Love is not something to get, love is something to give

Question 1:

It is easy to be a sculptor because you are working with lifeless objects. You can create beautiful statues but those statues are dead. You cannot relate with them, you are alive. There is no dialogue possible between life and death.

You can appreciate; you can enjoy - it is your creation. You can feel fulfilled - whatever you wanted, you succeeded in doing it. But remember one thing: on the other side, there is no one. You are alone.

Because of this situation, there are people who can love their dogs, who can love their gardens, who can love their cars, who can love anything in the world except man. Because man means you are not alone, the other is there. It is a dialogue. With a statue, it is a monologue. The statue is not going to say anything, is not going to criticize you, is not going to possess you. You possess the statue; you can sell it in the market. But that you cannot do with a human being. That is the problem.

When you start relating with human beings, you have to take into consideration that they are not things, they are consciousnesses. You cannot dominate them - although almost everybody is trying to do that, and spoiling their whole life. The moment you try to dominate a human being, you are creating an enemy, because that human being also wants to dominate. You may call it love, you may call it friendship, but behind the curtain of friendship and love and brotherhood there is a deep will to power. You want to dominate; you don't want to be dominated.

With human beings, you will be in constant conflict. The closer you are, the more the conflict will hurt you. There are thousands of people who have been so wounded by human relationship that they have dropped out of all human love, friendship. They have turned towards things. It is easier - the other party is always willing, whatsoever you want to do.

You are an artist, you sculpt. But have you ever thought about what you are doing? You are cutting chunks of the marble - that you cannot do to a human being, but people are doing that to human beings too. Parents are cutting their children's wings, their freedom, their individuality. Lovers are cutting each other continuously.

To be in love with a human being is not an easy affair. The love affair is the most difficult affair in the world for the simple reason that two consciousnesses, two alive beings, cannot tolerate any kind of slavery.

When the parents say to their children "Don't do this!" even the small child feels hurt, humiliated, insulted. And he's going to do it if he has any guts.

Near the village where I was born, just ten miles away, every year there used to be a very big religious fair, by the side of the river Narmada. That is one of the sacred religious rivers in India.

Perhaps it is the most sacred, for a mythological reason, because all other rivers are married - only Narmada is still virgin....

There is a beautiful place where Narmada comes out of the mountains and falls in a beautiful waterfall to reach the ground. I have seen many waterfalls but that waterfall has some uniqueness of its own. It is a very black stone, extraordinarily black, ugly ... and the Narmada falls in one thousand currents. It is not one fall, it is one thousand falls; it is the whole mountain.

Because of those one thousand rocks that the Narmada has cut, there is a mythology thousands of years old. There was a very monstrous king. He wanted to marry Narmada because, he said, "All rivers are already married. In my kingdom, I cannot allow Narmada to remain unmarried."

So he went to marry Narmada. But because of the purity of virginity ... a curse from Narmada turned him into stone. Those one thousand rocks are nothing but one thousand hands of that monster. He wanted to grab Narmada from everywhere; she's still falling out of those stone hands.

So a very beautiful fair happens every year. I wanted to see those one thousand hands, and how Narmada managed to remain virgin for millions of years. You will be surprised that the land where Narmada flows is the ancientmost land in the world. It came first out of the ocean - because in the mountainous regions from where Narmada comes, you can still find, very easily, dead sea animals.

And from Narmada, the sea is thousands of miles away. Certainly one day the mountain was under the ocean, and then the ocean receded and the first piece of earth came out of ocean. It is the most ancient part of the earth.

I wanted to see the most ancient mountain ... but I knew that if I asked my parents, they would say no. The place is dangerous because of all those rocks; many people have died. The whole river is full of rocks and to swim in it is dangerous, and they had said to me, "You will not be able to resist the temptation of swimming there."

So I did not ask them, I simply went. They were very much concerned ... reported to the police, sent a few people to look around, inquired at the railway station, the bus station where I had been seen last. But they could not find me. After three days, I came back. They were really angry. They said, "Where have you been?"

I said, "Where? I have been to the fair."

They said, "You should have at least asked us."

I said, "No, because I wanted to go. If I did not want to go, I would have asked. So remember, whenever I don't want to do something, I will ask you because I know the answer is no. And whenever I want to do something, I will simply do it. Now you can do whatsoever you want. If you want to beat me, you can beat me. If you want to punish me in some other way, you can do that.

But this is going to be my whole lifestyle. I will never ask for a thing that I am going to do. I don't want anybody else's advice about it."

My parents said, "Are you crazy or what? You will ask us only about things that you don't want to do?"

