OSHO - The danger of love.....

The danger of love....." - OSHO Talks.

When love is enlightened, it is compassion...

Question: The thing that's confusing me is this. If there was love between us, then how could it have been destructive?

Answer:

"Love can be destructive in many ways, because love is not necessarily enlightened, not necessarily.

A mother loves the child and the whole world is suffering because mothers love their children. 

Ask the psychiatrists, the psychologists. They say that every neurosis can be reduced to the mother- child relationship. Many people in the mad asylums are suffering from nothing but love. Fathers love their sons, priests love, politicians love. Everybody is loving but love is not necessarily enlightened.

When love is enlightened, it is compassion. Then it is of a totally different quality. It gives you freedom. Its whole function is to give freedom, absolutely. And not only that it talks about freedom - it makes every effort to make you free and it makes every effort to destroy all the hindrances that come on the path of freedom.

So love can be, but it may not be very alert. Then it is destructive. Love plus awareness is equal to compassion. Love alone is not enough, otherwise the world would already have become a paradise.

You love your woman, your woman loves you, but what happens finally? Nothing but destruction.

Your love is okay but you are not okay. Something is there deep down in the unconscious which goes on creating things that you are not aware of. So one can be very loving - and that's the danger of love.

A person need not be a Buddha to love; that's the problem. One can love, and sometimes love is more harmful than hate because you cannot defend yourself against love. If I love you, how will you defend yourself? Even the idea to defend yourself will make you feel guilty. You will become vulnerable and because I love you, I will be dominant. Love can become a very subtle politics, and it does. It becomes very dictatorial.

So love is not necessarily freedom. It should be - that is the ideal. So always remember, if you love somebody with awareness, only then is it going to be a blessing. Otherwise, nobody knows - you may talk, you may even desire, you may intend it to be a blessing, but that doesn't matter. The total result is going to be wrong because somewhere you are wrong.

Once you understand that it is very easy to become powerful through love, once you have understood the politics of love and you have become efficient in it, there is a great technique in your hands and people will just be victims. They will not know how to escape because even the idea will make them feel guilty. The man loves you so much - where are you going?

You cannot find a worse mother than a good mother, can you? It is impossible. A good mother is so good that she kills you completely. Even a bad mother is better because at least with a bad mother you can fight and through fight you can become yourself. With a good mother there is no chance; with good parents there is no chance. You are doomed.

So love is not necessarily a blessing. Out of one hundred cases, in ninety-nine cases, love is a curse... sweet poison. And when the poison is sweet, one tends to forget that it is poison.

Awareness is the most important thing. The presence of an aware person, even if he is not loving, is going to be a blessing. He may not bother about love at all. He may not be loving at all; he may be very very hard. A zen master will be very hard, almost cruel. He can beat you. He can throw you out of the window. He will not show any love whatsoever, but he will show awareness and his awareness is going to be a blessing.

I don't say that love should be denied, but love should not be the first. Awareness should be the first.

Love has to follow like a shadow.

Whenever you are eating something, nourishment should be the first thing, taste, second. If it has good flavour and good taste, very good, but one should not think that taste is enough to make anything nourishing or that good flavour is essential. That's how synthetic food, false food, is becoming more and more prevalent in the world, because now people understand what taste is liked, what flavour is liked and what colour is liked. These are not essential things.

You don't eat colour, you don't eat flavour, you don't eat taste. They are good if they are there, but if you eat something which has nothing to do with them and that something has vitality, the aliveness of the food, the organicness of it, that is the most essential thing.

So awareness is first and love is second. Good, if a master can manage to be loving and his lovingness does not become a substitute for his awareness. Otherwise it is better to drop love and just be aware because then you will not harm anybody.

Now, in the West, people are missing love. You have to understand that. Family life is almost gone.

The old days of a loving atmosphere are no more there. Everywhere is conflict and violence, struggle between the children and parents, between husband and wife, man and woman, this class and that, between white and black. Everywhere there is conflict, struggle, violence, aggression, anger. Love has disappeared - and love is a basic need of humanity.

So anybody who shows a little love, people become mad after him. Now there will arise many people who will show love and will dominate you. Love is now going to be the politics of the future, because people are missing love so much that anybody can put his hand on your head and you feel tremendously thrilled. That's how gurus have become so dominant and prominent in the West. It has almost become a great traffic from the East. People who were of no value here have become great masters there, like M...juststupidpeople.Buttheyaregreatmastersbecausetheyjustshowyoulove.

The West is in a great turmoil and some basic ingredient is missing. Somebody has to fulfill it, and many people are fulfilling it. I have seen many people who have no value in the East becoming great masters there. They are nothing, but your need is very much.

When one is hungry, one starts eating anything. When one is thirsty, one can drink dirty water. In deserts it happens sometimes that a person has to drink his own urine. No water - what to do? It is unthinkable ordinarily; but when you are dying, one doesn't bother whether it is urine or water.

Anything will do. People kill their animals, their horses or camels, and drink their blood.

That's what is happening: love is missing and people are in search of love. Whomsoever can patronise you, whomsoever has known your need and can just give you an idea of a father and mother.... You have missed your mother, you have missed your father, so anybody can come and say, 'I am your father.' So, father-figures will arise, mother-figures will arise - and they're all substitutes. They're not going to help very much. They are temporary arrangements and can be destructive if one clings to them for very long.

So even when you see the facticity of one person, you start moving to another guru. From there you will go somewhere else, but look deeply into what you are searching for. If you are searching for love, then love has to arise in your heart. Whatsoever is your need has to come out of your being.

And find a man, find a community, where love is not given to you but ways and methods are given to you so that you can grow into love yourself. Consolations are not given to you. These are very simple. I can be loving to you and can console you, but this is not going to help. The only thing that can help is something to help your growth.

Somewhere you are stuck and you have not been yet able to find your heart. So how to help to find your heart ? That cannot be done by becoming dependent. Surrender is good to learn, very good to trust, but one should always remember that surrender is just the beginning. Freedom is the end.

Be here, meditate, do a few groups, and let us see what can be done, mm?"