Question – Beloved Osho, of my many fears, the one of which i am most aware is that of intimacy. I am like a hit and run driver in my relationships with people. Could you speak to me of my fear of intimacy?

Osho – Ramaprem, everybody is afraid of intimacy. It is another thing whether you are aware of it or not. Intimacy means exposing yourself before a stranger. We are all strangers — nobody knows anybody. We are even strangers to ourselves, because we don’t know who we are. Intimacy brings you close to a stranger. You have to drop all your defenses; only then, intimacy is possible. And the fear is that if you drop all your defenses, all your masks, who knows what the stranger is going to do with you?

We are all hiding a thousand and one things — not only from others but from ourselves — because we have been brought up by a sick humanity with all kinds of repressions, inhibitions, taboos. And the fear is that with somebody who is a stranger — and it does not matter, you may have lived with the person for thirty years, forty years; the strangeness never disappears — it feels safer to keep a little defense, a little distance, because somebody can take advantage of your weaknesses, of your frailties, of your vulnerability. Everybody is afraid of intimacy.

The problem becomes more complicated because everybody wants intimacy. Everybody wants intimacy because otherwise you are alone in this universe — without a friend, without a lover, without anybody you can trust, without anybody to whom you can open all your wounds. And the wounds cannot heal unless they are open. The more you hide them, the more dangerous they become. They can become cancerous.

Intimacy is an essential need on the one hand, so everybody longs for it. But he wants the other person to be intimate, so that the other person drops his defenses, becomes vulnerable, opens all his wounds, drops all his masks and false personality, stands naked as he is. And on the other hand, everybody is afraid of intimacy — with the other person you want to be intimate with, you are not dropping your defenses.

This is one of the conflicts between friends, between lovers: nobody wants to drop his defenses and nobody wants to come in utter nudity and sincerity, open — and both need intimacy. Unless you drop all your repressions, inhibitions — which are the gifts of your religions, your cultures, your societies, your parents, your education — you will never be able to be intimate with someone. And you will have to take the initiative.

But if you don’t have any repressions, any inhibitions, you don’t have any wounds either. If you have lived a simple, natural life, there will be no fear of intimacy, but tremendous joy — of two flames coming so close that they become almost one flame. And the meeting is tremendously gratifying, satisfying, fulfilling. But before you can attempt intimacy, you have to clean your house completely.

Only a man of meditation can allow intimacy to happen. He has nothing to hide. All that was making him afraid that somebody may know, he himself has dropped. He has only a silence and a loving heart. You have to accept yourself in your totality — if you cannot accept yourself in your totality, how can you expect somebody else to accept you? And you have been condemned by everybody, and you have learned only one thing: self-condemnation.

You go on hiding it. It is not something beautiful to show to others, you know ugly things are hidden in you; you know evil things are hidden in you; you know animality is hidden in you. Unless you transform your attitude and accept yourself as one of the animals in existence… The word “animal” is not bad. It simply means alive; it comes from anima. Whoever is alive, is an animal.

But man has been taught, “You are not animals, animals are far below you. You are human beings.” You have been given a false superiority. The truth is, existence does not believe in the superior and the inferior. To existence, everything is equal — the trees, the birds, the animals, the human beings. In existence, everything is absolutely accepted as it is; there is no condemnation.

If you accept your sexuality without any conditions, if you accept that man and every being in the world is fragile… life is a very thin thread which can break down any moment. Once this is accepted, and you drop false egos — of being Alexander the Great, Mohammed Ali the thrice great — if you simply understand that everybody is beautiful in his ordinariness and everyone has weaknesses… They are part of human nature because you are not made of steel.

You are made of a very fragile body. The span of your life is between ninety-eight degrees temperature and one hundred and ten degrees temperature: just twelve degrees of temperature is your whole span of life. Fall below it, and you are dead; go beyond it and you are dead. And the same applies to a thousand and one things in you.

One of your most basic needs is to be needed. But nobody wants to accept it, that “It is my basic need to be needed, to be loved, to be accepted.” We are living in such pretensions, such hypocrisies — that is the reason why intimacy creates fear. You are not what you appear to be. Your appearance is false. You may appear to be a saint but deep down, you are still a weak human being with all the desires and all the longings.

The first step is to accept yourself in your totality, in spite of all your traditions, which have driven the whole of humanity insane. Once you have accepted yourself as you are, the fear of intimacy will disappear. You cannot lose respect, you cannot lose your greatness, you cannot lose your ego. You cannot lose your piousness, you cannot lose your saintliness — you have dropped all that yourself. You are just like a small child, utterly innocent. You can open yourself because inside, you are not filled with ugly repressions which have become perversions.

You can say everything that you feel authentically and sincerely. And if you are ready to be intimate, you will encourage the other person also to be intimate. Your openness will help the other person also to be open to you. Your unpretentious simplicity will allow the other also to enjoy simplicity, innocence, trust, love, openness. You are encaged with stupid concepts, and the fear is, if you become very intimate with somebody, he will become aware of it.

But we are fragile beings — the most fragile in the whole existence. The human child is the most fragile child of all the animals. The children of other animals can survive without the mother, without the father, without a family. But the human child will die immediately. So this frailty is not something to be condemned — it is the highest expression of consciousness. A roseflower is going to be fragile; it is not a stone. And there is no need to feel bad about it, that you are a roseflower and not a stone.

Only when two persons become intimate are they no longer strangers. And it is a beautiful experience to find that not only you are full of weaknesses but the other, too… perhaps everybody is full of weaknesses. The higher expression of anything becomes weaker. The roots are very strong, but the flower cannot be so strong. Its beauty is because of its not being strong. In the morning it opens its petals to welcome the sun, dances the whole day in the wind, in the rain, in the sun, and by the evening its petals have started falling. It is gone. Everything that is beautiful, precious, is going to be very momentary.

But you want everything to be permanent. You love someone and you promise that “I will love you my whole life.” And you know perfectly well that you cannot be even certain of tomorrow — you are giving a false promise. All that you can say is, “I am in love with you this moment and I will give my totality to you. About the next moment, I know nothing. How can I promise? You have to forgive me.”

But lovers are promising all kinds of things which they cannot fulfill. Then frustration comes in, then the distance grows bigger, then fight, conflict, struggle, and a life that was meant to become happier becomes just a long, drawn out misery. Ramaprem, it is good that you are aware of your greatest fear, that it is of intimacy. It can become a great revelation to you, and a revolution, if you look inwards and start dropping everything of which you feel ashamed. And accept your nature as it is, not as it should be. I do not teach any “should.” All shoulds make human mind sick.

