OSHO, HOW CAN I LEARN THE SECRETS OF LIFE?

THERE ARE NO SECRETS IN LIFE. Or you can say: life is an open secret. Everything is available, nothing is hidden. All that you need is just eyes to see.

It is like a blind man asking: "I want to learn the secret of light." All that he needs is treatment of the eyes so that he can see. Light is available, it is not a secret. But he is blind -- for him there is no light. What to say about light? For him there is not even darkness -- because even to see darkness eyes are needed. A blind man cannot see darkness. If you can see darkness you can see light; they are two aspects of the same coin. The blind man knows nothing of darkness and nothing of light. Now he wants to learn the secrets of light. We can only help him, not by teaching him great truths about light -- they will be useless -- but by operating on his eyes.

That's exactly what is being done here. This is an operation theater. The moment you become a sannyasin you are getting ready for the operation table, and you have to pass through many surgical operations. That's what all the therapies are. And if you survive all the therapies, then I am there finally to finish you off!

The moment the ego disappears, all the secrets are open secrets. Life is not like a fist; it is an open hand.

But people enjoy the idea that life has secrets -- hidden secrets. Just to avoid their blindness they have created the idea of hidden secrets, of esoteric knowledge which is not available to anybody, or is available only to great adepts who live in Tibet or in the Himalayas, or who are no more in their bodies, who live only in astral bodies and appear only to a few chosen people. And all kinds of nonsense has been perpetuated down the ages for the simple reason that you want to avoid seeing, recognizing the simple fact of your blindness. Rather than saying, "I am blind," you say, "Life's secrets are very hidden; they are not easily available. You will need great initiation."

Life is not esoteric at all. It is written on each leaf of each tree, on each pebble on the seashore; it is contained in each ray of the sun -- whatever you come across is life in all its beauty. And life is not afraid of you, so why should it hide itself? In fact, you are hiding, continuously trying to hide yourself. You are closing yourself against life because you are afraid of life. You are afraid to live -- because life requires a constant death.

One has to die every moment to the past. That is a great requirement of life -- simple if you understand that the past is no more. Slip out of it, snap out of it! It is finished. Close the chapter, don't go on carrying it! And then life is available to you.

But you remain in the past; the past goes on hanging around you, the hangover never ends. And rather than coming to the present, the hangover of the past pushes you towards the future. So either you are in the memories or you are in your imagination. These are the two ways to miss life; otherwise there is no need to miss life. Just drop out of memories and out of imagination. Past is no more, future is not yet; both are non-existential. All that exists is the present, the now. Now is God.

Enter the doors of the now and all is revealed -- instantly revealed, immediately revealed. Life is not a miser: it never hides anything, it does not hold anything back. It is ready to give all, totally and unconditionally. But you are not ready.

You ask: HOW CAN I LEARN THE SECRETS OF LIFE?

It is not a question of learning; it is more a question of unlearning. You have already learned too much: the Vedas, the Upanishads, the Gita, the Koran, the Bible, the Talmud. Thousands of scriptures are there inside you, clamoring, making noise, fighting with each other; all kinds of ideologies constantly trying to attract your attention. Your mind is a mess! It is overcrowded, it is a multitude. Unlearn! All that you have accumulated up to now as knowledge, unlearn it.

Zen people are right when they say: NOT KNOWING IS THE MOST INTIMATE.

Unlearning is the process that can bring you to that beautiful space of not knowing. And then observe. Observe life without any knowledge interpreting it. You have become so accustomed to interpretation.

The moment you see the sunset, immediately, habitually, you repeat words that you have heard from others: "What a beautiful sunset!" You don't mean anything by it; you are not even looking at the sunset. You have not allowed it to penetrate to your heart. You are not feeling any wonder.

You are not in a state of awe. You have not fallen on your knees. You are not looking with unblinking eyes, absorbing. Nothing of that. Just a casual remark: "What a beautiful sunset!" Just a way of speaking, a mannerism, showing that you are cultured, sophisticated, that you know what beauty is, that you have a great aesthetic sense, that you have great sensitivity towards nature. You are not looking at the sunset. Have you ever looked at the sunset? If you had looked you would not have asked this question; the sunset would have told you all.

Have you ever looked at a roseflower? Yes, you say, "It is beautiful!" You may repeat the famous saying: "A rose is a rose is a rose," but you are not seeing the rose. You are full of words, all kinds of jargon -- poetic, philosophic -- but between you and the roseflower there is such a wall, a China Wall. Behind that wall you are hiding.

And you are asking: HOW CAN I LEARN THE SECRETS OF LIFE?

And life goes on utterly nude, utterly naked, absolutely available. All that is required is a not-knowing state, an empty space which can absorb it, which can receive it. Only when you are in a state of not knowing are you a host, and then life becomes a guest.

Just observe, with no evaluation. Don't say "good," don't say "bad"; don't say "beautiful," don't say "ugly." Don't say anything at all! Without saying anything, without bringing your mind in, just watch with utterly empty eyes, like a mirror. Reflect the moon, the stars, the sun, the trees, the people, the animals, the birds. And life will pour itself into your being. And it is an inexhaustible source of energy. And energy is delight.

