* the new dimension about “love”…

Osho, one of the most revolutionary thinkers of our time, challenges us to question what we think we know about love and opens us to the possibility of a love that is natural, fulfilling, and free of possessiveness and jealousy.

With his characteristic wit, humor, and understanding, Osho dares us to resist the unhealthy relationship patterns, which we’ve learned from those around us, and to rediscover the meaning of love for ourselves.

He reckoned that most of us by the time we are ready to explore the world of love, we are filled with so much rubbish about love that there is not much hope for us to be able to find the authentic and discard the false.

Once we are not in love, we will be lonely…

One should understand that if we are NOT in love, we are lonely; if we are in love, really in love, we become alone. This is a very intricate and complex thing which one ought to understand before we begin the journey to search for the authentic love.

It sounds so abstract and confusing to say that once we are in love, we become alone… How many of us can really understand this concept? Is that the reason why so many people falling out of love these days and feeling hurt…?

Loneliness is….

Loneliness is sadness, and is a feeling of incompleteness; we need someone, and the needed one is not available. Loneliness is darkness waiting for someone to come and kindle the light.

Aloneness is…

Aloneness is not loneliness, and it is not sadness. Aloneness means the feeling that we are complete; nobody is needed, and we are enough.

The myth of the relationship contract…

Two persons (they are not lovers) can deceive themselves by making a contract to come together; because the present of the other, they don’t feel the loneliness anymore. This kind of love is nothing but a deception to deceive themselves that “I am” not lonely, somebody else is there, and that’s all.

Osho also observed that most people when they are not in the relationship they feel lonely and they will go on to search for somebody to be related to. When they are related to somebody, the misery starts; then they feel it was better to be alone, and the cycle goes on and on.

Why it happens this way?

The effect of two lonely people meets…

This is because when two lonely, gloomy, sad, miserable persons meet, their misery is multiplied to many folds. How can two “Uglinesses” become beautiful? How can two “Lonelinesses” coming together bringing a sense of completion and totality? It is just not possible. They are just exploiting each other, and they somehow try to deceive themselves through being related to each other, but that deception doesn’t go far; by the time the honeymoon is over, the marriage is over too. It is just a temporary illusion.

The phenomenon of real love….

Real love is not a search to combat loneliness. Real love is to transform or help the other to transform loneliness into aloneness. If we love a person, we help that person to be alone. We don’t try to fill him/her; we don’t try to complete the other in some way by our presence. We help the other to be alone and to be so “full” out of his/her own being that we will not be needed. That is how noble it should be if two persons are in love, really in love.

Freedom & sharing…

When a person is totally free, then out of that freedom, sharing becomes possible. Then we will give, but not as a need or bargain; we give because we have much to give, and because we enjoy giving.

Our aloneness is sacred…

The real lovers are alone, and he/she will never destroy our aloneness. He/she will always be totally respectful toward our individuality, towards our aloneness. Our aloneness is sacred. He/she will not interfere in it, and will not try to intrude on that sacred space.

Is our relationship a bargain or love…?

Ordinarily so called lovers, they are very much afraid of the other’s aloneness and his/her independence. This is because they think if the other is independence then they will not be needed, and they will be discarded. So the woman goes on trying to manage things so that her husband or boyfriend remains dependent on her. He should be always in need of her, so that she can remain valuable. And the man goes on trying every which way to manage the same, so that he remains valuable too. The result is a bargain, not love; and there is continuous conflict and struggle. The struggle is based in the fact that everybody needs freedom.

Freedom and love…

Love not only allows freedom; but strengthens freedom too. And once you are totally yourself, you feel grateful to the person who has helped you to achieve that freedom. That gratefulness is almost religious. You feel something divine in that person who has made you free; and this kind of love will not become possessiveness.

When love deteriorates, it becomes possessiveness, jealous, and begins to struggle for power, politics, domination, manipulation and all many other ugly things.

If we are in love, our very love will help the other to be integrated. Our very love will become a cementing force for the other. In our love the other will come together as a whole, unique and individual, because our love will give freedom to the others. Under the shade and protection of our love, the other will start growing.

Growth and unconditional love…

All growth needs love; the unconditional love. If love has conditions then growth cannot be total, because condition will come in the way.

Aloneness and loneliness…

Aloneness means purity; we are just ourselves and nobody else. Love makes us alone, and makes loneliness disappear.

Loneliness is a state when we are ill, bored and tired of ourselves, and we want to go somewhere to forget ourselves by being involved with somebody else. Aloneness is when we are thrilled and feeling blissful just by being ourselves. We need not go anywhere; the need has disappeared, and we are enough unto ourselves; by and by we have so much that we cannot contain it, we have to share, and we have to give. And whoever accepts our gift, we will feel grateful that the person has accepted.

Feeling of gratefulness…

Lovers feel grateful that their love has been accepted. They feel thankful, because they were so full of energy that they needed someone to pour that energy into. It is like when a flower blooms and releases its fragrance to the winds, it feels grateful to the winds. The fragrance was growing more and more heavy on the flower, and it was becoming almost a burden to the flower.