People should be taught the beauty of isness, the tremendous splendor of nature. These trees don’t know any ten commandments, the birds don’t know any holy scriptures. It is only man who has created a problem for himself. Condemning your own nature, you become split, you become schizophrenic — and not just ordinary people, but people of the status of Sigmund Freud, who contributed greatly to humanity, about mind. His method was psychoanalysis, that you should be made aware of all that is unconscious in you. And this is a secret, that once something unconscious is brought to the conscious mind, it evaporates. You become cleaner, lighter. As more and more unconscious is unburdened, your consciousness goes on becoming bigger. And as the area of the unconscious shrinks, the territory of the consciousness expands. That is an immense truth.

The East has known it for thousands of years, but to the West, Sigmund Freud introduced it — not knowing anything of the East and its psychology; it was his individual contribution. But you will be surprised: he was never ready to be psychoanalyzed himself. The founder of psychoanalysis was never psychoanalyzed.

His colleagues insisted again and again: “The method that you have given to us — and we all have been psychoanalyzed — why are you insisting that you should not be psychoanalyzed?”

He said, “Forget about it.” He was afraid to expose himself. He had become a great genius and exposing himself would bring him down to ordinary humanity. He had the same fears, the same desires, the same repressions.

He never talked about his dreams; he only listened to other people’s dreams. And his colleagues were very much surprised — “It will be a great contribution to know about your dreams” — but he never agreed to lie down on the psychoanalyst’s couch and talk about his dreams. Because his dreams were as ordinary as anybody else’s — that was the fear.

A Gautam Buddha would not have feared to go into meditation. That was his contribution — a special kind of meditation. And he would not have been afraid of any psychoanalysis, because for the man who meditates, by and by all his dreams disappear. In the day he remains silent in his mind, not the ordinary traffic of thoughts. And in the night he sleeps deeply, because dreams are nothing but unlived thoughts, unlived desires, unlived longings in the day. They are trying to complete themselves, at least in dreams.

It will be very difficult for you to find a man who dreams about his wife, or a woman who dreams about her husband. But it will be absolutely common that they dream about their neighbors’ wives and their neighbors’ husbands. The wife is available, he is not suppressing anything as far as his wife is concerned. But the neighbor’s wife is always more beautiful; the grass is greener on the other side of the fence. And that which is unapproachable creates a deep desire to acquire it, to possess it. In the day you cannot do it, but in dreams at least, you are free. Freedom of dreaming has not yet been taken away by the governments.

It won’t be long — soon they will take it away, because methods are available, already available, so that they can watch when you are dreaming and when you are not dreaming. And there is a possibility some day to find a scientific device so that your dream can be projected on a screen. Just some electrodes will have to be inserted in your head. You will be fast asleep, dreaming joyously, making love to your neighbor’s wife and a whole movie hall will be watching it — and they used to think that this man is a saint!

This much you can even see; whenever a person is asleep, watch: if his eyelids are not showing any movement of his eyes inside, then he is not dreaming. If he is dreaming then you can see that his eyes are moving.
It is possible to project your dream on a screen. It is also possible to enforce certain dreaming in you. But at least up to now, no constitution even talks about it, that “People are free to dream, it is their birthright.”

A Gautam Buddha does not dream. Meditation is a way to go beyond mind. He lives in utter silence twenty-four hours — no ripples on the lake of his consciousness, no thoughts, no dreams. But Sigmund Freud is afraid because he knows what he is dreaming.

I have heard about one actual incident. Three great Russian novelists — Chekhov, Gorky and Tolstoy — were just sitting on a bench in a park and gossiping… and they were great friends. All were geniuses; all created such great novels that even today, if you want to count ten great novels of the world, at least five will be from the Russian novelists — before the revolution. After the revolution, they have not created a single novel which has the quality of genius. Now, it is under government instruction. The government is the only publisher; the government scrutinizes, and the people who scrutinize know nothing of art. They are bureaucrats.

The police commissioner of Poona was just asking that before my lectures are published, he should scrutinize them — and what does a police commissioner have to do with meditation? — but that is happening in Russia, and because of that, in seventy years’ time after the revolution, they have not been able to produce a single great novel. But before the revolution, Russia was at the top in creativity. These three people are still to be counted as great novelists.

Chekhov was telling about the women in his life. Gorky joined; he also said a few things. But Tolstoy remained silent. Tolstoy was a very orthodox religious Christian… you will be surprised to know that Mahatma Gandhi in India has accepted three persons as his masters, and one was Tolstoy.

And he must have been repressing so much… he was one of the richest men in Russia — he belonged to the royal family — but he lived like a poor beggar, because “blessed are the poor and they shall inherit the kingdom of God,” and he was not willing to give up the kingdom of God. It is not simplicity, and it is not desirelessness — it is too much desire. It is too much greed, it is too much instinct for power. He is sacrificing this life and its joys because it is a small life… and then for eternity he will enjoy paradise and the kingdom of God. It is a good bargain, almost like a lottery, and certain.

He was living a very celibate life, eating only vegetarian food… he was almost a saint. Naturally, his dreams must have been very ugly, his thoughts must have been very ugly, and when Chekhov and Gorky asked him, “Tolstoy, why are you silent? Say something!” he said, “I cannot say anything about women. I will say something only when one foot is in the grave. I will say it, and jump into the grave.”

You can understand why he was so much afraid of saying anything — it was boiling within him. Now, you cannot be very intimate with a man like Tolstoy. Intimacy simply means that the doors of the heart are open for you, you are welcome to come in and be a guest. But that is possible only if you have a heart which is not stinking with repressed sexuality, which is not boiling with all kinds of perversions, which is natural — as natural as trees, as innocent as children. Then there is no fear of intimacy.

That’s what I am trying to do: to help you unburden your unconscious, unburden your mind, to become ordinary. There is nothing more beautiful than to be just simple and ordinary. Then you can have as many intimate friends, as many intimate relationships as possible, because you are not afraid of anything. You become an open book — anybody can read. There is nothing to hide. Every year, a hunting club went up into the Montana hills. The members drew straws to decide who would handle the cooking and also agreed that anyone complaining about the food would automatically replace the unlucky cook.

Realizing after a few days that no one was likely to risk speaking up, Sanderson decided on a desperate plan. He found some moose droppings and added two handfuls to the stew that night. There were grimaces around the campfire after the first few mouthfuls, but nobody said anything. Then one member suddenly broke the silence. “Hey,” he exclaimed, “This stuff tastes like moose shit — but good!” He is not complaining. In fact, he is appreciating! You have so many faces. Inside, you think one thing; outside, you express something else. You are not one, organic whole.