William Blake is right when he says: Energy is delight. And when life pours its energy into your being it rejuvenates you, it revitalizes you; you are constantly reborn. A real, alive person is born again and again every MOMENT. He is fresh, he is always young. Even when he dies he is fresh and young. Even in the moment of death, life is pouring more and more energy into him. His way of approaching life -- without mind -- helps him to see not only life but death too. And when you are able to see life, you are able to see death. And to see death means there is no death; all is life, and eternal, beginningless, endless. And you are part of this infinite celebration.

Just watch, be alert, and function from a state of innocence. Your question seems to be knowledgeable.

You say: HOW CAN I LEARN THE SECRETS OF LIFE?

You are still asking like a student, a schoolboy.

Life is ready every moment to embrace you. YOU are hiding away from life because you are afraid. You want life on your terms. You want life to be Hindu or Mohammedan or Christian, and life cannot do that. You want life according to the Gita or the Koran, and life cannot do that.

Don't put conditions on life. Putting conditions on life is ugly, violent, stupid. Remain unconditionally open...and suddenly some bells in your heart start ringing, in tune with the whole. A music arises, a melody is born. You are no more separate as a learner, as a knower. Finally you are not even separate as an observer; the observer and the observed become one ultimately.

That is the moment of enlightenment, of Buddhahood, when you are part of this whole, an intrinsic part, inseparable. Then you ARE life -- what is the need to learn anything? You ARE it; you are not separate from it. Who is going to learn and about what? You are life. Then experiencing arises: not knowing but experiencing, not knowledge but wisdom.

Just observe. Nothing is hidden -- just observe. And slowly slowly you will start going with life. Slowly slowly you will not remain separate, you will follow life. And to follow life is to be religious. Not to follow Christ, not to follow Buddha, but to follow life is to be religious.

OSHO

Read More…

It is very easy to think about love. It is very difficult to love... ~ OSHO ~

Mm… mm. It is difficult to love real people because a real person is not going to fulfil your expectations. He is not meant to. He is not here to fulfill anybody else’s expectations. He has to live his own life. And whenever he moves somewhere which goes against you or is not in tune with your feelings, emotions, your being, it becomes difficult.

It is very easy to think about love. It is very difficult to love. It is very easy to love the whole world. The real difficulty is to love a single human being. It is very easy to love God or humanity. The real problem arises when you come across a real person and you encounter him. To encounter him is to go through a great change and a great challenge.

He is not going to be your slave and neither are you going to be a slave to him. That’s where the real problem arises. If you are going to be a slave or if he is going to be a slave, then there is no problem. The problem arises because nobody is here to play a slave – and nobody can be a slave.

Everybody is a free agent… the whole being consists of freedom. Man is freedom.

So remember – the problem is real. It has nothing to do with you personally. The problem has to do with the whole phenomenon of love. Don’t make it a personal problem, otherwise you will be in difficulty. Everybody has to face the same problem, more or less. I have never come across a person who has no difficulty in love. It has something to do with love, the very world of love.

The very relationship brings you to such situations where problems arise… and it is good to pass through them. In the East people have escaped just seeing the difficulty in it. They started denying their love, rejecting their love. They became loveless and they called it non-attachment.

By and by they became deadened. Love almost disappeared from the East and only meditation remained. Meditation means that you are feeling good in your loneliness. Meditation means that you are related only to yourself. Your circle is complete with yourself; you don’t go out of it.

Of course ninety-nine percent of your problems are solved – but at a very great cost. You will be less troubled now. The eastern man is less anxious, less tense… almost lives in his own inner cave, protected, with eyes closed. He does not allow his energy to move. He makes a short circuit… a small energy movement inside his being and he is happy. But his happiness is a little dead. His happiness is not a jubilation… it is not a joy.

At the most you can say that it is not unhappiness. At the most you can say something of the negative about it, as if you say that you are healthy because you don’t have any illness. But that is not much of a health. Health should have something positive, a glow of its own – not just absence of disease. In that way even a dead body is healthy because it has no illnesses.

So in the East we have tried to live without love, to renounce the world – that means to renounce love – to renounce the woman, the man, and all possibilities where love can flower. Jain monks, hindu monks, buddhist monks, are not allowed to talk to a woman when they are alone; not allowed to touch a woman, not really allowed to even see face to face.

 When a woman comes to ask something they have to keep their eyes down. They have to look at the tip of their nose so they don’t see the woman even by mistake. Because who knows, something might click… and one is almost helpless in the hands of love.

They don’t stay in people’s homes and they don’t stay long in one place because attachment, love, becomes possible. So they go on moving, wandering, and avoiding – avoiding all relationships. They have attained a certain quality of stillness. They are undisturbed people, undistracted by the world, but not happy, not celebrating.

