Why is it so difficult to understand the message of love?

Beloved Osho, has anyone really understood your message of love? Recently it has been painfully clear to me that I haven't, and I wonder if we aren't all, with some slight variations on the theme, still singing the same old song. Why is it so difficult to live something that is so simple and natural?

I said, "I never go back from anywhere. If you are not coming, I am going alone." He said, "When I am saying there is no need..." I said, "It may not be a need for you; it is a need for me. I have to decide it finally, because to me love is a religious phenomenon, while God is not. God is only a hypothesis. It means nothing because there is nothing corresponding to it. "And love is a religious phenomenon. Unless it is understood in its totality, a man is bound to become miserable by something which could have made his life divine. The same thing which could have been his heaven is going to become hell because he has no understanding. And it is certainly an art. Who cares about God? So you start talking sense. We have come here to understand religion, not nonsense." "But," he…

Why is it so difficult to understand you?

I AM SO SIMPLE -- something must be wrong with you. You must be knowledgeable. You must be carrying great prejudices in you. Otherwise, what I am saying are such simple truths; there is no way to make them more simple. But you must be waiting to hear something else -- then problems arise. I say one thing. You were waiting to hear something else. And there is collision, they collide. And, naturally, if anything collides with you, you cannot accept it. It creates confusion. I am here to clarify things for you, but if you have ideas, a priori ideas, fixed attitudes, prejudices, conditioning, then my simple statements will collide with your deep-rooted beliefs -- and there will be confusion. You want to hear something else... if I say it then it is perfectly okay. You say, "I understand." That's what you mean when you say, "Yes, I understand."…

What is your message, Osho? I don't understand you.

When you try to understand me you will miss, because while I am imparting something to you, you are engaged and occupied in understanding it. You will miss it. Don't try to understand it, just listen! Just as I am talking to you without any motive, listen on your part without any motive -- and the meeting is bound to happen. When I am without motive and you are without motive, what can hinder, what can obstruct the meeting? Then the meeting is going to happen. And in that communion is understanding; in that communion is light, clarity, transparency. So rather than trying to understand me, celebrate me, rejoice in me -- and you will understand, and without any effort to understand. Nobody ever understands through effort. What effort do you make when you listen to music? Do you try to understand it? If you try to understand it, you…

Beloved Osho, why is it always so difficult to understand you and your work?

Narendra, you must be really dumb, very thick. Whatever I am saying is so simple, so obvious. There is no question of understanding it; just listening to it is enough. And if it is difficult, that simply means you have not listened. Forget understanding. Put your whole energy into listening, and understanding will come on its own accord, just like a shadow that follows you. I am not saying anything difficult; I am not a philosopher. I am saying very simple things, so obvious that people have forgotten them. But I can feel your difficulty. Narendra is a psychologist, more in the mind. His whole training is of the mind, and here the whole approach is to put the mind aside. The psychologist is really in a difficulty, because his whole training is of getting deeper into the mind, its mechanics. And here it is a question of getting out…

It all seems so simple -- I just can't understand it. I keep grasping at it and it eludes me, a music that can almost be smelt, a taste that can almost be felt. Sometimes I am on the very threshold; other times it's not in a million years, not for me.

And Jesus also says, "The way is straight and NARROW." Why narrow? It is so narrow that it cannot contain your ego. Only you can go -- but you will have to leave your ego outside, outside the door. It is so narrow, two persons cannot walk together. You cannot take your child with you, you cannot take your aging mother with you, you cannot take your beloved with you. Even a Buddha cannot take you with him. Buddhas only point the way -- because two persons cannot walk on it, it is so narrow. One has to go alone: the flight of the alone to the alone. And so alone that not even your ego is with you, and so alone that not even your mind is with you, and so utterly alone that not even your SELF is with you. You go into it as absolute silence, as…