Relax and destroy the split that society has created in you. Say only that which you mean. Act according to your own spontaneity, never bothering about consequences. It is a small life and it should not be spoiled in thinking about consequences here and hereafter. One should live totally, intensely, joyously and just like an open book, available for anybody to read it. Of course you will not make a name in the history books. But what is the point in making a name in the history books?

Live, rather than think of being remembered. You will be dead. Millions of people have lived on the earth and we don’t know even their names. Accept that simple fact: that you are here for only a few days and then you will be gone. These few days are not to be wasted in hypocrisy, in fear. These days have to be rejoiced.

Nobody knows anything about the future. Your heaven and your hell and your God are most probably all hypotheses, unproved. The only thing that is in your hands is your life — make it as rich as possible. By intimacy, by love, by opening yourself to many people, you become richer. And if you can live in deep love, in deep friendship, in deep intimacy, with many people, you have lived rightly, and wherever you happen to be… you have learned the art; you will be living there, too, happily.

I am reminded of one English philosopher, Edmund Burke. He was very friendly with the archbishop of England. Whenever Edmund Burke used to deliver a talk in the university, the archbishop used to come and listen to him. It was worth listening — each of his statements was coming with his wholeness, with great authority. But he never went to listen to the archbishop on Sunday in the church. The archbishop said, “At least you should come one time. I always come to listen to you.”

Edmund Burke said, “You come to listen to me because whatever you know is not your knowledge — it is all borrowed, and you are not certain of it. Whatever I say is my experience, and I give every evidence and proof and argument for it. I can stake my life for my statements. You are just a parrot. But because you have asked, I will come next Sunday.”

So the archbishop prepared a really beautiful sermon, thinking that Edmund Burke will be present, so the sermon has to be as great as he can make it. But he was surprised. Edmund Burke was sitting in the first row but there was no emotion on his face. He could not judge whether he liked it, disliked it, agreed with it, or disagreed with it. He was very much puzzled. As the sermon ended, Edmund Burke stood up and he said, “I have a question to ask, a very simple question. Your whole sermon was, in a condensed form, that the people who live a virtuous life according to your Christian ideology, and believe in Jesus Christ, will go to heaven after this life. Those who do not believe in Jesus Christ and live the life of a sinner, will fall into eternal hell after this life.

“My question is,” said Edmund Burke, “that if a person is virtuous but does not believe in Jesus Christ, what will happen? He is good. His life is a life to be praised but he does not believe in Jesus Christ — where is he going to be? Or, a man who believes in Jesus Christ but is a great sinner — where is he going to be? You missed mentioning two very important points; your sermon was half. And I was waiting to see whether you were aware of these two possibilities or not.”

The archbishop thought for a moment — the question was really dangerous. If he says the good people are going to heaven whether they believe in Jesus Christ or not, then Jesus Christ and the belief in him become superfluous, non-essential. And if he says those who believe in Jesus Christ — even if they are sinners — will go to heaven, then sin is being approved by the church itself.

He was in a very muddled situation. He said, “Your question needs some time for me to think it over. Just give me seven days. Next Sunday, I will answer it.”

For seven days, he tried all the scriptures, tried this way and that way, but… the question was simple… and he was caught in a dilemma. He could not sleep those seven days, because how is he going to face Edmund Burke and his congregation? And whatever he says seems to be wrong: either it goes against Jesus Christ or it goes against a virtuous life. He repented that he ever invited that fellow to come to the church!

He went early in the morning to the church, before the congregation came. He still did not have any answer. He thought, “In the early morning, when there is nobody in the church, I will pray to Christ himself to just show me the light, give me the answer. Because not only my prestige is at stake, his prestige is also at stake.”

Seven days, continuously worrying, not sleeping… he was bowing down before the statue of Jesus Christ. He fell asleep, and he saw a dream. Naturally, because for seven days only one thing had been in his mind, the dream was also connected with it.

He saw himself sitting in a train, and he asked, “Where are we going?” Somebody said, “This train is going to heaven.” He had a great relaxation, and he said, “That’s perfectly good. Perhaps this is Jesus Christ’s doing, so that you can see for yourself who goes to paradise and who does not go.”

As he reached the station of paradise, he could not believe — it looked so rotten. He entered inside paradise. The people he met were almost corpses, walking. He recognized a few saints and he asked them, “I want to ask one question: where is Gautam Buddha? because he never believed in Jesus Christ or in God, but he was one of the most moral men you can conceive of.”
The saint said, “He is not here.”
“Socrates? He was also not a believer in any god, but was a man of great virtue.”
“He is also not here.”

And he said, “Why does this whole paradise look like a ruin? And saints look like the dead; there seems to be no joy. I used to think that angels go on singing with their harps. I don’t see any angels, any harps, any song, any dance — just a few dull and dead saints are sitting under the trees.”
And whoever he asked, said: “Don’t bother us. We are tired.”

Just an idea came into his mind at that moment that perhaps there is a train going to hell, also. So he rushed back to the station, and the train was standing at the platform, ready to leave for hell. He entered the train, and as the hell started coming closer, he was even more puzzled. The wind was fragrant with flowers. There was so much greenery, lush green. The station was so beautiful — he had never thought that a station could be so beautiful. And people looked so happy, so joyous. He said, “My god, is there something wrong or what?”
He enquired, “Is this really hell?”

They said, “It used to be. Before Gautam Buddha, Socrates, Epicurus, Mahavira, Lao Tzu, people like these came here, it used to be hell. But now they have transformed the whole place.”

He entered hell and he could not believe — it was sheer joy! The very air was full of blissfulness. And there was dancing and there was singing, and he asked somebody, “Where is Gautam Buddha?”
They said, “Do you see in the garden, he is watering the roses.”
“And where is Socrates?”
And they said, “Socrates is working in the field.”
“Where is Epicurus?”
They said, “He just passed by you. The man who was dancing and playing on the guitar was Epicurus.”
At that very moment, the shock was too much — he woke up. He said, “My god! What a dream!”

And people had started arriving — particularly, Edmund Burke who was sitting in the front seat already, waiting for the answer.
The poor archbishop said, “I have not been able to find the answer. But I have seen a dream which I will describe to you, and you can conclude the answer from the dream.”

He described the dream. Edmund Burke said, “Now you conclude also! The conclusion is clear: that wherever good people are, there is paradise. It is not that good people go to paradise — wherever good people are, it becomes paradise. And wherever stupid people and idiots are — they may be great believers in God and Jesus Christ and the HOLY BIBLE, it does not matter — even paradise becomes a ruin. It becomes a hell.”

I have loved this incident very much because this is my approach, too. If you are simple, loving, open, intimate, you create a paradise around you. If you are closed, constantly on the defensive, always worried that somebody may come to know your thoughts, your dreams, your perversions — you are living in hell.
Hell is within you and so is paradise. They are not geographical places.

