My Own Truths are sometimes best spoke by others
You may be getting the impression I am a devotee or worshipper of Osho. No more so than I am a devotee of Buddha or Jesus or Krishna or Bob Dylan or Rumi, Bob Marley or The Beatles. When I read or hear things that reflect my own experience and truth, I share it. And more often than not, they say it so much more eloquently and succinctly than I would. Don't let the messenger trip you, I'm not trying to get you into any one person's bag... I'm just sharing my experiences and the things that "resonate" and vibrate all in and around me. I think that all of these prophets or great artists/thinkers are filters. The light that comes through them is from the same place...and while I appreciate and celebrate them individually, it is really the light that I worship and am devoted to. If it resonates with you, I am happy, if it doesn't, maybe it will in the future, or maybe it wont, there is no malicious intent. I don't want you to join a cult or religion. (India)
I am bringing you a new message. The message is no more to choose -- remain choicelessly alert in your life, and become intelligent rather than changing circumstances. Change your psychology, become more intelligent. More intelligence is needed to be blissful! And then you can have aloneness together with relationship.
Make your woman or your man also alert to the rhythm. People should be taught that nobody can love twenty-four hours a day; rest periods are needed. And nobody can love on order. Love is a spontaneous phenomenon: whenever it happens, it happens, and whenever it doesn't happen it doesn't happen . Nothing can be done about it. If you DO anything, you will create a pseudo phenomenon, an acting.
Real lovers, intelligent lovers, will make each other alert to the phenomenon: "When I want to be alone that does not mean that I am rejecting you. In fact, it is because of your love that you have made it possible for me to be alone." And if your woman wants to be left alone for one night, for a few days, you will not feel hurt. You will not say that you have been rejected, that your love has not been received and welcomed. You will respect her decision to be alone for a few days. In fact, you will be happy! Your love was so much that she is feeling empty; now she needs rest to become full again.
This is intelligence.
Ordinarily, you think you are rejected. You go to your woman, and if she is not willing to be with you, or not very loving to you, you feel great rejection. Your ego is hurt. This ego is not a very intelligent thing. All egos are idiotic. Intelligence knows no ego; intelligence simply sees the phenomenon, tries to understand why the woman does not want to be with you. Not that she is rejecting you -- you know she has loved you so much, she loves you so much -- but this is a moment she wants to be alone. And if you love her, you will leave her alone; you will not torture her, you will not force her to make love to you.
And if the man wants to be alone, the woman will not think, "He is no more interested in me -- maybe he has become interested in some other woman." An intelligent woman will leave the man alone, so he can again gather together his being, so that again he has energy to share. And this rhythm is like day and night, summer and winter; it goes on changing.
And if two persons are really respectful -- and love is always respectful, it reveres the other; it is a very worshipful, prayerful state -- then slowly slowly you will understand each other more and more. And you will become aware of the other's rhythm and your rhythm. And soon you will find that out of love, out of respect, your rhythm is coming closer and closer: when you feel loving, she feels loving. This settles. This settles on its own. k is a synchronicity.
Have you watched ever? If you come across two real lovers, you will see many things similar in them. Real lovers become as if they are brothers and sisters. You will be surprised -- even brothers and sisters are not so alike. Their expression, their way of walking, their way of talking, their gestures -- two lovers become alike, and yet so different. This naturally starts happening. Just being together, slowly slowly, they become attuned to each other. Real lovers need not say anything to the other -- the other immediately understands, intuitively understands.
If the woman is sad, she may not say it is so, but the man understands and leaves her alone. If the man is sad, the woman understands and leaves him alone -- finds some excuse to leave him alone. Stupid people do just the opposite: they never leave each other alone -- they are constantly with each other, tiring and boring each other; never leaving any space for the other to be.
Love gives freedom and love helps the other to be himself or herself. Love is a very paradoxical phenomenon. In one way it makes you one soul in two bodies; in another way it gives you individuality, uniqueness. It helps you to drop your small selves, but it also helps you to attain to the supreme self.
Then there is no problem: love and meditation are two wings, and they balance each other. And between the two you grow, between the two you reach to God.
Osho,
Philosophia Perennis, Vol 1
Chapter #5
Chapter title: Beep Beep!
The one thing I can say here, India is that loving feelings tend to outweigh hateful hurtful ones for which reason it is a good idea to cultivate as much love as is possible. And to my way of thinking love arises out of empathy, which I think is part of what you are saying here.
ReplyDeletethere's so much to it. here's a wonderful quote from Carson McCullers that offers an interesting slant as well:
First of all, love is a joint experience between two persons – but the fact that it is a joint experience does not mean that it is a similar experience to the two people involved. There are the lover and the beloved, but these two come from different countries. Often the beloved is only a stimulus for all the stored up love, which has lain quiet within the lover for a long time hitherto. And somehow every lover knows this. He feels in his soul that his love is a solitary thing. He comes to know a new strange loneliness and it is this knowledge, which makes him suffer. So there is only one thing for the lover to do. He must house his love within himself as best he can; he must create for himself a whole new inward world – a world intense and strange, complete in himself. Let it be added here that this lover about whom we speak need not necessarily be a young man saving for a wedding ring – this lover can be a man, woman, child, or indeed any human creature on this earth.
Now, the beloved can also be any description. The most outlandish people can be the stimulus for love. A man may be a doddering great grandfather and still love only a strange girl he saw in the streets of Cheehaw one afternoon two decades past. The preacher may love a fallen woman. The beloved may be treacherous, greasy-headed, and given to evil habits. Yes, and the lover may see this as clearly as anyone else – but that does not affect the evolution of his love one whit. A most mediocre person can be the object of a love, which is wild, extravagant, and beautiful as the poison lilies of the swamp. A good man may be the stimulus for a love both violent and debased, or a jabbering madman may bring about in the soul of someone a tender and simple idyll. Therefore, the value and quality of any love is determined solely by the lover himself.
It is for this reason that most of us would rather love than be loved. Almost everyone wants to be the lover. And the curt truth is that, in a deep secret way, the state of being loved is intolerable to many. The beloved fears and hates the lover, and with the best of reasons. For the lover is forever trying to strip bare his beloved. The lover craves any possible relation with the beloved, even if this experience can cause him only pain.
Carson McCullers. The Ballad of the Sad Café and Other Stories.
Bantam Books: USA, 1951. Pp 26-27.