 In the West just the opposite has happened. People have tried to find happiness through love and they have created much trouble. They have lost all contact with themselves. They have moved so far away from themselves that they don’t know how to come back.

They don’t know where the path is, where their home is. So they feel meaningless, homeless, and they go on making more and more love efforts with this woman, with that man – heterosexual, homosexual, autosexual. They go on trying every way and again they feel empty, because love alone can give you happiness but there will not be any silence in it.

And when there is happiness and no silence, again something is missing. When you are happy without silence your happiness will be like a fever – excitement… much ado about nothing. That feverish state will create much tension in you, and nothing will come out of it, just running, chasing. And one day one comes to realise that the whole effort has been baseless because you have been trying to find the other, and you have not yet found yourself.

 Both these ways have failed. The East has failed because it tried meditation without love. The West has failed because it tried love without meditation. My whole effort is to give you a synthesis, the whole – which means meditation plus love. One should be able to be happy alone and one should also be able to be happy with people.

One should be happy inside and one should also be happy in relationships. One should make a beautiful house inside and outside too. You should have a beautiful garden surrounding your house and a beautiful bedroom too. The garden is not against the bedroom; the bedroom is not against the garden.

So meditation should be an inner shelter, an inner shrine. Whenever you feel that the world is too much for you, you can move into your shrine. You can have a bath in your inner being. You can rejuvenate yourself. You can come out resurrected; again alive, fresh, young, renewed… to live, to be. But you should also be capable of loving people and facing problems, because a silence that is impotent and cannot face problems is not much of a silence, is not worth much.

Only a silence that can face problems and remain silent is something to be longed for, to be desired. So these two things I would like to tell you: First start doing meditation … because it is always good to start from the nearest centre of your being, and that is meditation. But never get stuck in it.

Meditation should move, flower, unfold and become love. So for the second thing, do a few groups here. And don’t be worried… don’t make it a problem – it is not. It is simply human; it’s natural. Everybody is afraid – has to be. Life is such that one has to be. And people who become fearless, become fearless not by becoming brave – because a brave man has only repressed his fear; he’s not really fearless.

A man becomes fearless by accepting his fears. It is not a question of bravery. It is simply seeing into the facts of life and realising that these fears are natural. One accepts them! The problem arises because you want to reject them. You have been taught very egoistical ideals – ’Be brave’. What nonsense! Foolish! How can an intelligent man avoid fears? If you are stupid you will not have any fears.

Then the bus driver goes on honking, and you stand in the middle of the road unafraid. Or a bull comes charging at you and you stand there unafraid.

 But you are stupid! An intelligent man has to jump out of the way. If you become an addict and start looking everywhere for the snake, then there is a problem. If there is nobody on the road and then too you are afraid and start running, there is a problem; otherwise, fear is natural.

 So when I say that you will get rid of your fear, I don’t mean that there will be no fears in life. You will come to know that ninety percent of your fears are just imagination. Ten percent are real so one has to accept them. I don’t make people brave. I make them more responsive, sensitive, alert, and their alertness is enough. They become aware that they can use their fears also as stepping stones. So don’t be worried, mm?

Saurabh means a very great lake, a very silent lake, and deva means divine… a divine lake. And become one, mm? Become more and more silent, and always keep this image of a deep silent cool lake inside.

Remember it, and when you go to sleep at night just feel as if you are sitting by the side of a very great lake… you cannot see the other shore. It is so silent that there are no ripples on it. Just go on remembering it, feeling it – the coolness of it, the peace, the silence – and fall asleep. Do that every day, just for two or three minutes before you go to sleep, and much will happen through it.

OSHO

Read More…

Your judgement shows something about you, nothing about the person you have judged... ~ OSHO ~

There is no need to stop or drop judging people; you have to understand why you judge and how you judge. You can judge only the behaviour because only the behaviour is available. You cannot judge the person because the person is hiding behind, the person is a mystery. You can judge the act but you cannot judge the being.

And the act is irrelevant. It will not be right to judge a being through the act. Sometimes it happens that a man is smiling. The act is there on the surface and deep inside he may be sad In fact, he may be smiling because he is sad. He does not want to show his sadness to anybody – why bring one’s wounds to everybody? Why? That seems embarrassing. Maybe he is smiling just because he is crying deep down.

 Nietzsche has said, ’I go on smiling. People think I am a very jolly person and that is absolutely wrong. I go on laughing because I am afraid that if I don’t laugh, I may start crying. So I have to convert my energy somewhere otherwise it will become tears. Before it becomes tears it has to become laughter.’ 

The insight is perfectly true. Nietzsche is one of the most perceptive men ever born on the earth. Tears and smiles are very close. In Indian villages women say to their children, ’Don’t laugh too much otherwise you will start crying.’ And that happens. If a child laughs too much he starts crying. Tears and smiles are very close. If you want to hide your tears the best way is to smile – that’s why people are smiling. 