They are your spiritual spaces. Ramaprem, cleanse yourself. And meditation is nothing but a cleaning of all the rubbish that has gathered in your mind. When the mind is silent and the heart is singing… just listen to these birds.

You will be ready, without any fear but with great joy, to be intimate. And without intimacy, you are alone here amongst strangers. With intimacy you are surrounded by friends, by people who love you. Intimacy is a great experience. One should not miss it.

But before you can become unafraid of intimacy, you have to be totally clean of all the garbage that religions have been pouring into you, all the crap that for centuries has been handed over to you. Be finished with it all, and live a life of peace, silence, joy, song and dance. And you will transform… wherever you are, the place will become paradise.

Source – Osho Book “The Hidden Splendor”

Question – When i love others it is a tension for me. Only my love toward you gives me a fulfillment, a freshness. Why is that?

Osho – This, too, can become a frustration at any moment because the other still remains the center. Whoever it is… the other must not be the center. If you really feel intimate with me, then remember this: the other must not be the center. The moment your love is not centered on me you will be happy. If your love is centered on me that will only create problems. You will love me and you will find someone else to hate.

This is what happens. If you love your guru, then you will begin to hate and condemn all other gurus. If you love Ram then even Krishna becomes an enemy. If you love Jesus then how can you love Mohammed? You have to create an enemy.

If you love someone – even if you love me and you feel a freshness, a fulfillment – then, too, deep down, the other side will be there. Any moment it can erupt and become destructive. You must be fulfilled within yourself, because only then will there be no frustration. You will feel many things but they will be something separate from you. The center will remain. If you can be with yourself totally, then even if I am not here, even if you cannot find me, even if you forget me completely, the fulfillment will remain, the freshness will remain. Then, when you are centered in your self, you can feel a subtle gratitude toward someone, but that will be a different thing.

Don’t get attached. Don’t think in terms of love, because the very term, as we know it, is bound up with its opposite. It seems difficult to understand. If you love me it seems inconceivable that you could hate me. But it is a common phenomenon. When someone is dreaming he cannot know that what he sees in the dream is just a dream. To him it is a reality; he cannot conceive of how it could be unreal. The same thing happens when someone is in love: he cannot conceive of how he could hate his loved one. But then, when he begins to hate the other, he cannot conceive of how he could have loved.

Those who love and then hate are not real lovers. But the mind goes on supplying reasons. If you love someone and you cannot conceive of how you could hate him or her, then the mind says that this is real love. Then, when you begin to hate the same person, the mind says that although you were a real lover, the other was not worth loving. First you find many reasons and causes and rationalizations for your love, then you find as many rationalizations for your hate.

I have seen this not only with one person but with many people. Sometimes it happens that someone loves me very deeply, then begins to hate me. And when someone loves deeply he can only hate deeply; there is no other way. When he loved me he could not conceive that hate was possible and now that he hates me he cannot conceive how that love was ever possible.

It is easy to move from love to hate, but it is very difficult to move from hate to love. There are many reasons for it. You cannot hate in the beginning; one has to love first. Love is a necessity in order to hate; you cannot hate directly without some love having been there. But then it is very difficult to put the broken mirror back together again. You can love again, but the hate which has preceded the renewed love casts a shadow on it. Something of the hate remains; part of it is carried over. The old fantasy of total love cannot be revived again.

If you love me, then you will feel hurt when I say this. Don’t feel hurt. If you want to move toward selfrealization, if you are trying to find a way toward the ultimate truth, then there will be many times when I will have to hurt you, when I will have to fight against your fallacies. I know that your love can become hate. And just as love has a freshness, hate also has a freshness, an aliveness.

But there is a love, which I call compassion, that can come to you. It can come to you only if you are at your center, no one else. Become more and more centered in yourself. Only if I can help you to do this will I have compassion. My compassion may hurt you sometimes, but that is needed.

So I say to you: anyone who is centered on someone else – whoever that someone else is – will become frustrated in the end. Become more and more free of others. That is why I allow you to come near me, that is my purpose in allowing you to be intimate with me – so that you can become yourself! If I can help you to come to that center in yourself where there is no love and no hate, only then will you be able to have an altogether different relationship with me. Then the quality of that relationship will not be of this world – neither hate nor love. Then you will not feel me as the other, you will feel me as yourself.

And not only with me… you will feel the whole world, the whole universe, as yourself. When one is centered in oneself, one becomes one with the whole universe. But if you are centered in the other, then you will be in trouble – that is a natural consequence. And the natural law never allows any exception. It is absolute, mercilessly absolute.

Source – Osho Book “The Great Challenge”

Osho – Love is the only quality, a natural quality, that has something of eternity in it. Hence love is the first experience of god, the beginning of the experience of god. God is much more than that, but love opens the door. God is inconceivable, but love is not inconceivable. Love is natural, so love functions as a bridge between man and god. If the bridge is not there you cannot reach god; god remains simply an empty word. But with love immediately you start understanding god in a new way. It is no more an empty word; it starts having great content in it, great meaning in it, great significance in it.

Knowing love is the first lesson in knowing god. That is the beginning of the alphabet, the ABC. Of course god is far more, because the alphabet will have to go to XYZ, but if you have begun rightly with ABC, XYZ is not far away. A good beginning is almost half the journey, a right beginning is half the journey.

Begin with love so one day you can know god. And never begin with god because you cannot begin there. That’s where all the religions have failed: they begin with god, which is not possible. You are stuck on this bank and you start your journey on the other bank, where you are not. So your journey remains just a fantasy, a journey of dreams — beautiful dreams, but dreams are dream, beautiful or ugly. When you wake up you will see that all that time has been wasted. Even if they were nice dreams they have not given you anything.

So there are worldly people who dream of worldly things, and there are so-called religious people who dream of religious things, but both are dreamers — both are stuck on this bank. And god is the farther shore. A bridge is needed or a boat is needed if a bridge is not possible. Love can function both ways. Either it can become a bridge or it can become a boat, but it can take you to the other shore.

The so-called religions teach you to begin with god, and of course then you have only to believe in god. You don’t know, you have to believe. This is the beginning of superstitution, and all kinds of stupidities will be born out of it — Christian stupidities and Hindu stupidities and Mohammedan and Jewish, and there are thousands of forms. Stupidity comes in every size and shape, in all colours; whatever you choose it is available. The market is full of stupidity and you have infinite variety; you can choose. You can go on changing from one stupidity to another.

