Darshan 22 April 1977

Prem Saraha. I'm talking about saraha these days (in the morning discourses). Prem means love and saraha means one who has attained the target - one who has attained the target of love. It is still a possibility, but it can become actual; I give the name with a great hope. It is not yet actual but it can become actual, with just a little effort and a little awareness.

Man is not aware of how much he can be, and he goes on living at the minimum. Now psychologists say that even very great geniuses use only fifteen percent of their intelligence - so what to say of the ordinary, the average person? He uses near about five to seven percent of his intelligence. And that is about intelligence; nobody has bothered about love.

When I look at people I see that rarely does a person use his love energy - rarely. And that is the real source of joy.

We use seven percent or at the most fifteen percent of our intelligence. So even our greatest genius lives at the minimum; eighty-five percent of intelligence will be sheer wastage, he will never use it.

And one never knows what would have become possible if he had used one hundred percent of his intelligence.

And we are not using even five percent of our love - we are not using it at all. We go on pretending the game of love but really the love energy is not used. And that is the only energy that makes a man closer to god.

Intelligence brings you closer to the outside reality and love brings you closer to the inner reality.

And god is the innermost core of existence - so the only way to know god is love! There is no other way, love is the only way of knowing.

[A sannyasin said she had had a wonderful marriage for ten years with her husband until their young housemaid committed suicide because of her love for the husband. Since that incident nothing has been the same.... ]

First thing: it has nothing to do with the girl's suicide; that is just an excuse. It almost always happens in every marriage - you cannot live forever in happiness. It was easier to be happy when you were not married. Once you get married, things become difficult; it is a natural process. It has nothing to do with the girl and her suicide, it has nothing to do personally with you or your husband; it has something to do with the very process of marriage. Once you understand that, things will become clear.

When two persons are in love they are free, individuals. They have freedom, love is not a duty. It is out of their freedom that they give to each other, and they are free to say no. If they are saying yes that is their decision - it is not an obligation, it is not a fulfillment of any expectation of the other.

Because you enjoy giving love, you give. And any moment you can change, because no promise has been made, no commitment has been made. You remain two free individuals - meeting out of freedom, loving out of freedom, but your individuality and your freedom is intact. Hence the beauty!

The beauty is not only of love, it is more of freedom than of love. The basic ingredient of beauty is freedom; love is a secondary ingredient. Love is also beautiful with freedom, because freedom is beautiful. Even love becomes beautiful when it is with freedom. Once the freedom is gone, love becomes ugly - and then all the ugliness enters it. And then you will be surprised at what happened.

Where has that beauty gone? Where has that love energy gone?

Once you get married you are settling, you are dropping your freedom for convenience sake. You are thinking more in terms of security than in terms of freedom - that's what marriage is. Marriage is the victory of security over the insecurity of freedom.

So of course you will have to pay the price. Security is never free, nothing is ever free; we have to pay a price for everything. For every choice we have to pay a price.

So once you get married, freedom is lost. With that freedom, seventy-five percent of love will disappear. And the joy of it, the sharing of it, will disappear - now it will be almost a part of duty.

And the more you live together, the heavier becomes ordinary reality on the romantic quality of your affair. Small things which had never bothered you before will start bothering you. You want to go to one movie and he wants to go to another, and there will be conflict. It had never bothered you before; wherever he wanted to go you were ready to go, wherever you wanted to go he was ready to go. It was just joy to be together, wherever - the movie was irrelevant. Now to be together will be irrelevant, the movie will become more relevant - because you are together for twenty-four hours a day. In fact you are going to the movie to avoid each other.

First you used to go to the movie to meet each other - the total quality is different now. First you used to go to the beach, to the mountains, to be with each other! Now you would like to go somewhere where you can avoid the other. It is becoming too much - being twenty-four hours together, it is getting heavy.

And then small things, very small things... the husband has left his clothes on the floor. Now, lovers will never think of these things - but married people will start thinking, 'This is not right - he should be a little more careful. I have told him so many times!' And this may create a conflict. Or he may go on smoking - and you don't like smoking, you hate the smell of it.

When he was kissing you before, he was smoking then also - but the kiss was so precious that you never bothered about the smell. Now, by and by, you are becoming -accustomed to the kiss; now it is nothing new, it has no mystery left, it is just routine. It has been taken for granted; now the smell of smoking that comes from his mouth is too much.

Small things - your perspiration, your body smell, this and that and everything. And now, by and by, you are acquainted with each other's body, each other's possibility, each other's love-making - so the curiosity, the exploring mind, is no more there. It is almost a repetition every day. Who loves repetition? Repetition kills everything.