Just by seeing a smiling face you cannot judge what is happening inside. The inside is not available to you. The inside is private; it is not available to anybody. So the first thing to understand is that you can look only at the behaviour and the behaviour does not mean much. All that is really significant is the person behind. And you don’t know. Your judgements are going to be wrong. And you know it – because when people judge you by your acts, you always feel that they have judged you wrongly. 

You don’t judge yourself by your acts, you judge yourself by your being. So everybody feels that all judgements are unjust. You feel that judgements are unjust because to you your being is available – and the being is such a big phenomenon and the act is so tiny and small. It does not define anything. It may be just a momentary thing.

You said something to somebody and he became angry, but don’t judge him by his anger because it may be just a momentary flash. He may be a very loving person. If you judge him by his anger you misjudge him. And then your behaviour will depend on your judgement. And you will always wait for the man to be angry and you will always think that he is an angry man. You will avoid the person. You have missed an opportunity. 

Never judge anybody by their action – but that is the only thing available to you. So what to do? Judge ye not. By and by become more and more aware of the privacy of being. Every being inside his own soul is so private there is no way to penetrate it. Even when you love, something at the deepest core remains private. That is man’s dignity. That is the meaning when we say man has a soul. Soul means that which can never become public. 

Something of it will always remain deep, lost in some mystery. I have heard.... Two men were called to a home and asked to haul some trash to a garbage heap. After they had loaded the truck the back of the truck was overflowing with all the trash. One man said, ’You may get into trouble with the police if we drive through town and the trash blows onto the street.’

The other man said, ’Don’t worry, I have an idea. You drive and I will spread my body over the trash and that will keep it from blowing about.’ On the way to the garbage heap they passed under a bridge. As they drove under it, two men standing on top of the bridge happened to look down and saw the man lying on top of the garbage, arms and legs spread wide.

One of the men said, ’Will you look at that! Someone is throwing away perfectly good men!’ From the outside that’s what we can judge. From the outside it is always wrong. Seeing it again and again, understanding it again and again, penetrating it again and again, you will not need to drop judgements, they drop of their own accord. Just watch. Whenever you judge, you are doing something foolish. It does not apply to the person at all, it can apply only to the act. And that act too is taken out of context because you don’t know his whole life. 

It is as if you tear a page from a novel and you read it and you judge the novel by it. It is not right; it is out of context. The whole novel may be a totally different thing. You may have taken a negative part, an ugly part. But you don’t know anybody’s life in its totality. A man has lived for forty years before you come to meet him. Those forty years of context are there. The man is going to live forty years more when you have left him. 

Those forty years of context are going to be there. And you saw the man, just a single instance of him, and you judged him. That is not right. That is just stupid. It will not have any relevance to the man himself. Your judgement will show something more about you than about the man. ’Judge ye not so that ye may not be judged’ – that’s what Jesus says. 

Your judgement shows something about you, nothing about the person you have judged – because his history remains unavailable to you, his being remains unavailable to you. All contexts are lost, there is just a momentary flash – and your interpretation will be your interpretation. It will show something about you. Seeing this, judging disappears.

OSHO

Read More…

Your whole life will change immediately and you will see miracles happening around you... ~ OSHO ~

The Law of Magic 

I will tell you one of the deepest laws of life. You may not have thought about it at all. You have heard — the whole of science depends on it — that cause and effect is the base. You create the cause and the effect follows. Life is a causal link. You put the seed in the soil and it will sprout. If the cause is there, then the tree will follow. The fire is there: you put your hand in it and it will burn. The cause is there and the effect will follow. You take poison and you will die. You arrange for the cause and then the effect follows.

This is one of the most basic scientific laws, that cause and effect is the innermost link of all processes of life. Religion knows about a second law which is still deeper than this. But the second law which is deeper than this will look absurd if you don’t know it and don’t experiment with it. Religion says: Produce the effect and the cause follows. This is absolutely absurd in scientific terms. Science says: If the cause is there, the effect follows. Religion says the converse is also true: you create the effect, and see: the cause follows.

There is a situation in which you feel happy. A friend has come, a beloved has called. A situation is the cause — you feel happy. Happiness is the effect. The coming of the beloved is the cause. Religion says: Be happy and the beloved comes. Create the effect and the cause follows.

This is my own experience, that the second law is more basic than the first. I have been doing it and it has been happening. Just be happy: the beloved comes. Just be happy: friends are there. Just be happy: everything follows.

Jesus says the same thing in different words: Seek ye first the Kingdom of God, then all else will follow. But the Kingdom of God is the end, the effect. Seek ye first the end — the end means the effect, the result — and the cause will follow. This is as it should be.

It is not only that you place a seed in the soil and the tree follows; let there be a tree and there are millions of seeds. If the cause is followed by the effect, the effect is again followed by the cause. This is the chain! Then it becomes a circle — start from anywhere, create the cause or create the effect.

I tell you, it is easier to create the effect because the effect depends totally upon you; the cause may not be so dependent on you. If I say I can only be happy when a certain friend is there, then it depends on a certain friend, whether he is there or not. If I say I cannot be happy until I attain this much wealth, then it depends on the whole world and the economic situations and everything. It may not happen, and then I cannot be happy.

