Why does Mahavira lay down conditions if unconditional love is emphasized?

Osho, you speak of unconditional love. Then why does Mahavira lay down conditions?

I say that love is always unconditional. Love is always unconditional, because wherever there is a condition, there is a bargain. Wherever we say, “I will love when such-and-such happens”—when I say, “I will love you if you do this, or become like that, or turn into this,” then I am binding love with a condition, and in doing so, I am losing love. The conditions Mahavira speaks of are not in relation to love. Mahavira does not say, “If the world does this, then I will love; if the world gives me food, then I will love.” No—that is not the point at all; it is not a matter of love. Mahavira is saying, “If the world has love for me, if existence has love for me, how am I to know it? How am I to know that this whole existence wants to preserve me, considers me useful,…

Osho, in this connection, what is the intent behind Mahavira’s conditions? He too would stipulate that it must be like this: only if the person in front who is offering alms is of such-and-such a kind will I accept, otherwise I will not. For example, someone wearing sandalwood...

There is an intention.

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…

Osho, the witness, the seer, consciousness is always separate—virginal and unbound. And the whole play of life is nothing but the movement of the gunas within themselves. In such a situation, if a person’s qualities of sattva, rajas, and tamas are calmed in a scientific or chemical way, or if a person is made sattvic, will he then attain that ever-free witness? If the witness is forever free and present, then by chemically altering the three gunas will it not be revealed? Would the person not then become religious? What is the fundamental difference between solving the problem arising from the

Sadhana means we are dissolving the current itself, not breaking the bulb. There is no point in breaking the bulb. In fact, the bulb is useful; it tells you whether the current is flowing or not, whether there is current or not. Your anger within tells you you are still sunk in ignorance. Lust tells you your life energies have not yet become aware. If we remove these elements, anger will stop manifesting and you will also stop knowing that you are in deep ignorance. It is as if a man is sick and we snatch away the symptoms of his disease so that he doesn’t even come to know he is ill. And keep in mind, anger is an opportunity. Only the unwise say anger is simply bad; I do not say so. Anger is an opportunity; you can use it badly or well. Anger is a chance. In…

Osho, in the third discourse on non-possession (aparigraha) you said that Mahavira, by entering the life of sannyas, became an emperor, while his elder brother, though living amid affluence, remained impoverished and enslaved. Attaining inner wealth yet staying beyond material wealth—that is, becoming free of possession—does this not amount to a one-sided, unilateral life? Why can they not accept both inner and outer prosperity together?

Mahavira left everything, not because it was wealth; he left precisely because it was not wealth. Mahavira left everything, not because there was something worth abandoning; he left because there was nothing worth holding. But what do we see? We see that he left palaces; we see that he left diamonds and jewels; we see that he left riches. That is what we notice. As far as Mahavira is concerned, he left nothing but pebbles and stones. We see diamonds and jewels; Mahavira saw pebbles in those diamonds and jewels. And in such diamonds and jewels there is nothing other than pebbles and stones anyway! Yes, those who wrote Mahavira’s story recorded how many diamonds, how many rubies, how many emeralds, how many pearls he left. If someone were to ask Mahavira, he would say, “How foolish you are! You’ve even given different names to pebbles?” Had Mahavira left only…