Osho on Love

Celebrated on 14^th of February every year, Valentines day originated as a Christian feast day honoring one or two early Christian martyrs named Saint Valentine and, through later folk traditions, has become a significant cultural, religious, and commercial celebration of romance and love in many regions of the world. Messages, or valentines as they were called, appeared in the 1500s, and by the late 1700s commercially printed cards were being used. The first commercial valentines in the United States were printed in the mid-1800s. Valentines commonly depict Cupid, the Roman god of love, along with hearts, traditionally the seat of emotion. Because it was thought that the avian mating season begins in mid-February, birds also became a symbol of the day. Traditional gifts include candy and flowers, particularly red roses, a symbol of beauty and love.

Osho talks about love and compassion extensively in his discourses and says, “Just as food is needed for the body, love is needed for the soul. The body cannot survive without food, and the soul cannot survive without love. In fact, without love the soul is never born — there is no question of its survival. You simply think that you have a soul; you believe that you have a soul because of your fear of death. But you have not known unless you have loved. Only in love does one come to feel that one is more than the body, more than the mind. That’s why I say compassion is therapeutic. What is compassion? Compassion is the purest form of love. Sex is the lowest form of love, compassion the highest form of love. In sex the contact is basically physical; in compassion the contact is basically spiritual. In love, compassion and sex are both mixed, the physical and the spiritual are both mixed. Love is midway between sex and compassion. You can call compassion prayer also. You can call compassion meditation also. The highest form of energy is compassion.”

Osho Says……

BELOVED OSHO,

MY LOVE FOR FREEDOM MAKES ME ALWAYS GIVE TO MY BELOVEDS ALL THE FREEDOM I POSSIBLY CAN. SO OFTEN, I PUT MYSELF INTO AN UNCOMFORTABLE SITUATION WHERE I GET HURT. DOES THIS MEAN I DON’T LOVE MYSELF SO MUCH, AND THAT’S WHY I PUT MYSELF SECOND?

It may be much more complicated than you think. First,

the very idea that you give freedom to your beloved is wrong. Who are you to give freedom to your beloved? You can love, and your love implies freedom.

It is not something that has to be given. If it has to be given, then there will be the problems that you are facing. So in the first place you are doing something wrong. You really don’t want to give freedom; you would love that no such situation arises in which you have to give freedom. But you have heard me saying again and again that love gives freedom, so you force yourself unconsciously to give freedom, because otherwise your love is not love. You are in a troubled situation: if you don’t give freedom, you start suspecting your love; if you give freedom, which you cannot give…

The ego is very jealous. It will raise a thousand and one questions: “Are you not enough for your lover or beloved, that she needs freedom — freedom from you to be with someone else?” It hurts, and that’s why you start feeling, “I am putting myself second.” Giving freedom to her you have put somebody else first, and you have put yourself second. That is against the ego, and it is not going to help in any way, because you will take revenge for the freedom that you have given. You would like the same freedom to be given to you — whether you need it or not, that is not the point — just to prove that you are not being cheated.

Secondly, because your beloved has been with someone else you will feel a little strange being with her. That will stand between you and her. She has chosen someone else and dropped you; she has insulted you. And you have been doing so much; you have been so generous that you gave her freedom. Because you are feeling hurt, you are going to hurt her in some way or other. But the whole thing arises from a misunderstanding. I have not said that if you love, then you have to give freedom. No, I have said that love is freedom. It is not a question of giving. If you have to give it, then it is better not to give it. Remain the way everybody is. Why create unnecessary complications? — ordinarily, there are enough. If your love itself has come to that quality that freedom is part of it, that your beloved need not even ask your permission…

In fact, if I was in your place and the beloved was asking my permission, I would be hurt. That means she does not trust my love. My love is freedom. I have loved her; that does not mean that I should close all doors and windows so she cannot laugh with somebody else, dance with somebody else, love somebody else — because who are we? That is the basic question that everyone has to ask: Who are we? We are all strangers, and on what grounds do we become so authoritative that we can say, “I will give you freedom,” or “I will not give you freedom,” or “If you love me, then you cannot love anybody else”? These are stupid assumptions, but they have dominated humankind since its very beginnings. And we are still barbarous; we still don’t know what love is.

If I love someone, I am grateful that that person allowed me, my love, and did not reject me. This is enough. But I don’t become an imprisonment to her: She loved me, and as a reward I am creating a prison around her; I loved her, and she, as a result, is creating a prison around me. Great rewards we are giving to each other!

If I love someone I am grateful and her freedom remains intact. It is not given by me. It is her birthright, and my love cannot take it away. How can love take somebody’s freedom away, particularly the person you love? It is her birthright. You cannot even say, “I give freedom to her.” Who are you in the first place? — just a stranger. You both have met on the road, by the way, accidentally, and she was gracious to accept your love. Just be thankful, and let her live the way she wants to live, and live the way you yourself want to live. Your life-style should not be interfered with. This is what freedom is. Then love will help you to be less tense, less full of anxieties, less in anguish, and more in joy.

But what goes on happening in the world is just the opposite.

Love creates so much misery, so much pain, that there are people who decide finally that it is better not to love anyone. They close the doors of their heart because it is simply hell and nothing else. But closing the door to love is also closing the door to reality, to existence; hence I will not support it. I will say: Change the whole pattern of love! You have forced love into an ugly situation — change the situation. Let love become a help for your spiritual growth. Let love become a nourishment to your heart and a courage so that you can open your heart, not only to one individual but to the whole universe.

Source:

This is an excerpt from the transcript of a public discourse by Osho in Buddha Hall, Shree Rajneesh Ashram, Pune. 

Discourse name: Beyond Psychology

Chapter title: We cannot be otherwise

Chapter #25

24 April 1986 pm in

References:

Osho has spoken on ‘Love, meditation, heart, freedom, beloved’ in many of His discourses. More on the subject can be referred to in the following books/discourses:

1. A Sudden Clash of Thunder
2. The Book of Wisdom
3. The Dhammapada: The Way of the Buddha, Vol 2, 3, 4, 5
4. The Divine Melody
5. From Bondage to Freedom
6. From Death to Deathlessness
7. The Invitation
8. The Last Testament, Vol 1, 2, 3
9. The Messiah, Vol 1, 2
10. The Razor’s Edge
11. Sermons in Stones
12. Vigyan Bhairav Tantra, Vol 1, 2
13. The Path of the Mystic
14. The Rebel
15. The Transmission of the Lamp