The cause is beyond me. The effect is within me. The cause is in the surroundings, in the situations — the cause is without. The effect is me! If I can create the effect, the cause will follow.

Choose happiness — that means you are choosing the effect — and then see what happens. Choose ecstasy and see what happens. Choose to be blissful and see what happens. Your whole life will change immediately and you will see miracles happening around you...because now you have created the effect and causes will have to follow.

This will look magical; you can even call it “The Law of Magic.” The first is the law of science and the second is the law of magic. Religion is magic, and you can be the magician. That’s what I teach you: to be the magician, to know the secret of magic.

Try it! You have been trying the other your whole life — not only this but many other lives also. Now listen to me! Try this magic formula, this mantra I give to you. Create the effect and see what happens; causes immediately surround you, they follow. Don’t wait for the causes; you have waited long enough. Choose happiness and you will be happy.

What is the problem? Why can’t you choose? Why can’t you work on this law? Because your mind, the whole mind, which has been trained by scientific thinking, says that if you are not happy and you try to be happy, that happiness will be artificial. If you are not happy and you try to be happy that will be just acting, that will not be real. This is what scientific thinking says, that that will not be real, you will be just acting.

But you don’t know: life energy has its own ways of working. If you can act totally it will become the real. The only thing is, the actor must not be there. Move totally in it, then there is no difference. If you are acting half-heartedly then it will remain artificial.

If I say to you dance and sing and be blissful, and you try half-heartedly, just to see what happens, but you remain behind...and you go on thinking: This is just artificial. I am trying but this is not coming, this is not spontaneous — then it will remain acting, a waste of time.

If you try, then try wholeheartedly. Don’t remain behind, move into it, become the acting — dissolve the actor into acting and then see what happens. It will become real and then you will feel it is spontaneous. You have not done it; you will know then that it has happened. But unless you are total this cannot happen. Create the effect, be in it completely, see and observe the results.

I can make you kings without kingdoms; you only have to act like kings, and act so totally that before you even a real king will appear as if he is just acting. And when the whole energy has moved into it, it becomes reality! Energy makes anything real. If you wait for kingdoms they never come.

Even for a Napoleon, for an Alexander, who had big kingdoms, they never came. They remained miserable because they didn’t come to realize the second, more basic and primal law of life. Alexander was trying to create a bigger kingdom, to become a bigger king. His whole life was wasted in creating the kingdom, and then there was no time left for him to be king. He died before the kingdom was complete.

This has happened to many. The kingdom can never be complete. The world is infinite; your kingdom is bound to remain partial. With a partial kingdom how can you be a total king? Your kingdom is bound to be limited and with a limited kingdom how can you be the emperor? It is impossible. But you can be the emperor. Just create the effect.

Swami Ram, one of the mystics of this century, went to America. He used to call himself Badshah Ram, Emperor Ram. And he was a beggar! Somebody said to him: You are just a beggar, but you go on calling yourself the emperor. So Ram said: Don’t look at my things, look at me. And he was right, because if you look at things then everybody is a beggar...even an emperor. He may be a bigger beggar, that’s all. When Ram said: Look at me! in that moment, Ram was the emperor. If you looked, the emperor was there.

Create the effect, become the emperor, be a magician... and from this very moment, because there is no need to wait. One has to wait if the kingdom has to come first. If the cause has to be created first, then one has to wait and wait and wait and postpone. There is no need to wait to create the effect. You can be the emperor this very moment.

When I say, Be! Just be the emperor and see: the kingdom follows.... I have known it through my experience. I am not talking to you about a theory or a doctrine. Be happy, and in that peak of happiness you will see the whole world is happy with you.

There is an old saying: Laugh and the world laughs with you; cry, and you cry alone. Even the trees, the rocks, the sand, the clouds...if you can create the effect and be ecstatic, they will all dance with you; then the whole existence becomes a dance, a celebration.

But it depends on you, if you can create the effect. And I say to you, you can create it. It is the easiest thing possible. It looks very difficult because you have not tried it yet. Give it a try!

OSHO. My Way: The Way of the White Clouds.

Read More…

WHAT IS LOVE?... ~ OSHO ~

It is unfortunate that we have to ask this question. In the natural course of things everybody would know what love-is. But I understand that nobody knows -- or only very rarely -- what love is. Love has become one of the rarest experiences. Yes, it is talked about, filmed, stories are written about it, songs are composed about it, films are made, on the TV you will see it, on the radio, in the magazines -- a great industry continuously goes on supplying you with the idea of what love is. Many people are continuously involved in it, helping people understand what love is. Poets, authors, novelists -- they all go on.

