Why can't I express my feelings of love and bliss to human beings as openly as I do in my art?

Beloved Osho, as I am an artist, I can easily put my feelings of love and bliss into making sculptures. Why can't I express the same feelings to human beings and be as open to them as I am in making sculptures?

Love needs a clarity of vision. Love needs a cleaning of all kinds of ugly things which are in your mind -- jealousy, anger, the desire to dominate. I have heard ... in a marriage registrar's office, a couple came to get married. They filled out the forms. The woman looked at the man -- they were lovers, and they had come to the registry office against their family, because in India, marriage is not done in the registrar's office. It is available. Legally you can do it but that happens only when you are doing something against the family, against the society. Those two people must have been in deep love. They had revolted against the society, against the religion, against their parents, against the family. They had risked everything and they were going to be married. And the woman looked at the man who was filling out the…

Osho, I have never been able to express my love. Not only ordinary worldly love—even the love I feel for you I keep hidden. I don’t know what fear has crippled me! How will this underdeveloped love become devotion?

It is humanity’s misfortune that the culture and civilization that have evolved on earth so far are anti-love. They side with war and oppose love. This is not much of a civilization; it is very primitive. It lives by war, not by love. It is hostile to love—deeply afraid of it. You can see it—thousands of obstacles are raised against the expression of love. Thousands of walls are built so that love does not happen. For centuries child marriage continued only to prevent love: before love’s tide could rise, marry them off—then the tide won’t rise and there will be no trouble. Men and women are kept apart, large distances are imposed between them. Boys and girls are not allowed to study together in school or college; and even if they are, their seating is kept separate. All kinds of barriers are erected. And every kind of fear is instilled:…

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…

I'm able to feel the divine breath in a sunset, in a tree, in a bird flying... But I'm incredibly afraid to open myself to human beings, to the concrete people around me. I can accept the divine only beyond the human level. Sometimes I feel it really a problem. Please help me to face this point.

Bodhideva, it is always simple to love abstract things. It is more simple to love humanity than human beings, because loving humanity you are not risking anything. A single human being is far more dangerous than the whole of humanity. Humanity is a word, there is no corresponding reality to it. The human being is a reality, and when you come across a reality there are going to be good times, bad times, pain, pleasure, ups and downs, highs and lows, agonies and ecstasies. Loving humanity, there will be no ecstasy and no agony. In fact, loving humanity is a way of avoiding human beings: because you can't love human beings you start loving humanity just to deceive yourself. Avoid abstractions. The second thing is: it is certainly easier to love a tree, because while loving a tree the tree is almost passive, it does not respond. Loving a tree…

Question: Second question: Osho, is love life itself? Is it aliveness? What is a well, after all? Merely a window through which the ocean peeks. The well is connected below to the ocean, to endless springs. It is just a little aperture where the ocean has looked out. Do not be afraid. You too are an aperture through which the Divine looks. Do not fear. You are connected. Pour yourself out and you will find you expand. Hold back and you will shrink and rot. And then a vicious circle begins: if you hold back, do not share, do not give love, fear arises—“Everything is already drying up; if I give, I will have even less.” You clamp down even more. The more you hold, the less you have; you keep drying up. Be brave. Give—and see.