Now he will start fantasising about other women: they will look more beautiful, more charming. Not that they are, but they will look it, because they are not accessible, they are far away. And you will start thinking of other men. Deep down in the unconscious, other people will look more beautiful, other couples will look more happy, and you will start thinking 'Why are we not happy? Why is everybody else happy? Look - people are smiling, and we are not smiling. Why is this happiness not happening to us?'

And deep down you start becoming interested in others. It is natural, nothing is wrong in it, nothing is immoral in it - it is part of the security. You become dull, you are not interested. It is almost like going and seeing the same movie again and again; for how many days can you remain interested?

And if you get married to a movie, then won't you go crazy? It is simply amazing that people are married and not mad! Or maybe they are, but the madness is so much the norm that you cannot think about it as madness.

So the first thing: drop the idea of that girl. That has nothing to do with you or with your love affair, your marriage. That was her thing, mm? she must have been mad. That is her business, it is nothing to do with you. She must have been suicidal - she would have committed suicide somewhere else.

It doesn't matter where, but somewhere, in some way, she would have found a reason. Because she had never been in love. Your husband did not know anything about it - she was not even old enough to fall in love and do such things. But she must have been suicidal - any excuse was enough.

She must have been fantasising in her mind, and the fantasy was destroyed. That is her problem - that is not your problem, not your husband's problem, that is just an excuse.

You are again trying to believe that your marriage is perfectly good. Because of that girl and because she committed suicide, everything has gone wrong. You are still trying to delude yourself, you are still trying to protect the marriage. In fact that girl's suicide is functioning as a protection. You can throw all responsibility on her - she is like a scapegoat.

Forget about it - she has nothing to do with it. Encounter the situation: it is marriage itself! It is the suicide that you both have committed by marriage; that is the real problem.

[She answers: Our marriage is very open.]

No marriage is open, otherwise why should you bother about marriage?

[She says: The energy - it is a matter of the energy that we had running between us.]

The moment that energy is not running between you, that simply means you are stuck together.

What I am trying to say is, don't try to protect it. Rather, look into it, into where the problem is - otherwise you will never find the cause. You can find false causes, because you don't want to touch the real cause. The real cause is that both of you are no more in love. It is hard' to say it that way, but the truth has to be accepted. That's why the energy is no more flowing.

And it is very difficult to be in love for a long time. It needs a great transformation in your being - only then can you be in love for a long time. The ordinary love is a very momentary thing; it comes and goes, it starts and it ends, it has a beginning and it has an end.

So, rather than rationalising, just look into the phenomenon that you are no more in love. It will be hard! It is not the otherwise - not that the love is there and the energy is no more flowing. How can it happen? Love is the energy: if love is there, energy will flow.

Maybe you are in love with your past love - that's possible. Maybe you are in love with your past memories - how beautiful things were and how energy was flowing and now it is not flowing. It is a hangover from the past. You are continuously thinking about the past, and you want the present also to be like the past. But it cannot be done. The present is totally different from the past - and it is good that it is different! If it were just a repetition of the past you would be fed-up, completely bored.

So both look into the reality and try to find out the truth. If you are not in love any more, then one thing can be done: you can be friends. There is no need to force - and love cannot be forced. If you force it, it will be a hypocrisy and it will never satisfy anybody.

So just look into the thing. You have been lovers in the past, so at least you can be friends. Just look into it! Maybe if you decide to be friends, love may start flowing again - because again you will start being free, again you will start becoming individuals, again the security will be gone, again those elements which have destroyed your love will disappear. There is a possibility love may start flowing again.

Just as you got married one day, now get divorced and just be friends. First your love happened - you were friends, you just came together. Love arises out of friendship, and then sooner or later it becomes a relationship and there is no friendship - then it dies. If you really want to revive it again.... And I am not saying that it is a certainty - nobody can say anything about it - but there is a possibility that it may revive. Or even if it doesn't revive, you can revive a love with somebody else, your husband can love somebody else.

Always remember one thing: to be in love is good - that is great virtue. If it is not flowing with one person, then it is better to let it be flowing with somebody else. But don't get stuck - otherwise you will suffer, you will make him suffer, you both will suffer. And the problem is that if you suffer long enough, you will become addicted to your suffering. Then you will start feeling a sort of enjoyment in your suffering itself. You may become masochists, and then it will be very very difficult to get out of it. Right now the problem is not big.