But still love remains the unknown phenomenon. And it should be one of the most known. It is almost as if somebody comes and asks, 'What is food?' Would you not be surprised if somebody comes and asks, 'That is food?' If somebody has been starved from the very beginning and he has never tasted what food is, the question will be relevant. So is this question.You ask: WHAT IS LOVE? Love is the food of the soul. But you have been starved. Your soul has not received love at all so you don't know the taste. Your question is relevant, but it is unfortunate. The body has received food so the body continues; but the soul has not received food so the soul is dead, or is not born yet, or is always on its death-bed.

When a child is born he is fully born; he is fully equipped with the capacity to love and to be loved. Each child is born full of love and knows perfectly what it is. There is no need to tell the child what love is. But the problem arises because the mother and the father don't know what love is. No child receives the parents that he deserves -- no child EVER receives the parents that he deserves. Those parents simply don't exist on the earth. And by the time this child becomes a parent he will have lost the capacity to love.

It is almost like.... In Mexico there is a small valley where children are born and within three months they all become blind. It is a small, primitive society. A fly exists there which is poisonous to the eyes, so the whole community is blind. Every child is born with eyes -- perfectly functioning eyes -- but within three months there is an attack of the fly and the poison enters the system and the eyes go blind. Now, somewhere later in his life the child will ask, 'What are eyes? What do you mean when you use the word "eye"? What is vision? What is seeing? What do you mean?' And the question will be relevant. The child was born with eyes but they were lost somewhere on the way of so-called growth.

That's what has happened to love. Every child is born with as much love as one can contain, with more love than one can contain, with overflowing love. A child is born as love; a child is made of the stuff called love. But the parents cannot give love. They have their own hangovers -- their parents never loved them. The parents can only pretend. They can talk about love. They can say 'We love you very much' but whatsoever they do is very unloving. The way they behave, the way they treat the child is very insulting; there is no respect. No parent respects the child. Who ever thinks of respecting a child? A child is not thought to be a person at all. A child is thought to be like a problem. If he keeps quiet, he is good; if he is not a screamer, a primal therapist -- good; if he simply keeps out of the way of the parents -- perfectly good. That's what a child should he.

But there is no respect and there is no love. The parents have not known what love is. The mother has not loved the husband, the husband has not loved the wife. Love does not exist there. Domination, possessiveness, jealousy, and all kinds of poisons are there which destroy love. Just as a certain poison can destroy your vision, so the poison of possessiveness and jealousy destroys love.

Love is a very fragile flower. It has to be protected, it has to be strengthened, it has to be watered; only then does it become strong. And the child's love is very fragile -- naturally -- because the child is fragile, his body is fragile. Do you think a child left on his own will be able to survive? Just think how helpless man is. If a child is left on his own, it is next to impossible that he will survive. He will die. And that is what is happening to love.

Love is left alone. The parents can't love, they don't know what love is, they have never flowed in love. Remember your own parents. And remember, I am not saying that they are responsible. They are victims just as you are victims -- their own parents were the same. And so on... you can go back to Adam and Eve and God the Father.

It seems that even God the Father was not very respectful towards Adam and Eve, was not respectful enough. That's why from the very beginning he started commanding them 'Do this' and 'Don't do that' and he started doing all the rubbish that all parents do. 'Don't eat the fruit of this tree.' And when Adam had eaten the fruit, the Father, God, was so angry in reaction that he threw Adam and Eve out of heaven.

That expulsion is always there, and each parent threatens to expel the child, to throw him out. 'If you don't listen, if you don't behave, you will be thrown out.' And naturally a child is afraid. Thrown out? Into the wilderness of this life? He starts compromising. The child by and by becomes a twister. He starts manipulating.

He does not want to smile, but if the mother is coming and he wants milk, he smiles. Now this is politics -- the beginning, the ABE of politics. Deep down he starts hating because he is not respected; deep down he starts feeling frustrated because he is not loved as he is. He is expected to do certain things and only then will he be loved. Love has some conditions; he is not worthy as he is. First he has to become worthy, then the parents' love will be possible.

So he starts becoming worthy and starts becoming false; he loses his intrinsic value. His respect for himself is lost by and by, he starts feeling that he is guilty. And many times the idea comes to the mind of the child, 'Are these my real parents? Is it possible they have adopted me? Maybe they are deceiving, because there seems to be no love.' And a thousand and one times he sees the anger in their eyes, the ugly anger on the faces of the parents, and for such small things that he cannot see the proportion of it. lust for very small things he sees the parents' rage. He cannot believe it. It is so unjust and unfair. But he has to surrender, he has to bow down, he has to accept it as a necessity. By and by his love capacity is killed.

Love grows only in love. Love needs a milieu of love -- that is the most fundamental thing to be remembered. Only in a milieu of love does love grow. It needs the same kind of pulsation around. If the mother is loving, if the father is loving, not only to the child, if they are loving to each other too, if the home has a love atmosphere where love flows, the child will start functioning as a love-being, and he will never ask the question, 'What is love?' He will know it from the very beginning, it will become his foundation.

