From Love to Lovingness!

The word love can have two absolutely different meanings- not only different but diametrically opposite. One meaning of love is relationship; the other meaning is love as a state of being. The moment love becomes a relationship, it becomes bondage, because there are demands and there are frustrations, and an effort from both the sides to dominate. It becomes a struggle for power. Relationship is not the right thing. But love as a state of being is totally different. It means you are simply loving; you are not creating a relationship out of it. Your love is just like the fragrance of a flower. It does not create a relationship; it does not ask you to act in a certain way. It demands nothing. It simply shares. And in sharing also there is no desire for any reward. The sharing itself is the reward.

When love is a state, you cannot do anything about it. It will radiate but not create any imprisonment for anybody, nor will it allow imprisonment for anybody, nor will it allow you to be imprisoned by anybody else.

But we are accustomed to creating relationships from our very childhood. A strange man and you have to create a relationship with him as your father. You can never be certain that he is your father.


There is a story of a palmist. An atheist, a young man who did not believe in God and did not believe in any kind of bullshit, palmistry etc. went to this palmist and said “if your science is true, just read my hand and tell me where my father is right now”

The palmist looked at his hand and said, “Your father has gone fishing.” The atheist laughed and said, “that’s why I say; it is all non-sense. My father has been dead for the last three years; how can he go fishing today”

The palmist said, “That’s none of my business, but the truth is, the man who died was not your father. Your real father is fishing. You go to your mother and ask. If she is sincere and honest, she will tell you that the man who died was not your father- although you had created a relationship because you were told that he is your father”

Our whole life is surrounded by many kinds of relationships. And relationship as such, real or imaginary, is a very subtle kind of psychological slavery. Either you enslave the other or you become a slave yourself.

Another point to be noted is that, you can not enslave somebody without becoming a slave yourself. Slavery is a double-edged sword. One may be stronger, one may be weaker, but in every relationship we become the jailor and the other person becomes the prisoner. From the other side, you are the prisoner and they are the jailor. And this is one of the basic reasons of humanity living in such sadness, in such a sorrowful state.

Let your love be a being. Not that you fall in love, but just that you are loving. It simply is your nature. Love, to you, is just the fragrance of being. Even if you are alone, you are surrounded by loving energy.
Two persons can be loving together. The more loving they are, the less is the possibility of any relationship. The more loving they are, the more freedom exists between them. The more loving they are, the less is the possibility of any expectations. And hence naturally, there is no question of your frustrations.

When two persons are in a relationship and their expectations are not fulfilled and they are not going to be fulfilled- then immediately love turns into hate. Expectations were there and now frustrations are there, but first they were projecting their expectations and now they are projecting their frustrations. Neither can see that they are surrounded by their own unconscious ideas and they are suffering.

And just as they were imagining love, they were appreciating the other, not knowing the other at all, now they are condemning the other. That’s why it should be remembered; don’t have any expectations, love because love is your inner growth. Your love will help you to grow towards more light, towards more truth, towards more freedom.

And hate is much stronger a relationship than your love, because your love is superficial. Your hate is very deep. Your hate is your whole animal heritage. Your love is the potential for the future; it is not actuality but only a seed.

Living with a woman that you don’t love, living with a man that you don’t love, living for safety, living for security, living for financial support, living together for any reason except love, makes it nothing but prostitution.

Be loving and remember that anything real is always changing. Existence is a constant change. But the notion, the idea that love should be permanent, if it is true…and if love disappears one day, then the natural corollary is that it was not true love.

The truth is that love came suddenly; it was not because of any effort on your part. It came as a gift of nature. When it came you would not have accepted it if you had been worried about its going suddenly one day.


--- discourse by Osho