Osho on Life, Love, Light

MAN IS A QUEST, AN ETERNAL INQUIRY, A PERENNIAL QUESTION. The quest is for the energy that holds existence together — call it God, call it truth, or whatsoever you like to call it. Who holds this infinite existence together? What is the center of it all, the core of it all? Science, philosophy, religion, all ask the same question. Their answers may differ but their question is the same. Religions call it God. Scientists will not agree with the word ‘God’; it looks too personal. It looks too anthropomorphic, man-oriented. They call it electricity, magnetism. energy fields; but only the name is different. God is an energy field. Philosophers go on giving different names to it: the ultimate stratum, the absolute, the BRAHMA. From Thales to Bertrand Russell, they have supplied many answers. Sometimes some philosopher says it is water, liquidity; sometimes somebody else says it is fire — but the quest has been eternal.

What holds this infinite universe together? Bauls call it love, and to me, their answer seems to be most pertinent. It is neither personal nor impersonal. It has something of God in it, and something of magnetism in it also; something of the divine, and something of the earth. Love has two faces. It is Janus-like: one face looks towards the earth, the other face looks towards the sky. It is the greatest synthesis conceivable: it comes out of lust and moves towards prayer; it comes out of mud and becomes a lotus facing the sun. This word ‘love’ has to be understood.

What do we mean by the word ‘love’? One thing we certainly all mean is that it has a pull in it, great energy. When you fall in love, it is not that you do something — you are pulled in. It has a magnetic force. You gravitate towards the object of your love, you gravitate almost helplessly, you gravitate even against your will. It has a pull, a magnetic field — that’s why we call it ‘falling in love’. Who wants to fall? — but who can avoid it? When the energy calls you, suddenly you are no more your old self. Something bigger than you is pulling you, something greater than you is invoking you. The challenge is such that one simply runs into it headlong.

So the first thing to understand is: love is a great energy pull. The second thing: whenever you fall in love, suddenly you are no longer ordinary; something miraculously changes in your consciousness. Love transforms you. Falling in love, a violent man becomes kind and tender. A murderer can become so compassionate, it is almost impossible to believe. Love is miraculous — it transforms the baser metal into gold. Have you watched people’s faces and eyes when they fall in love? — you cannot believe that they are the same persons. When love takes possession of their souls they are transfigured, transported into another dimension; and suddenly…and with no effort of their own, as if they are caught in the net of God. Love transforms the base into the higher, transforms earth into sky, transforms the human into the divine. These two things: first, love is an energy field — scientists will agree — second, love is a transforming force; it helps you to become weightless, puts you on your wings. You can move towards the beyond. Religious thinkers will agree that love is both God and electricity; love is divine energy.

Bauls have chosen love because this is the most significant experience in man’s life. Whether you are religious or not makes no difference; love remains the central experience of human life. It is the most common and the most uncommon. It happens to everybody, more or less, and whenever it happens it transmutes you. It is common and uncommon. It is the bridge between you and the ultimate. Remember the three L’s: life, love, light. Life is given to you; you are alive. Light is present, but you have to make a bridge between life and light. That bridge is love. With these three L’s you can make a total way of life, a way of being, a new way of being.

Bauls are not philosophers. They are more like poets — they sing, they dance, they don’t philosophize. In fact, they are almost anti-philosophical, because they have come to see that whenever a man becomes too head-oriented he becomes incapable of love — and love is going to be the bridge. A man who becomes too head-oriented goes farther away from the heart, and the heart is the center which responds to the call of love. A head-oriented man is cut off from the universe. He lives in the universe, but lives as if in a deep stupor. He lives in the universe, but lives as a tree that has lost its roots. He lives only for name’s sake: the sap of life is no more flowing. He has lost contact; he’s unconnected. That’s what alienation is.

The modern man feels too alienated, feels too much an outsider, does not feel at home, at ease with life, existence, the world. He feels almost as if he has been thrown into it, and it is a curse rather than a blessing. Why has this happened? — too much head orientation, too much training of the head has cut all the roots from the heart. There are many people — I have observed thousands of people — who don’t know what the heart is; they bypass. The heart is throbbing but the energy no longer moves via it. They bypass it; they go directly to the head. Even when they love, they THINK that they love. Even when they feel, they THINK that they feel. Even feeling is via thinking. Of course, it has to be false. Thinking is the great falsifier, because thinking is man’s effort to understand the universe, and love is God’s effort to understand man. Let me repeat it: when you try to understand God, or existence, or truth, it is your effort — a part, a very tiny part trying to grasp the whole, the infinite whole. The effort is bound to be doomed. It’s impossible. It cannot happen in the nature of things.

Love is when God has found you. Love is when God’s hand is searching for you, groping for you. Love is when you are allowing God to find you. Hence, you cannot manage love. You can manage logic; you can be very very efficient as far as logic is concerned. The moment love arises, you become absolutely inefficient. Then you don’t know where you are, then you don’t know what you are doing, then you don’t know where you are moving, then you don’t know any control. Logic is controlled; love is uncontrolled. Logic is manipulated; love is a happening. Logic gives you a feeling that you are somebody; love gives you a feeling that you are nobody. Love arises in you when you allow God to enter you. When you are trying on your own, then the whole effort is absurd.

Source:

Listen to complete discourse at mentioned below link.

Discourse Series: The Beloved, Vol 1 Chapter #9

Chapter title: It is always god who loves

29 June 1976 am in Buddha Hall

References:

Osho has spoken on ‘Life, Love, Light, Energy, God, Heart’ in many of His discourses. More on the subject can be referred to in the following books/discourses:

1. Ah, This
2. The Diamond Sutra
3. The Divine Melody
4. The Fish in the Sea is Not Thirsty
5. Guida Spirituale
6. The Razor’s Edge
7. The Revolution
8. The Secret of Secrets, Vol 1,2
9. Vigyan Bhairav Tantra, Vol 1, 2
10. Yoga: The Alpha and the Omega, Vol 2, 8, 9
11. The Tantra Vision, Vol 2