[In response to questions she tells Osho her husband is in London; he is not a sannyasin.]

Go back and talk to him and tell him to be truthful. Mm? you have loved each other - at least this much you owe to each other, to be truthful, to be absolutely truthful. Put all the cards out on the table and don't try to hide; because that is not going to help. Only truth helps. Lies never help - they can only postpone the problem, and meanwhile the problem will be getting more and more roots in you. So the sooner the better....

Go and tell him to be honest - even if it hurts. Tell him that it will hurt but nothing to be worried about. You have been happy together; if it hurts, that too has to be faced. Be absolutely true - no finding of scapegoats, no witch hunting, no rationalisation. Just be true. Look into yourself, show your heart, and help him also to be true. If love is finished, then be friends, there is no need to force it. Maybe, some day again....

It happened once, an indian film actress asked me.... The problem was exactly the same, and I suggested divorce - because there was no meaning in carrying on in it for too long. They got divorced. After seven years their daughter was getting married, so they met again. For seven years they had never met - and they fell in love again with each other!

She came running to me and she said 'This is impossible, but it has happened! For seven years we had not even seen each other, not even written a single letter, but our daughter was getting married, so we had to be together - and suddenly...!' They got married again!

But I told them to be aware now: the same thing could repeat itself again.

Love needs so much awareness to keep it flowing - and we are not so aware, so again and again it stops.

Just go and don't be worried, mm? If one door is closed, another will open.

Never betray love. Lovers change - that is not a problem, that should not be a problem; we should not become attached too much to persons. Let there be only one commitment, and that has to be to love itself! Be in love with love, and everything else is secondary.

And be courageous - that courage will help. Otherwise you will both pretend that because of this and because of that... and you will go on being miserable. Never remain in misery for a single moment. Live dangerously - because that is the only way to live. And now that you are a sannyasin I hope you will be courageous enough to face it. If it is no more there, it is no more there.

And maybe just making everything open, looking at things again with fresh eyes, something may happen! It may be there - maybe it is burdened too much with nonsense. If you are putting things openly you may become unburdened, he may become unburdened, you may start feeling for each other again. But next time, if you do start feeling for each other again, don't do the same that you have done before.

Each marriage kills love. Very rarely have I come across a marriage which has not killed love - it is a miracle It is not the rule, it is the exception - and the exception simply proves the rule.

Don't be worried, mm? Just go with courage.

[A visitor says he enjoys his work as a university professor very much. His conflict is: am I greedy for wanting more or is it for my growth?]

Remember one thing: we can never have the world the way we like it, so we have to like it the way it is. If you really want to be happy, then start liking it the way it is. Because we only have a Very short time here. If we start thinking about the perfect situation, we will miss the opportunity of being happy. So make the best that you can of it: it is an imperfect world, and nowhere can you find a situation which will ht you perfectly.

For example, you make friends and they move. In some other situation you will make friends and they will never move, and then you will be stuck. That too can all be very very burdensome - just having the old friends, everything dust and dirt and old.

If you are in a situation where you cannot have new friends every day, then use the beauty of old friendship as much as you can. If you are in a situation where friends change every day, that's perfectly good - you have the opportunity to make new friends, fresh friendship. And fresh friendships have a beauty of their own. Life is more alive, there is more adventure. To be friendly with a stranger is more adventurous, to trust the stranger is more adventurous and more dangerous, ant to go on finding new persons to love and be friendly with will help you to flow more. I can understand.... Again and again they will be gone - by the time things are settling and you are feeling that now things are becoming secure, they are gone. But it is good!

I myself have never lived a long time in any town. The moment I saw that now things had settled, I simply moved! Nobody will think that I can move from poona, but any day I can move - now things have settled!

Nothing to be worried about - enjoy it! My approach is that whatsoever you have got, make the best use of it. And don't hanker for the impossible; it never happens and in the search for it you lose all that could have happened. To seek the impossible is to miss the possible - and the possible is all that is!

So enjoy new people, new friendships, fresh relationships - it is a more dynamic way of life, more flowing. It is not like a stagnant pool: it is a river.

Always look from an angle from which you can find more happiness in it and more joy. Ordinarily our mind always finds faults - hence it makes us miserable. Misery is an attitude.

If you are lazy, then don't find fault with laziness. Find the philosophy of it - read Lao Tzu, tao, and enjoy laziness! If you are active, then don't find fault with it; forget Lao Tzu and Tao - that has nothing to do with you, that doesn't relate to you. Then Nietzsche will be good.

