Why did Bhagwan Buddha not use the word 'love' in place of avair?

Osho, why did Bhagwan Buddha not use the word “love” in place of avair?

Buddha’s words are worth hearing: “I did not love you because you did not spit on me. If that were the reason, then a spit would break love. I love you because I cannot do otherwise. It is my nature. Whether you spit or not is your affair. Whether you accept my love or not is also your affair. My love is like a flower: it blossoms and the fragrance spreads. If an enemy passes by, his nostrils are filled too. He may hold a handkerchief to his nose—that is his matter. A friend passes; his nostrils are filled too. If the friend lingers by the flower and shares its bliss—that is another matter. Even if no one passes on the path, the fragrance keeps falling—in empty solitude. My love is my nature.” Understand this. What you call love is not nature; it is your act, a mood-state of your…

Osho, yesterday you said that jealousy is included in respect. I have immense respect for you, but the jealousy inherent in it keeps poisoning it, and I feel guilt and pain. Does reverence transcend this poison-laced respect?

It needs a little explaining—it's a delicate point. Whenever you respect someone, you do so because you see in that person something you do not have. You respect because you glimpse in the other something you would also like to possess. A beggar respects an emperor because he, too, longs to be an emperor. So on the one hand he respects, and inside he also envies. Because he is not yet an emperor but wants to be. You have attained what he wants to attain. He respects you as skillful, successful: “I stand far back in the line; you have gone ahead to where I should have been.” So you are powerful, clever, intelligent, strong—he respects you. But inside a fire of jealousy also burns—if he gets the chance, he would like to be in your place and push you aside. And if the beggar gets that chance, he will…

You said that love is possible only with death. Then will you please explain buddha's love.

When your lover is not with you, when your beloved is not with you, the love disappears, the perfume is not there. It is an effort on your part, it is not simply your being. You have to do something to bring it out. When no one is there and Buddha is sitting alone under his Bodhi tree, then too he is a lover. It looks absurd that then too he is a lover. There is no one to be loved but still he is a lover. This being a lover is his state. And because it is his state, it is never a tension. Buddha cannot get tired of his love. You will get tired, because it is something you are doing. So lovers get tired of each other if there is too much love. They get tired, they need gaps, intervals, to recuperate. If you are with your…

Where is the love in buddha's teachings? I can't feel it.

Buddha is an emperor. He gives, and he is thankful to all those who receive. When you go in love, you are just a beggar: two beggars begging each other. The outcome is misery, the outcome is ugly, the outcome is hell. Buddha's love is not a relationship, it is relating. He simply relates; but there is no bondage in it, there is no obsession with any per-son in particular. Buddha talking about love will be saying one thing, you will understand something else. That's what happened with Jesus: he talked about love, but he has not been understood at all. A church has arisen around him which is unloving, absolutely unloving; other-wise, how can you explain all the wars which have happened between Christianity and other religions, all the crusades, all the murder, the killing, and all the bloodshed? Jesus may have talked about love, which is the love…

Osho, you said that when the words of the awakened ones enter popular usage, they lose their meaning. And you mentioned that Mahavira adopted the word “ahimsa,” Jesus “love,” and the Sufis “ishq.” Bhagwan, in the present century, which word would you like to give us?

So all who have traveled the path of negation have only fattened the ego. The soul did not open or blossom in their lives. So I choose love. I am in love with love. I say to you: there may be a thousand flaws in this word—learn something from Mahavira. Seeing the flaws clinging to the word “love,” he chose ahimsa; but the results turned out even worse. The disease was disease—but the medicine too became a disease. I say to you: choose love. And love is so strong it can cross its own mistakes. It is alive—so even if it gets dirty, it can bathe. Ahimsa is a corpse—it will not get dirty, but what is the value of its cleanliness? In its cleanliness there is no fragrance of life. Its cleanliness is clinical. For me there is nectar in the word love. Because as I see it, this…