But that doesn't happen. It is unfortunate, but it has not happened up to now. And you learn the ways of your parents their nagging, their conflict. Just go on watching yourself. If you are a woman, watch. You may be repeating, almost repeating, the ways your mother used to behave. Watch yourself when you are with your boyfriend or your husband -- what are you doing? Are you not repeating? If you are a man, watch! What are you doing? Are you not being your daddy? Are you not doing the same nonsense that he used to do? And one day you were surprised -- 'How can daddy do this?' -- and you are doing the same. People go on repeating; people are imitators; man is a monkey. You are repeating your daddy or your mummy, and that has to be dropped. Only then will you know what love is, otherwise you will remain corrupted.

I cannot define what love is because there is no definition of love. It is one of those indefinables like birth, like death, like God, like meditation. It is one of those indefinables -- I cannot define it.

I cannot say that this is love, I cannot show it to you. It is not a visible phenomenon. It cannot be dissected, it cannot be analysed; it can only be experienced. And only through experience do you know what it is. But I can show you the way to experience it.

The first step is: get rid of your parents. And by that I don't mean any disrespect towards your parents, no. I will be the last person to say that. And I don't mean get rid of your physical parents, I mean get rid of your parental voices inside, your programme inside, your tapes inside. Efface them... and you will be simply surprised that if you get rid of your parents from your inner being, you become free. For the first time you will be able to feel compassion for your parents -- otherwise not; you will remain resentful. Every person is resentful towards his parents.

How can you not be resentful when they have done so much harm to you -- although not knowingly? They wished all good for you, they wanted to do everything for your well-being. But what can they do? Just by wanting, nothing happens; just by good wishes, nothing happens. They were well-wishers, that is true. There is no doubt about it. Every parent wants the child to have all the joys of life. But what can he do? He has not known any joy himself He is a robot, and knowingly, or unknowingly, deliberately or undeliberately, he will create an atmosphere in which the child will sooner or later be turned into a robot.

If you want to become a man and not a machine get rid of your parents. And you will have to watch. It is hard work, arduous work; you cannot do it instantly. You will have to be very careful in your behaviour. Watch when your mother is there, functioning through you -- stop that, move away from it. Do something absolutely new that your mother could not even have conceived of.

For example, your boyfriend is looking at some other woman with great appreciation in his eyes. Now watch what you are doing. Are you doing the same as your mother would have done in the case of your father looking at another woman appreciatively? If you do that, you will never know what love is, you will simply be repeating a story. It will be the same act being played by different actors, that's all; the same rotten act being repeated again and again and again. Don't be an imitator, get out of it. Do something new. Do something that your mother could not have conceived of. Do something new that your father could not have conceived of.

This newness has to be brought to your being, then your love will start flowing.

So the first essential is getting rid of your parents.

The second essential is: people think that they can love only when they find a worthy man -- nonsense! You will never find one. People think they will love only when they find a perfect man or a perfect woman. Nonsense! You will never find them because perfect women and perfect men don't exist. And if they exist, they won't bother about your love. They will not be interested.

I have heard about a man who remained a bachelor his whole life because he was in search of a perfect woman. When he was seventy, somebody asked, 'You have been travelling and travelling from Kabal to Kathmandu, from Kathmandu to Goa, from Goa to Poona; you have been searching. Could you not find a perfect woman? Not even one?'

The old man became very sad. He said, 'Yes, once I came across one: once I came across a perfect woman.'

The enquirer said, 'Then what happened? Why didn't you get married?'

He became very, very sad. He said, 'What to do? She was looking for a perfect man.'

And remember, when two beings are perfect, their love need is not the same as your love need. It has a totally different quality.

You don't understand even the love that is possible for you so you will not be able to understand the love that happens to a Buddha or the love that is flowing from me towards you -- you will not be able to understand it.

First you have to understand the love that is a natural phenomenon. Even that has not happened. First you have to understand the natural, and then the transcendental.

So the second thing to remember is: never he in search of a perfect man or a perfect woman. That too has been put into your mind -- that unless you find a perfect man or a perfect woman you will not be happy. So you go on looking for the perfect, and you don't find the perfect, so you are unhappy. And you have a reason to be unhappy.

To flow and grow in love needs no perfection. Love has no-thing to do with the other. A loving person simply loves, just as an alive person breathes and drinks and eats and sleeps. Exactly like that a really alive person, a loving person, loves. You don't say, 'Unless there is perfect air, unpolluted, I am not going to breathe.' You go on breathing even in Los Angeles; you go on breathing in Bombay. You go on breathing everywhere where air is polluted, poisoned. You go on breathing. You cannot afford not to breathe just because the air is not as it should be. If you are hungry you eat something -- whatsoever it is.

An alive man simply loves. Love is a natural functioning.

So the second thing to remember is: don't ask for perfection, otherwise you will not find any love flowing in you. On the contrary, you will become very unloving. People who demand perfection are very unloving people, neurotic people. Even if they can find a beloved or a lover, they demand perfection -- and the love is destroyed because of that demand.