But always find the thing that will make you more happy; and it is available everywhere! If a man has decided to be happy, then in no situation can he be made unhappy. And if a man has a wrong attitude then in no situation will he ever be happy. Happiness is an attitude, so is unhappiness.

So first try this - start enjoying this situation that you are in. And if you find it almost impossible, then change the place; don't remain in it for long, either enjoy it or move. And the mind is always in a dilemma, because half of it you like and half of it you don't like. But then one has to choose.

[The visitor answers: That's the rub - making a choice is very difficult.]

It is not difficult - you can consult the 'i ching' or you can just toss a coin. It is not difficult - it is such a simple thing. Just toss a coin, and whatsoever the coin says, move with it. Try, mm? And come back for a longer time.

[A sannyasin says that he keeps looking at the whole sexuality and wants to get out of it but doesn't know ho. He feels the homosexuality is not natural.]

There is no need to get out of anything....

Enjoy it! Why get out of it? If, by enjoying it, one day you are out of it, that too is okay - but there is no need to get out of it. Whatsoever comes natural is good - easy is right.

... The unnatural cannot happen - that's my definition of nature. How can the unnatural happen, just tell me? If it happens it must be natural - otherwise how can it be? And it is happening only to man because man is more alert and conscious, because man is more intelligent - he finds out new ways to relate.

Now, if you watch animals you will see that they always make love in a certain posture, in a certain way. It is only man who has found many postures, many ways - this is man's intelligence, his creativity. No animals have any choice about how to make love. Mm? they don't have any vatsayana's 'kama sutra'.

It is said that the original 'kama sutra' had eighty-four thousand postures. Now it has only eighty-four but the original had eighty-four thousand! He must have been a rare genius, this man vatsayana.

And you can go to khajuraho some time and see all sorts of weird and bizarre postures. You cannot even believe how they are possible - a man and woman standing on their heads and making love!

This is man's creativity, great intelligence - no animal can think about it. It is only man who can think about it, who can find novelties.

So nothing to be worried about! In fact when you are in love with a woman or a woman is in love with a man, it is a biological phenomenon. When a man is in love with a map or a woman is in love with a woman, it is more psychological than biological. In fact it shows that you have, in a way, gone beyond the ordinary biology. You have taken a step aside - you are fed-up with the ordinary biology, you want to relate in a certain new way which only man can do.

So always look at things in a very positive attitude. It has happened to you, it must be something in you that has evolved into it. Now don't bother what others say - nobody has the right to interfere with your life. It is your life, and if you decide to be homosexual it is perfectly okay. Accept it in deep love and gratitude.

If some day you find yourself turning and moving and changing into a heterosexual, perfectly good!

A man who is a fixed heterosexual has a certain limitation, a man who is a fixed homosexual has a

certain limitation - the man who is bisexual is more free. So the future is going to be bisexual. Even the revolution that homosexuality brought into the human mind is outdated - the future is going to be bisexual. A man will be capable of relating in both ways, and he will have more freedom, more possibility to choose - no fixed attitude, no fixation.

It is possible that some day in the future psychoanalysts will say that in the past people had fixations - somebody was a homosexual, fixed; somebody was a heterosexual, fixed - now people are more free. That will become the normal, healthy consciousness - freedom. That too is a freedom.

Always look at things so that you can find something good to be happy about. Life is short, and happiness is very difficult, so don't miss any opportunity to be happy.

Ordinarily we go on doing the opposite: we don't miss any opportunity to be unhappy - everything makes us unhappy! Heterosexuals are not happy and homosexuals are not happy. The homosexual is worried: how to get out of it? And do you think that heterosexuals are very happy? They don't seem to be happy at all. They are burdened with a thousand and one problems. People who are bachelors are unhappy, they feel they are lonely. And people who are married are unhappy - they think why did they get tied in the first place?

Everybody is unhappy here; and my whole approach is to make you happy. Now there are two ways:

either I should tell you 'Do this, then you will be happy.' Then you will never be happy - this is what has been done to humanity. There have been people who have been saying 'You can be happy, but do this first. First be heterosexual then you will be happy.' Now they have created unhappiness for you.

For the heterosexual they say 'Become celibate, then you will be happy.' They always have clues for people. 'Whatsoever you are not' they go on saying 'be that and you will be happy.' And you cannot be that, so you are never happy. And you never see the trick of it, that this is the whole process of making you unhappy.

I want you to be happy right now, so I cannot say 'Be that.' I can simply say 'Whatsoever you are, be happy in it'! If out of happiness it changes, good; if it doesn't change, very good. Relax!