But unless you know, you don’t know. Belief is not knowing. Belief is a deception, deceiving others and deceiving yourself. And I am not worried about others — if you deceive others it is okay — but don’t deceive yourself because that will destroy your whole life. And my understanding is that the person who deceives himself is the person who will deceive others. The person who cannot deceive himself cannot deceive others either; it becomes impossible for him to deceive. And belief is the greatest deception.

The only way to begin is with love, because that is a natural phenomenon. Everybody is born with a loving quality. You have to purify it, you have to make it more and more refined, cultured, so it loses all animality and lust, and slowly slowly starts rising higher than lust. Drop jealousies because those are poisons, heavy weights that keep your love low; it cannot rise high. Possessiveness, ego trips, domination — go on dropping all these, and slowly slowly your love will become weightless. A moment comes when there is no jealousy, no possessiveness, no lust, and love is pure.

You have wings, you can fly. Now you have something in you which can take you to the ultimate source of life, to god. Hence I say love is the first glimpse of eternity, and the last glimpse is god. Love is the beginning of god and god is the end of love. Love is the first step towards god and god is the ultimate goal of love.

Source – Osho Book “Just the Tip of the Iceberg”

Question – Why are people so afraid of being loved?

Osho – Krishna Gopa has asked it. People ARE afraid of being loved. Because love brings misery, love brings lies. Love brings imprisonment, love brings slavery, love destroys freedom. That’s why people are afraid.

And people cannot remain without love, because love is a necessary nourishment too. So they hanker for love, they desire to be loved and to love. They cannot remain alone. But the moment they meet the person, the other — the woman, the man — they become frightened too. Because they know now they are getting into a cage.

Because love is not yet unconditional, that’s why people are afraid of love. And because love brings so many compromises. They have to compromise so much that they almost lose their original face. That’s why people are afraid. And they cannot remain without it either, because it is a necessary nourishment for the soul. In fact because it is a necessary nourishment of the soul, that’s why people have learned to exploit it. If it was not such a necessity then there would have been no exploitation. Love is such a necessity that you can exploit it, you can make conditions. You can say ‘I will love you only if you do this. I will love you only if you will love only me and nobody else, never. And I will love you only if you accept my conditions.’

These are the conditions. And a hungry man is bound to accept the conditions. He starts lying, he starts playing games, he starts being phony. He starts doing things which he never wanted to do, and he stops doing things which he always wanted to do. And then sooner or later he thinks it is too much a price for love, it is better not to be in love, it is better to be alone. So people go on moving from aloneness to love, from love to aloneness. When they are alone the hunger is felt. When they are together, the ugliness of it.

I have heard: The weary old priest arriving in Heaven before Saint Peter: ‘No more service. Rest at last.’
Saint Peter: ‘Just choose yourself the softest cloud, and sleep. You’ve earned your rest.’

With a deep sigh the priest sinks himself in a woolly Heavenly cloud and dozes off. But then there is no real rest. Every now and then, little bells ring and wake him up. After some hours, in a state of total neurosis, he gets up out of his cloud, runs up to Saint Peter and complains: ‘What do you mean by I can rest? This is a hell. Hear those penetrating bells, ringing every time I’m just falling asleep!’

‘Oh, I’m so sorry, but I can’t do a thing about it. You’ll get used to it. They are only part of the system of registering whenever a serious lie is being told down on Earth. Now that you know, they won’t bother you any more. Sleep well.’

And sure as hell, Peter’s words came true. After retiring to his cloud the priest falls into a deep sleep. But then in the middle of the night he jumps with a scream, grabs his head, goes mad in a second. Thousands of bells ringing all around with thunderous noise. ‘Peter, Peter, save me. What’s happening?’ Peter is there already and covers the ears of the poor priest with his loving hands. ‘Poor man, this is the hour when lovers meet and say beautiful things to each other.’

Love brings a thousand and one lies in life. It is humiliating. One feels caged, imprisoned, compromised. One feels paralyzed, crippled. One feels chained in a thousand and one ways. That’s why, Gopa, people are afraid of love.

One of my basic messages to you is: Never exploit love. That will be a great religious revolution in your life. Never exploit love. If somebody loves you, don’t bring any conditions to it. If you love somebody, don’t make him a cripple. Let your love become spacious. Give more space to the person than he had when he was alone. Give him nourishment. But don’t poison his nourishment, don’t possess him. Let him be free. More free than he ever was. And then love grows into deep intimacy.

When love brings freedom then love goes deepest. When love makes the other feel respected, not humiliated, not destroyed but enhanced. When love feels nourishing, liberating, then love goes deepest. Then love becomes prayer. It becomes the utmost, the ultimate experience of life. Don’t exploit love. Whenever you are in love, remember. And you will have to remember hard, because for thousands of years man has exploited love, and that has become habitual.

Source – Osho Book “This Very Body the Buddha”

[A therapist asks about his new relationship; that he finds it difficult to receive love, rather than to give it.]

Osho – Mm mm, the mind is very afraid of love, so you have to consciously drop those defenses, otherwise love will never happen. You can go on giving; giving is not difficult for the mind. The ego remains perfectly guarded. In fact it feels very good, enhanced, that you are giving love, sharing love; you have so much love to give. The problem arises only when you have to take it; somebody is giving and you have to receive it. When you become the receiving end, then the problem arises. When you are giving you have the upper hand.

When you are receiving you have to be humble, because only in deep humility can love be received. That’s the problem. The ego cannot allow itself to be humble, because in humility it disappears. So whenever I say, ’Love,’ people think they have to love, but that is only the beginning. The culmination comes only when you receive and when you allow others to love you. Then you are completely defenseless. Then you don’t know where you are going, what is happening to you.

So you will have to do it self-consciously, otherwise you will not be able to do it. You have to be consciously alert. And whenever you feel that you are blocking, somebody is giving and you are becoming hard, stiff, and not allowing lit in, relax. Say, ’Yes.’ Make ’yes’ your mantra. Whenever you see that something deep down is going stiff, hard, won’t allow any penetration, say yes and relax.

(to the girlfriend) And remember it, you have to help him. When you feel that he is defensive, make all the more effort to love him, because ordinarily this is how it happens. If the other feels that you are defensive, the other starts withdrawing because she feels that she is being rejected. So when you feel that he is defensive, don’t leave him. Just jump on him. Break all his barriers… be wild, so he will understand – ’Now [you are] being wild – I must be being defensive.’

(to the swami) So drop your defenses… just a little awareness. And go on reminding her that this is your block, she has to help you. And when somebody is hard, it is not necessaray that he is rejecting you. He is simply afraid. The greater possibility is that he is simply afraid.

