Dispassion

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! You said that dispassion born of calculation or knowledge is false; only dispassion born of love is true dispassion. But love brings attachment; how can dispassion blossom from it?

Anand Maitreya! Love is a ladder; you can climb down it, and you can climb up it. Love is a doorway; you can enter through it, and you can go out through it. Love in itself produces neither attachment nor dispassion. Love is neutral. Everything is in your hands. How you use love determines the result. If love falls, it turns into attachment. If love flowers, it becomes dispassion. It is like manure: pile it up in the house and it will spread a stench; scatter the same manure in the garden and fragrance will arise. That very manure will nourish the trees; it will become the color, the juice, and the scent of flowers. The very manure which, if heaped inside the house, would make living unbearable—not only for you but for the neighbors too. So it is with love. Love is manure. If it remains locked in lust,…

Osho, isn’t love inherently laced with attachment and possessiveness?

Rabi‘a, a woman mystic, was sitting in her house. A fakir named Hasan was her guest. Morning came; the sun rose. Hasan went outside and called loudly, “Rabi‘a, what are you doing inside? Come out and see how beautiful the sun is—behold God’s creation!” Rabi‘a said, “Hasan! Better you come inside—for you are seeing God’s creation outside; within I am seeing the One Himself.” Creation is beautiful. But will you compare it with the Creator? A song is beautiful; it carries a slight hint of the singer’s soul. These carvings all around are beautiful, but they are a tiny work of the artist. The artist is not exhausted in the paintings, nor is the Creator finished in the creation. From that Creator infinite creations can arise, and still He remains as He is—unchanged. The Ishavasya says: “From the Full, the Full is taken, yet the Full remains.” From that God,…

Every time, failure. Happiness was never found. It proved delusion every time. Wherever desire showed the path, there futility was found; there sorrow was found. After walking thousands of desire-paths and arriving at the same experience without exception, dispassion is born. Dispassion is the continuous experience of the failure of desire, its essence and distillate. Then it is not at all difficult to cut ego, mine-ness, and desire. The realization of dispassion means: wherever desire says happiness is, there happiness is not. Wherever desire says happiness is, there suffering is. And wherever desire says suffering is, there happiness may be. Desire deceives—the great deceiver. This realization is called dispassion. Then seeking in pleasure stops and seeking in pain begins. We call the search in pain tapas—austerity. Tapas means: now I do not search in pleasure. I searched in pleasure and did not find; now I will search in pain.