Two types of love…

Hence there are two types of love. One is the love that happens when we are feeling lonely; and as a need, we go to the other. The other type of love arises when we are not feeling lonely, but alone. In the former case we go to get something from the other, in the later case we go to give something to the other. A giver is an emperor.

Love and hate…

Love that arises out of aloneness is not ordinary love. It has nothing to do with lust; on the contrary it is the greatest transformation of lust into love; and love makes you individual. If it doesn’t make you individual, and if it tries to make you a slave, then it is not love; it is hate pretending love. Love of this type kills and destroys the individuality of the other; it makes you less of an individual; it pulls you down, and you are not enhanced; you don’t become graceful. You are being pulled into the mud, and everybody who is tangled up in this kind of relationship will feel that he/she is settling with something dirty.

We can’t fight the darkness of loneliness directly…

The darkness of loneliness cannot be fought directly. It is something essential for all of us to understand. We cannot fight with darkness and loneliness with the fear of isolation directly. The reason is that all these things do not exist; they are simply the absences of something, just as the darkness is the absence of light.

The light and darkness…

We can go on fighting with this darkness all our life, and we will not succeed; but you know all we need is just a small candle is enough to dispel it. We have to work on the light because it is positive, existential; and once the light comes anything that was its absence automatically disappear. Loneliness is similar to darkness.

Once we tasted the aloneness…

We don’t know our aloneness, neither have we experienced it nor realized its beauty; once we tasted it, we will appreciate its tremendous power and its strength.

Loneliness is an absence of aloneness; because we don’t know our aloneness, hence there is fear. We feel lonely so we want to cling onto something, somebody or to some relationship, just to hold on to the illusion that we are not lonely; but we know are, hence the pain.

The illusion…

Although this illusion gives a certain solace, but it cannot create the reality so that all the fears disappear. It only represses the fears. Hence so on the surface we will feel good to ourselves (at least we try to feel good), and telling ourselves how wonderful is the relationship, and how wonderful is the man or the woman. But behind the illusion, there is pain in the heart, because the heart knows perfectly well that tomorrow things may not be the same, and they are not the same.

Loneliness is a wound…

Just the word “lonely” immediately reminds you that it is like a wound; something is needed to fill it. There is a gap and it hurts. The very word “aloneness” does not have the same sense of a wound or of a gap that has to be filled. Aloneness simply means completeness. You are whole; there is no need of anybody else to complete you.

Aloneness and our innermost centre…

So try to find our innermost centre, where we are always (have always been) alone. In life, in death, wherever we are we will be alone. But it is so full (not empty), so complete, and so over flowing with all the juices of life, with all the beauties and benedictions of our existence that once we have tasted aloneness, the pain in the heart will disappear, then a new rhythm of tremendous sweetness, peace, joy and bliss will be there.

Aloneness and making friends…

It does not mean that a person who is centered in his aloneness, completed in himself, cannot make friends. In fact, only that person can make friends, because now it is no longer a need to make friends, it is just out of sharing. We have so much that we can share.

Sharing, giving and begging…

When we share, there is no question of clinging. We flow with existence; we flow with life’s changes, because it doesn’t matter with whom we share, it is not a contract, it is not a marriage; it is simply out of our fullness that we want to give, and giving is a joy.

Begging is such a misery. Even if we get something through begging, we will remain miserable. It hurts our pride, our integrity; but sharing makes us more centered, more integrated, more proud – but not egoistic, simply proud that existence has been compassionate to us, and it is not ego either, it is a totally different phenomenon; it is a recognition that existence has allowed us something for which millions of people are trying to experience it but at the wrong door.

We are proud of our blissfulness and all that existence has given to us. Fear, darkness, the pain and the desire for the other disappear. When we share our joy, we don’t create a prison for anybody. We simply give. We don’t even expect gratitude or thankfulness because we are not giving to get anything, not even gratitude. We are giving because we are so full that we have to give.

Forget loneliness, look for aloneness…

We don’t have to do anything about our loneliness, just look for our aloneness. Forget loneliness, darkness and pain. These are just absence of aloneness, and the experience of aloneness will dispel them instantly.

How to do it?

Become more conscious and aware of our aloneness…

The method is the same, just watch our mind, and be aware. Become more and more conscious, so finally we are only conscious of ourselves. That is the point where we become aware of aloneness.

Don’t fight with negative things…

Always look to see if anything that we are facing as a problem is a negative thing or a positive thing. If it is a negative thing then don’t fight with it; don’t bother about it at all. Just look for the positive of it, and we will be at the right door. Most of the people miss because they start fighting directly with the negative door. There is no door at the negative side; there is only darkness, and there is only absence. And the more they fight, the more they find failure, the more they become dejected, pessimistic, and ultimately they decided that life has no meaning, that it is simply torture. Their mistake is that they enter from the wrong door.

Most of our problems are due to the absence of something…

So when we face with a problem, just take a look at it to see if it is due to absence of something? – the truth is that all our problems are due to absence of something. Once we have found what we are absence of, then go after the positive. The moment we find the positive we have found the light, and the darkness is finished.

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