To become aware of one’s own being is the beginnin
g of the journey towards love.In Being in 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.
Love vs Fear
Love is existential; fear is only the absence of love. And the problem with any absence is that you cannot do anything directly about it. Fear is like darkness. The way to darkness goes via light. If you want darkness, put the light off; if you don’t want darkness, put the light on.
Love is not a relationship; Love is relating
Love relates, but it is not a relationship. A relationship is something finished. A relationship is a noun; the full stop has come, the honeymoon is over. Now there is no joy, no enthusiasm, now all is finished. You can carry it on, just to keep your promises. You can carry it on because there is nothing else to do. You can carry it on because if you disrupt it, it is going to create much trouble for you. Relationship means something complete, finished, closed.
Love is never a relationship; love is relating. It is always a river, flowing, undending. Love knows no full stop; the honeymoon begins but never ends. It is not like a novel that starts at a certain point and ends at a certain point. It is an ongoing phenomenon. Lovers end, love continues. It is a coninuum. It is a verb, not a noun.
A commitment from one heart to another heart
If you enjoy being with somebody, you would like to enjoy it more and more. If you enjoy the intimacy, you would like to explore the intimacy more and more. And there are a few flowers of love that bloom only after long intimacies. There are seasonal flowers too; within six weeks they are there in the sun, but within six weeks again they are gone forever. There are flowers which take years to bloom, and there are flowers that keep blooming for many years to come. The longer it takes, the deeper it goes.
But it has to be a commitment from one heart to another heart. It has not even to be verbalized, because to verbalize it is to profane it. It has to be a silent commitment: eye to eye, heart to heart, being to being. It has to be understood, not said.
The exploration of consciousness
Relating meas you are always starting, you are always trying to become acquainted. Again and again, you are introducing yourself to each other. You are trying to see the many facets of the other’s personality. You are trying to penetrate deeper and deeper into his realm of inner feelings, into the deep recesses of her being. You are trying to unravel a mystery which cannot be unraveled.
That is the joy of love: the exploration of consciousness. Exploring the other, unawares you will be exploring yourself too. Getting deeper into the other, knowing his feelings, his thoughts, his deeper stirrings, you will be knowing your own deeper stirrings too. Lovers become mirrors to each other, and then love becomes a meditation.
The more you know, the more mysterious the other becomes
Go on searching and seeking each other, finding new ways of loving each other, finding new ways of being with each other. And each person is such an infinite mystery, inexahustible, unfathomable, that it is not possible that you can ever say, ‘I have known her, ‘ or ‘I have known him’. At the most you can say, ‘I have tried my best, but the mystery remains a mystery.’
In fact, the more you know, the more mysterious the other becomes. Then love is a constant adventure.
Complement Being in Love: How to Love with Awareness and Relate Without Fear with Erich Fromm on The Art of Loving, and The Mastery of Love.