Love is such a tremendous phenomenon, such a vital energy, that people are afraid; it is a whirlwind. It can take you… nobody knows. Where it will land you is not predictable. It is so wild that one thing is certain – that if you allow it, you will pass through a death. Something will be born out of you, but you don’t know that man. In zen, they call that man ’the man of no titles’, nameless. The bauls call that man ’the essential man’ – ’adhar manush’.

[You have] to drop to give space to the man of no titles, because vedanta is nothing but defenses. When all defenses are gone, you are gone. Then something is there but you cannot say that it is you. It is so vast, you cannot confine it to any name, to any form. Then the man of no titles is born. It is an essential man. It has nothing to do with you or with me, or with anybody else. It is our essential being… nameless, formless, without any adjectives. That’s why they call it ’without any titles’.

But that is your nature – and love is one of the greatest ways to come to it. So on your part, be alert, and [your girlfriend] will make it a point (to her) to force him. Whenever he is defensive, make it a challenge for yourself that you have to break this defense. Don’t think that you have to withdraw. Don’t think that you are rejected – no. In fact, the moment he becomes hard, he has become afraid of your love. He is not rejecting you – he is just functioning out of an old habit. So take the challenge and break the defense.

Source – Osho Book “Dance Your Way to God”

Osho – Prem means love and nadam means the subtlest sound; the sound of love. It is the most subtle sound. You can hear it only when you are very very receptive. The ears won’t be of much help. Unless your heart listens to it, you cannot listen. It is continuously present. The whole life is nothing but a vibrating love energy – Call it god, but basically it is a vibration of love energy.

You cannot find a man who is not, deep down, in need of love and who is not, deep down, in need of being needed for love. One may not be capable, but the desire exists. One may fail, but the urge exists. Love seems to be the most common phenomenon. The man may be foolish or wise, beautiful or ugly, black or white, a criminal or a saint, poor or rich, a beggar or an emperor – it makes no difference. Love seems to be the most characteristic quality of human beings.

We are created out of love, and our climax is going to be only through love. And this is not true only of human beings – it is true about the whole existence. First you have to understand human beings… their tremendous need of love, their tremendous urge to love. Then by and by you see the stars and the trees and the rocks – they are all vibrating with love.

Physicists say that it is electricity that is the substratum of reality. Religious people say it is love. Electricity may be just a phenomenon of love energy. So this you have to seek and search for, and you have to vibrate with love. You have to become receptive to the love sound that is continuously happening all around.

Every bird that sings is singing for love. Every flower that opens is opening for love, and every eye is in search of love. Every heart beats for love. Love is the very meaning of life. If there is no love, life becomes meaningless.

When people start asking, ’What is the meaning of life?’ that simply shows that they have not been able to find their love; hence the meaning is missing. Now there is no way to find it. If you cannot find it in love, then there is no other place to find it. Then you can go on searching, but it is in vain.

So feel more loving. Love people and allow others to love you. Don’t create barriers. Whenever love knocks at your door, remember it is god who has knocked. Reject love and you have rejected god. Welcome love and you have welcomed god. God comes as love, flowers as love.

Source – Osho Book “Dance Your Way to God”

Osho – Deva means god, ragi means in love within love with god. We may know it, we may not, but our object of love is always god. Whenever we fall in love we fall in love with god. It may be just a glimpse and the glimpse may disappear, but we have fallen in love with god; it is always so.

When you fall in love with a woman you have seen a glimpse of the divine. It is not really the woman that you have fallen in love with; she has been just a window, a beautiful window but still a window. You have seen something beyond, it may have been just a flash; that’s why it is so difficult to explain your love affair to anybody.

If somebody asks, ’Why have you fallen in love with this woman?’ it is almost inexplicable. And if you try to explain it looks absurd, even to you. Whatsoever answer you give seems to be wrong, and not to give any answer also doesn’t seem right. But the problem is that you have not fallen in love with this woman at all: you have fallen in love with something beyond.

It is as if you have seen a sunset through a window. Now the sun is gone, it is dark outside and you cannot believe how you fell in love with this window. There seems to be no reason at all, but you cannot deny that something happened, something mysterious happened.

Wherever love happens it is always between you and god. Sometimes you have glimpsed him in a flower, sometimes in a star, sometimes in a song, sometimes in the giggle of a child. God comes in so many ways but all these are fragments of god.

Once you start understanding that all love is towards god, just as all rivers are flowing towards the ocean, notwithstanding their directions… One river is going to the north, another is going to the south, some other river is going to the east, some other to the west: notwithstanding their direction they are all moving, groping unconsciously, they are probing and groping for the ocean. They may not be able to answer why; and man also is not able to answer the question why, but we live for that, we move towards that.

Once it becomes conscious, that is sannyas. You still fall in love with a woman but no more only with the woman; in fact you are grateful to the woman that she allowed you a glimpse of god. You still fall in love with a bird on the wing but you know that in that moment something of god has penetrated you. The descent of the bird and something has moved within you, you have touched some depth inside your own being. Or just a small flower dancing touches you, moves you. Be consciously in love with god.

It means a poet. Think in terms of poetry and live in terms of poetry; let poetry be your religion. There is no higher religion than poetry. God is not philosophy, not theology either; it is sheer poetry. It is available only to those who are ready to become mad. The logical, the calculative, the clever, miss; the illogical, the irrational, reach. The poet is there in your heart, it just needs to be expressed. You are utterly a heart person but in this world the heart is not accepted and the heart people are crushed and repressed?

So don’t listen to anybody; you have to live your life. It is better to live one’s own life and suffer rather than to be comfortable and live somebody else’s life. Millions of people die thinking, ’Whose life have I been living all these years?’ because they were not meant to be that which they became.

Somebody was meant to be a carpenter but he became a priest; somebody else was meant to become a priest and became a carpenter. This is very disrespectful towards the inner life. Love yourself, respect yourself. Be whatsoever it feels right to be and pay for being that, never compromise.

Source – Osho Book “Don’t Bite My Finger, Look Where I’m Pointing”

Question – Does the Universe Love me?

Osho – It is a wrong question to ask. You should ask the other way round, “Do you love the universe?” because universe is not a person. It cannot love you. It has no center, or you can say “everywhere it has the center,” but it is a nonpersonal phenomenon. How can a nonpersonal existence love you? You can love. But when you love, the universe responds — responds absolutely. If you take one step towards the universe, the universe takes a thousand and one steps towards you; but that’s a response.

You will have to understand what Lao Tzu says: that the nature of existence is feminine. A woman waits; she never initiates. The man has to go and initiate. The man has to come and woo and court and persuade. Existence is feminine — it waits You have to woo it; you have to court it; you have to take the initiative and then the universe showers on you — showers in infinite ways, fulfils in infinite ways. Just like a woman: when you have persuaded her she showers tremendously.