Once a man loves a woman or a woman loves a man, demands immediately enter. The woman starts demanding that the man should be perfect, just because he loves her. As if he has committed a sin! Now he has to be perfect, now he has to drop all his limitations suddenly -- just because of this woman. Now he cannot be human. Either he has to become superhuman or he has to become pseudo, false, a cheat. Naturally, to become superhuman is very difficult, so people become cheats. They start pretending and acting and playing games. In the name of love people are just playing games.

So the second thing to remember is: never demand perfection. You have no right to demand anything from anybody. If somebody loves you, be thankful, but don't demand anything -- because he has no obligation to love you. If somebody loves, it is a miracle. Be thrilled by the miracle.

But people are not thrilled. For small things they will destroy all possibilities of love. They are not interested much in love and the joy of it. They are more interested in other ego trips. Be concerned with your joy, be utterly concerned with your joy, be only concerned with your joy. Everything else is non-essential.

Love as a natural function, as you breathe. And when you love a person, don't start demanding; otherwise from the very beginning you are closing the doors. Don't expect anything. If something comes your way, feel grateful. If nothing comes, there is no need for it to come, there is no necessity for it to come. You cannot expect it.

But see people, see how they take each other for granted. If your woman prepares food for you, you never thank her. I'm not saying that you should verbalise your thankyou, but it should be in your eyes. But you don't bother, you take it for granted -- that is her work. Who told YOU? If your man goes and earns money for you, you never thank him. You don't feel any gratitude. That's what a man should do. That's your mind. How can love grow? Love needs a climate of love, love needs a climate of gratitude, thankfulness. Love needs a non-demanding atmosphere, non-expecting atmosphere. This is the second thing to remember.

And the third thing is: rather than thinking how to get love, start giving. If you give, you get; there is no other way. People are more interested in how to grab and get. Everybody is interested in getting and nobody seems to enjoy giving. People give very reluctantly; if ever they give, they give only to get, and they are almost businesslike. It is a bargain. They always go on watching that they should get more than they give -- that it is a good bargain, good business. But the other is also doing the same.

Love is not a business, so stop being businesslike. Otherwise you will miss your life and love and all that is beautiful in it -- because all that is beautiful is not at all businesslike. Business is the ugliest thing in the world -- a necessary evil. But existence knows nothing of business. Trees bloom, it is not a business; the stars shine, it is not a business and you don't have to pay for it and nobody demands anything from you. A bird comes and sits at your door and sings a song, and he will not ask you to give a certificate or something. He has sung the song and then happily he flies away, leaves no traces behind. That's how love grows. give, and don't wait to see how much you can grab.

Yes, it comes, it comes a thousandfold, but it comes naturally it comes on its own. There is no need to demand it. When you demand, it never comes. When you demand, you have killed it. So give. Start giving. In the beginning it will be hard, because your whole life you have been trained not to give but to get. In the beginning you will have to fight with your armour. Your musculature has become hard, your heart has become frozen, you have become cold. In the beginning it will be difficult, but each step will lead to a further step, and by and by the river starts flowing.

First get rid of your parents. With getting rid of your parents you get rid of society, with getting rid of your parents you get rid of civilization, education, everything -- because your parents represent all that. You become individual. For the first time you are part of the mass no more, you have an authentic individuality; you are on your own. This is what growth is. This is what a grown-up person should be. A grown-up person is one who needs no parents. A grown-up person is one who needs nobody to cling to or lean on. A grown-up person is one who is happy in his aloneness -- his aloneness is a song, a celebration. A grown-up person is one who can be with himself happily. His aloneness is not loneliness, his solitariness is solitude, it is meditative. One day you had to come out of your mother's womb. If you had remained there longer than nine months you would have been dead -- not only you, your mother would also have been dead. One day you had to come out of your mother's womb; then one day you had to come out of your family atmosphere -- another womb -- to go to school; then one day you had to come out of your school atmosphere -- another womb -- to go into the bigger world. But deep down you are still a child. You are still in the womb -- layers upon layers of womb are there. That womb has to be broken.

This is what in the East we have called the second birth. In the born. He has attained to a second birth; he is completely free of parental impression. And the beauty is that only such a person feels grateful to the parents. The paradox is that only such a person can forgive his parents. He feels compassion and love for them, he feels tremendously for them because they have also suffered in the same way. He is not angry, no, not at all. He may have tears in his eyes but he is not angry, and he will do everything to help his parents to move towards such a plenitude of aloneness, such a height of aloneness.

Become individuals, the first thing. The second thing: don't expect perfection, and don't ask and don't demand. Love ordinary people . Nothing is wrong with ordinary people. Ordinary people are extraordinary. Each human being is so unique. Have respect for that uniqueness.

Third: give, and give without any condition -- and you will know what love is. I cannot define it. I can show you the path to grow it. I can show you how to put in a rose bush, how to water it, how to give fertilizers to it, how to protect it. Then one day, out of the blue, comes the rose flower, and your home is full of the fragrance. That's how love happens.

OSHO. Sufis : The People of the Path vol. 1 ch. 14

Read More…