Care

Beloved Osho, what is the right way to help a child grow without interfering in his natural potentiality?

The right way is not to help the child at all. If you have real courage then please don't help the child. Love him, nourish him. Let him do what he wants to do. Let him go where he wants to go. Your mind will be tempted again and again to interfere, and with good excuses. The mind is very clever in rationalizing: "If you don't interfere there may be danger; the child may fall into the well if you don't stop him." But I say to you, it is better to let him fall into the well than to help him and destroy him. It is a very rare possibility that the child falls into the well -- and then too, it does not mean death; he can be taken out of the well. And if you are really so concerned, the well can be covered; but don't help…

Beloved Osho, as you were talking about indian and western sannyasins, I felt what you were saying was true -- sometimes the indians are too much of the heart. It is hard to say no to them, yet you cannot say yes to their expectations and theories. They are deaf. Will you please explain why this is so?

You have to be alert not to allow the heart to start overpowering your reason, just as you have to be alert that your reason does not overpower your heart. Their functions are separate. Reason should function in the world of objects, and the heart should function in the world of human consciousness. And the moment they overlap, there is going to be a certain kind of mess. And whenever you feel it, that the man is so loving, how to say no to him? don't be worried. It has been my whole life's difficulty -- because everybody in India is so full of knowledge, and all that knowledge is simply holy cow dung, there is nothing in it. But these people are good, this is the problem. The people are good: very generous, very loving, very helpful. Only their hearts have overrun their heads, so whatsoever they are saying...…

Osho, I first met you at the Matheran camp in 1964. The love with which you called out to me at the Matheran station—those words still echo in my ears. That day tears flowed in streams; even now they come in the same way. While listening to you, while having your darshan, the same state remains. I was blessed to live near you, to sit and move with you, for many years. The state of fullness of love I received from you that day is the same fullness even today. I regard this as the greatest and most astonishing event of my life. May this state of love remain until the end of my life—this blessing

Sohan, when love is, it is always complete; there is no such thing as an experience of incomplete love. Just as a circle, if it is a circle, is whole; there cannot be such a thing as an incomplete circle—if it is incomplete, we can no longer call it a circle. So too, love is always complete. That is why love is the experience closest to the divine. One who has known love will not find it difficult to know God—it is as if only one more step remains. Love is the last step to the temple of the divine; after that, there is entry into the shrine. Jesus has said: God is love. I go a step further—and I should, for two thousand years have passed since Jesus uttered that statement; in two millennia human consciousness has touched new dimensions. Jesus says, God is love. I say, love is…

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…