No man can be such a lover as a woman can be. A man remains always a part lover; his total being is never in love. A woman is totally in it; it is her whole life, her every breath. But she waits. She will never take the initiative, she will never chase you; and if a woman chases you — howsoever beautiful the woman — you will become scared of her. She won’t look feminine. She will be so aggressive that her whole beauty will turn into ugliness. A woman is passive. Remember this word “passive,” passivity.

Universe is the mother. It is always better to call the God “mother than “father.” The father is not so relevant. Universe is the mother: feminine, waiting for you — waiting for you for ever and ever — but you will have to knock at the door. You will find it immediately opened if you knock, but if you don’t knock you can go on standing at the gate. The existence is not going to open it; it is not aggressive. Even in love it is not aggressive. That’s why I say it will respond.

But don’t ask the wrong question. Don’t ask, “Does the universe love me?” Love the universe and you will find that your love is nothing. The universe gives you such infinite love, returns your love with such infinite response…. But it is a response — the universe never initiates; it waits. And it is beautiful that it waits; otherwise the whole beauty of love will be lost.

But this question arises; it has a relevance with your mind. This is how human mind functions: it always asks, “Does the other love me?” The woman, the wife, asks, “Does the husband love me?” The husband goes on asking, “Does the wife, the woman, love me?” The children go on thinking, “Does the mother, the father, love me?” and the parents go on thinking whether the children love them. You always ask about the other.

You are asking a wrong question. You are moving in a wrong direction. You will come across a wall; you will not find a door. You will feel hurt because you will clash against the wall. The very beginning is wrong. You should always ask, “Do I love the wife?” “Do I love the husband?” “Do I love the children?” “Do I love my father and my mother?” But always start from yourself — do you love.

And this is the mystery: if you love, suddenly you know everybody loves you. If you love the wife, she loves you; if you love the husband, he loves you; if you love the children, they love you. A person who loves from his heart is being responded to from everywhere. Love can never be fruitless. It blooms.

But you should start rightly, on the right track; otherwise everybody is asking, “Does the other love me?” and the other is also asking the same question. Then nobody loves, then love becomes just a fantasy, then love disappears from the earth — as it has happened. It has disappeared; it exists only in the poetries of poets — fantasies, imagination, dreams. Reality is absolutely devoid of love now, because you have started with a wrong question.

Drop that question like a disease. Drop it and escape from it, and alwaYs ask, “Do I love?’ and that will become the key. With that key you can open any heart, and with that key, by and by, you will become so artful that you can open the very existence with that key; then it becomes prayer. Just ask the question, “Does the universe pray to you?” Then it will look foolish; then it will look just absurd. “Does the universe pray to you?” — you will not oven ask that; but prayer is nothing but the highest blossoming of love.

You pray to the universe and then you find from everywhere rivulets of love flowing towards you. You become fulfilled. The universe has much to give to you, but for that you have to be open. And the opening is possible only if you love: then you become open, otherwise you remain closed. And even the universe is helpless against your closedness.

Source – Osho Book “The Yoga, Vol 5″

Osho – Prem Hasibo. Prem means love and Hasibo is a sufi name for God. It means: one who satisfies all needs. The full name will mean: love, the god that satisfies all needs. And love is the ultimate need. Everything else is secondary. Everything else is just a means to that great end. If love happens then all has happened; if love does not happen then nothing has happened, the whole of life has just been a wasteland.

And it is very rare that love blooms, because the soil that the society provides is not adequate for it. In fact, it obstructs it. It poisons the seed. It teaches people to be full of hate, anger, ambition, possessiveness.

Society is founded not on love but on hate. It depends on struggle, violence, war. It can’t afford love. Love will take away the whole foundation on which it stands. For millions of years society has remained that way. And unless society’s foundation is changed, it will not become a really human phenomenon. It will remain something between the animal and the man, a half-way house. Society goes on carrying all the violence that is there in the animals and has dropped all the love that is there. In terms of heart, it is not evolution; it is a degradation. And as far as that is concerned, christians are right – that man has fallen from grace, that man has committed some original sin.

I may not agree with their details about what sin man has committed – I may not agree, but some sin has been committed. The whole of society has taken a wrong direction. The direction has to be changed, and one has to begin with oneself because there is no other beginning; you cannot begin with the other.

Take the risk of being in love with existence. It is risky because nobody will support you. It is risky because even your own mind will be against it. It is risky because you will fail, fail utterly in this world and the ways of this world. But to fail in the ways of the world is to succeed in the eyes of God. That’s what Jesus means when he says ’Those who are the first in this life will be the last in my kingdom of God,’ and vice versa. The person who succeeds in a hateful society succeeds because he is more violent than others, more cunning than others, more clever, more manipulating, more pseudo, than others. He succeeds only by selling his soul. And only the man who cannot succeed in this life can succeed in the other. Yes, those who are the last will be the first. And lovers are the last here. They lose all but they protect the most precious thing.

So become more loving and remember that if you love, God is always there to satisfy all your needs. Trust, and whatsoever is needed is always given. If it is not given, that simply shows it is not needed. Sometimes pain is needed, then pain is given. Sometimes shocks are needed, so shocks are given. And sometimes it is sadness, misery, that brings maturity – then it is given. Sometimes it is poverty that brings to inner richness, then it is given. But always remember: whatsoever is given, is needed, and whatsoever is needed, is always given. That is the meaning of ’Hasibo’: become love and become trust. And I have been waiting for you for a long time! You have come home. You have knocked on many doors in vain – now let this door be the last….

Source – Osho Book “The 99 Names of Nothingness”

Osho – The ego goes on agreeing for wrong things, because the ego can exist only with the wrong. It feeds on the wrong. So whenever you feel that your ego is fulfilled, beware! — you have eaten something wrong, you have swallowed something wrong. Whenever you feel egoless, relax — now you have eaten the right, something which is in tune with your nature.

Ego arises out of disturbance, but ego has its own logic. It goes on saying that you are important, that you are the most important man in the world, and you have to prove it. And we are all trying to do this one way or the other — somebody by possessing more money, somebody by possessing a beautiful woman, somebody by possessing prestige,
power, somebody by becoming a president or a premier, somebody by becoming an artist, a poet, somebody by becoming a MAHATMA — but we are all trying in some way or other to prove our innermost fantasy, that we are the most important person in the world. Then you cannot be a lover.

