lost all taste. What should I do?
There can’t have been much sap. You are in the illusion that there was. Does sap vanish like that? You don’t even know what sap is. Those who know have said: “Raso vai sah.” They defined God as rasa—essence, sap, joy. They recognized only God as the true savor; nothing else has any lasting savor. Had you gotten the woman, the savor would also have gone—and being tied to her would be another matter. Then it would be hard to get free. Ask the one she has married—what is his condition? Know his griefs too; you’ll find great consolation, great reassurance. A politician once went to visit a madhouse. One man was tearing his hair, beating his chest, holding a woman’s photo, tears streaming—hugging the photo to his chest. He was behind bars. The politician asked the superintendent, “What happened to this man? What is he doing? Whose photo is…Read the full discourse →