Osho on love as a disease and meditation the medicine..
Oceans of ink have stained mountain loads of paper in documenting definitions, stories and explanations of love. Yet there are heartbreaks and hurts. We are all forever searching for that perfect love, that unparalleled understanding that will make us feel loved. We want to be cosily held in a loving embrace. We want to belong and to own.
And therein lays the problem. “Love can flow only between two freedoms,” asserts Acharya Rajneesh aka Osho.
Osho has helped thousands steer a balanced course of life. He has met and counselled innumerable couples. He tells of a particular twosome; both of them claimed that the partner did not understand them. And this after 40 years of marriage, says Osho. “Are you not listening?” he wonders. “Listen to your partner,” he advises and strongly recommends meditation for all. “Meditation gives you the qualities of silence, awareness, a patient listening, a capacity to put yourself in the other’s position.”
Dissatisfaction with one’s partner leads to thoughts about having missed the boat with ‘someone better’. “Do you even know this ‘someone better’? They exist only in your imagination. You imagine an ideal partner and want to be with them.” The thought or sight of your own spouse triggers a huge negative response in you. It happens once, then twice, until it becomes a habit.
“And it is the arrangement between a man and a woman that society has prescribed that is to be blamed for this, for it is an arrangement of ownership.”
The lady or the man has invested in the belief that this person belongs only to them. When that doesn’t happen, (and it cannot happen), they suffer. “They are deceived by their own investments.”
A question might arise in the mind of the reader – does ‘freedom’ mean that there is no fidelity? When we marry, we expect emotional and sexual exclusivity. So if we are to be free in love, does it mean that one partner can step out of the marriage, thereby causing distress to the one who does not? “Love is not sexual passion. Those who mistake sex for love remain empty of love. Sex is only a passing manifestation of love. It is part of nature’s mechanism, a method of procreation. Love exists on a higher plane, and as love grows, sex dissipates.” If a couple believes this, then a person will not be tempted to stray; if perchance they do, the other will forgive.
“Two persons living together in love should make it a point that their relationship is continuously growing, bringing more flowers every season, creating more joys. Just sitting together silently is enough….”
Osho cites the instance of a couple who had had a ‘love marriage’. Over time, all they did was avoid being alone together; they simply did not enjoy each other’s company any more. They had lost touch, stopped listening to each other.
“Have you just sat by her side sometimes, silently, just holding her hand, not saying a word, just feeling her, and letting her feel you? No, that is not done in India at all.” Osho urged the couple to make time for each other.
“Love is a hierarchy, from the lowest rung to the highest, from sex to super consciousness.” At the highest rung of this hierarchy “… you are available unconditionally.” That is possible only if love becomes more and more meditative. Says Osho, “Medicine and meditation come from the same root. Love as you know it is a kind of disease: it needs the medicine of meditation. If it passes through meditation, it is purified. And the more purified it is, the more ecstatic.”
“Love surpasses the duality of the ego. This alone is truth.” Everyone is part of The One. Once we understand this, we create loving relationships in our life. We don’t magnify and compound strife into becoming a disaster. Instead, we cultivate tolerance and understanding.
“You are here basically to listen and understand. You are here to grow spiritually.” Osho tells his followers. Our lives present us with numerous ways of doing this, ‘couple love’ is one of them.
Originally published on www.bonobology.com and reproduced here under arrangement :
- “Love can flow only between two freedoms,” OSHO - November 30, 2016