Ambition is poison for love. A lover is not in any need to prove. In fact, he knows that he is loved, and that’s enough. Try to diagnose it very carefully. When you are not loved — and how can you be loved if you don’t love? — when you are not loved and you don’t love, suddenly a great need arises to perform, to do something, to show the world that you are important, that you are needed. There is a great need to be needed. You feel futile, impotent, useless, if you are not needed. The need in itself is not wrong; it is a love need to be needed. If a woman loves you, you are fulfilled — somebody needs you, you are significant. Then you don’t bother about the crowd. You don’t go into the marketplace and shout, “I am important!” Then you are not ambitious; you don’t collect money like an obsession. If somebody loves you, in that love you are dignified, in that love you become a sovereign.

Love makes you an emperor, a sovereign. Love fulfills you so deeply and so greatly; then there is no need to perform or do anything. Ego simply does not exist with love. But if that need is unfulfilled, then you will try to fulfill it somehow: you would like to become a very famous man so many people need you.

But remember, to be loved by one and to be needed by millions is not the same. Even a single person’s love, even a single glance of love is enough; and you can collect millions of people and they can all look towards you, but that will not be satisfying. That’s what politics is, and what the politician is trying to do.

I have never come across a politician whose heart is functioning. The heart is totally dead — but the need is there to be loved, to be needed, somebody to look to. Where to fulfill it? — he gathers crowds. Through the crowds he tries somehow to fulfill the love need. But that crowd does not love him, that crowd is not bothered by him; that crowd is after its own needs. Because he’s in power he seems to be important. They pay their respects to the chair, and the chairman is deceived. Once the chairman is not in the chair, they don’t bother about him.

Have you ever observed that once a politician is out of power he is simply forgotten? Nobody remembers him. He may live for thirty or forty years; nobody will know about him. By and by, he will recede into darkness. Only once, when he dies, will there be a small notice in the newspapers — that the ex-president or ex-premier is dead.

The man who ruled over Russia before Lenin, Kerensky, lived for fifty years after it like a small New York grocer, and nobody knew about him. He was the Prime Minister of Russia, the most important man — the revolution happened and he was thrown out of power. He escaped. For fifty years he lived. Only when he died did people become aware that Kerensky had been alive for all those fifty years.

Power cannot fulfill a love need. You can possess great kingdoms — that will not fulfill your love need. But if you possess one heart which throbs in tune with you, then you are fulfilled.

Source – Osho Book “The Beloved, Vol 1″

Osho – The greatest courage in life is needed when you go inwards, for many reasons… The first is: it is a flight from the alone to the alone, it is going deeper into your aloneness. And man is caught up in such a way that he becomes accustomed to company, to people, to family. He forgets absolutely the joy of being alone; hence there is a fear of being left alone.

That’s why nations exist: it is because of fear, not because of any love. That’s why religions exist — not because of a longing for god. How many people really long for god? Not so many Christians, not so many Hindus, not so many Mohammedans. The whole world is religious in that way. But people are afraid of being left alone; they have to be part of some crowd — a political crowd, a social crowd, a religious crowd; any crowd will do, but they are dependent on the crowd. They feel good when they are surrounded by people; they start feeling shaky, scared when they find there is nobody and they are alone. That is the fear that grips you when you are lost in a jungle or in a desert where, as far as you can see, there is nobody. That utter aloneness creates great fear because we are conditioned by the crowd, for the crowd, as part of the crowd. We are not brought up as individuals. We are brought up as small units of a great mechanism called the society, the nation, the church.

People are not satisfied with these crowds — they create their small crowds — because when the crowd is very big you start losing yourself in the crowd. It becomes impossible for you to recognise people, to see who is who; hence people create small crowds of their own: the Rotary Club, the Lion’s Club. These are just small crowds where everybody knows everybody else, where everybody is acquainted with everybody else. The greatest fear arises when you move inwards… because it is possible to find a man in the desert, it is possible to find somebody in the jungle when you are lost.

I have heard a story: Once a hunter got lost in the jungle. He tried for three days continuously, but he could not find any way to get out. He got deeper and deeper in the thicker parts of the jungle. He became desperate: he could not sleep, there was nothing to eat. After three days he thought ‘This is death. Now I cannot survive.’ He shouted and did everything and on the third day evening, he suddenly saw a man coming. They both rejoiced, both ran towards each other and hugged each other. They were absolutely unacquainted, but what a joy to see another man! But soon they found that that joy was wrong, they were disillusioned: both were lost. Each was thinking ‘Now I have found a person who will help me to get out,’ and both rejoiced for a moment, but the moment they explained to each other why they were rejoicing so much, both were shocked.

They were still lost in the same way, but they were not in so much despair. At least they could share their misery, they could communicate, relate, talk to each other, converse, do something — together. They were still lost in the same way but somehow it felt different.

That’s how marriage came into existence. Two lost people for a moment enjoy the honeymoon, thinking ‘I have found the person whom I was seeking,’ and each is thinking the same; soon they will be disillusioned. But still, even though they will be miserable, they will be miserable together. It is better, people think, to be miserable together than to be miserable alone; in fact in togetherness misery is multiplied. But people love togetherness because we are brought up in that way. From the very first moment of birth the child depends on the mother, on the father, on the family. Then his circle becomes bigger, but he always remains part of some group, some collectivity.

Meditation is the only phenomenon where there is no possibility of meeting anybody, where you have to go alone, totally alone. Hence only very courageous people can enter into the world of meditation. That’s why so few people have ever entered, Why so few people have ever become enlightened.

Secondly: when you move inwards you move without any maps. Even if you go to the moon you have a certain map, a certain route. There have been people before you, their footprints are there, there are milestones everywhere. Even in the sea you are not totally lost, in the sky you are not totally lost: you can communicate with people, you can give messages — even from the moon! You can remain in some kind of relationship; it may be just through radio waves, but you can remain connected. You can still hear the voices of people, you can still see that others are there; you are connected.

But when you move inwards, the people who have gone in cannot leave any footprints for anybody. It is impossible, because everybody’s inner territory is so different that Buddha’s footprints won’t help you and if you follow Buddha’s footprints literally, you will never find yourself.

Jesus’ map won’t help you; you cannot follow it literally. It can help in a very indirect way; it can make you aware of certain things inside, but in a very vague sense. It can give you the confidence that ‘Yes, there is a world inside, no doubt about it, because so many people cannot be lying. Buddha, Jesus, Zarathustra, Lao Tzu, Mahavira, Krishna, Mohammed, such beautiful people cannot all be lying. They cannot be in a conspiracy — for what? They never existed together — they lived in different ages, in different countries — yet they all speak almost the same language… But you cannot follow it exactly because Buddha’s inner territory is different. Each individual is unique, so unique that you have to discover yourself all alone; hence great courage is needed. This is the greatest adventure in life, and one who goes on this adventure is blessed.

Source – Osho Book “The Imprisoned Splendor”