Osho on Love

Osho, both the love-intoxicated Meera and Socrates, who knew himself, drank poison. “Pivat Meera hansi re!”—drinking, Meera laughed! But Socrates passed away. Why? Kindly explain!

Umashankar Bharati, It only proves this much: even in Meera’s time, things didn’t come pure. The poison was adulterated—hence “Pivat Meera hansi re!” And in Greece, where Socrates was given poison, it was poison indeed. Socrates did not laugh. That wasn’t India. Here, everything is adulterated. Mulla Nasruddin wanted to die. He bought poison, drank it, and lay down to sleep. He kept thinking, “Now I’m dead, now I’m dead…” He opened his eyes again and again—same room, and his wife snoring beside him. What’s the matter? Eleven struck, twelve, one, two. He pinched himself to see whether he was alive or dead. The pinch hurt—clearly alive. He grew very puzzled. Then he felt like urinating. He said, “This is the limit—dead already, and I still need to pee! I thought once I died I’d be rid of all these hassles.” He held it for a while, but couldn’t. He…

Osho, is love the parent of devotion, or is devotion the parent of love? Is love the bud and devotion the flower? Or is love the beginning and devotion the end? Or are they different?

The bud and the flower are both one and different. The beginning and the end are joined, and yet apart. A bud can remain a bud; to become a flower is possible, not inevitable. A seed can remain a seed; it could have become a tree, but it is not necessary that it will. The seed is separate—it has its own existence—and it is also the possibility of the tree. But a tree can be only if there is a seed, first. And a tree can be only if the seed disappears, second. First it must be, and then it must die; only then can the tree be. If there is no love, there is no possibility of devotion. And if love remains only love and does not go beyond, then too there is no possibility of devotion. If love stops at love, devotion will never be born. And if…

When I feel deep love I feel sad at the same time. Why?

A few things more.... The sadness that love brings is very potential, it is very deep, it is very healthy, it is helpful. It will lead you to God. So don't take it negatively, use it. It is a great blessing, that sadness felt in love. It simply shows that your aspiration is beyond the capacity of love, your aspiration is for the ultimate. Love can only give you a momentary satisfaction but not an eternal contentment. Feel grateful that love gave you that one momentary satisfaction and feel grateful that love made you aware of a tremendous sadness inside you. When people are together in love they feel very alone. Nobody else ever feels such aloneness as lovers feel. Can't you remember it? While sitting holding the hand of your beloved on a full moon night, have you not felt it? -- utterly alone. The other is there, you…

Beloved Osho, is there a possibility that the disciple's love for the master will not be the last barrier if love and awareness can grow together?

Prem Shunyo, the possibility is there, but it is one of the most difficult things in existence, to let love and awareness grow together. People find it difficult even to grow one. So ordinarily, people either choose the path of love or the path of awareness. But the possibility cannot be denied, because there is no intrinsic antagonism between awareness and love. In fact, my effort here is exactly for what Shunyo is asking. I want you to grow in your love and in your awareness together -- to be a Zorba and to be a Buddha, together. Zorba is love; Buddha is awareness. It is easier to grow one, but is far more juicy to grow both together. And if both together can be grown, then the master will not be the last barrier, because in love and awareness you will become one with the master. On the path…

Osho, are the deaths of meditation and of love different? Are their processes different as well?

Death is one and the same—whether through meditation or through love. But the processes, the paths, the methods that lead to that death are different. Through meditation, the same thing happens: you disappear. Through love, the same thing happens: you disappear. The dissolving happens in both cases, but the ways are very different. In the first stages of meditation, you do not vanish. At that stage, what is false in you is burned away and what is true is preserved. The inauspicious is removed; the auspicious is kept. Impurity is burned; purity is protected. Thus on the path of knowledge or meditation one begins to be purified. One does not disappear; one becomes refined, yet one remains. In the final leap, the refinement reaches a point where even purity appears impure. Where mere being appears impure, there, in the last jump, the meditator snuffs himself out. The devotee snuffs himself…

Question: Last question: Osho, is love the most important event of life? Love is the most important event—and yet love is not an event. Love is life; all else is death. The one who has known love has known life. The one who has not known love has known only dying. His life is nothing but a long suicide—done slowly, slowly. He dies a little every day and does nothing else. Love is not an incident that happens in life—love is life’s very other name. And the day this understanding dawns in you, that love is another name for life, the Divine begins to dance within you. The skies give birth no more; for years no mad lover arises. For years no prophet rises out of the wilderness. Love is lost; therefore no prophet can be born. Love is lost; therefore even a true madman is no longer born.

Osho, Meera’s path was the path of love, but there was a gap of five thousand years between Krishna and Meera. How, then, could this love come to be? Please explain.

For love there is no distance of time and none of space. Love is the one alchemy that dissolves both time and space. With one you do not love, even if he sits right beside you, body touching body, you are thousands of miles apart. And the one you love—though seated far away among the moon and stars—is forever by your side. Love is the one experience in life where time and space both become futile. Love is the only experience that trusts neither the distance of space nor the distance of time; it erases them both. In the definition of the divine it is said: he is beyond time and space, timeless. Jesus has said, “Love is God”—for this very reason. In human experience only love is timeless and spaceless; through that alone a connection with the divine is possible. So it makes no difference that Krishna lived five…

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,…