I said, "It is very simple. It is so simple that even God missed it. It is so obvious that even God forgot about it. He said to Adam and Eve, 'Don't eat the fruits of wisdom and eternal life.' Every father has been doing that since then, and every Adam and every Eve has to rebel."

If you are interested in doing something, you can do it without any problem if there is no other consciousness.

You are working on objects, on things. They cannot say yes, they cannot say no. Whatever you want to do with them, you can do, but not with man.

It is your fault that you have not yet become mature enough to understand that with human beings, if you want a loving relationship then you should forget all power politics. You can be just a friend, neither trying to dominate the other nor being dominated by the other. It is possible only if you have a certain meditativeness in your life. Otherwise, it is not possible.

To love a human being is one of the most difficult things in the world because the moment you start showing your love, the other starts going on a power trip. He knows you are dependent on him or on her. You can be enslaved - psychologically, spiritually - and nobody wants to be a slave. But all your human relationships turn into slavery.

No statue will make you a slave. On the contrary, the statue makes you a master craftsman, it makes you a creator, an artist. There is no conflict. The real test for love is with human beings.

And a man is really intelligent if he can make a human relationship work smoothly. It needs great insight. Creating a statue or making a beautiful painting is one thing - those paints won't say, "I don't want to be put on this corner of the canvas, I simply refuse!" Wherever you want it, the paint is available. But it is not so easy with human beings.

Every human being has a birthright not to be dominated by anyone - but also a birth duty not to try to dominate anyone. And only then, friendship can flower.

Love needs a clarity of vision. Love needs a cleaning of all kinds of ugly things which are in your mind - jealousy, anger, the desire to dominate.

I have heard ... in a marriage registrar's office, a couple came to get married. They filled out the forms. The woman looked at the man - they were lovers, and they had come to the registry office against their family, because in India, marriage is not done in the registrar's office. It is available.

Legally you can do it but that happens only when you are doing something against the family, against the society.

Those two people must have been in deep love. They had revolted against the society, against the religion, against their parents, against the family. They had risked everything and they were going to be married. And the woman looked at the man who was filling out the form - because she had filled out hers - and then she suddenly said to the registrar, "I want an immediate divorce."

He said, "What happened? You are filling out forms for marriage. Even the honeymoon has not happened. In fact, even marriage has not happened because I have not sealed it. Why do you want a divorce so suddenly?"

She said, "I hate this man!"

The registrar said, "This is strange - you brought him here?"

She said, "Yes, I brought him here. I used to love him, but when I saw his form ... he has signed in such BIG LETTERS! He was watching when I was signing. I signed just the way I always sign, and he has signed in letters three times bigger - almost half of the form is his signature. I don't want to live with this man, he has shown his domination, his power."

The registrar said, "Then there is no need of any divorce. Just throw away your forms in the wastepaper basket, because I have not sealed them, and get lost."

Such a small thing, that the man was signing in big letters but it is indicative. It shows that he's a male chauvinist.

What about your whole life? Everything is a problem, everything is a conflict. And the reason is that we have accepted a false idea that we know how to love. We don't know. We are coming from animals. Animals don't love.

Love is a very new thing in human life. Animals reproduce but they don't love. You will not find in buffalos, Romeo and Juliet, Laila and Majnu, Siri(*) and Farial(*), Soni(*) and Mahival(*). No buffalos are interested in such romantic things - they are very earthbound, they reproduce - and nature is perfectly satisfied with buffalos, remember. Nature may be trying to destroy humanity but nature is not trying to destroy buffalos and donkeys and monkeys, no. They are not problems at all.

Love is a new phenomenon that has arisen with human consciousness. You will have to learn it.

Creating beautiful paintings, poetries, sculpture, music, dances - that is all in your hands. But when you come into contact with a human being, you have to understand that on the other side is the same kind of consciousness. You have to give respect and dignity to the person you love. This is the reason why you cannot relate with human beings.

Forget about human beings and love - you simply meditate. That will release in you the insight, the vision, the clarity, and the energy to share.

Love is another name of sharing your abundant energy. You have too much, you are burdened with it. You would like to share it with people you like. Your love - what you call love - is not a sharing, it is a snatching.

Everybody's trying to snatch more love. The wife goes on saying, "You don't love me enough!" The husband goes on saying, "It seems you don't love me!"

Mulla Nasruddin had gone with his wife to see a movie. In the movie, the hero kisses the heroine very tenderly, and the wife nudges Mulla Nasruddin ... "You never do that."

Mulla Nasruddin said, "Don't disturb me. That woman is not his wife."

But Nasruddin's wife said, "You are wrong! I know the couple; the woman is the wife of the hero."

Mulla Nasruddin said, "My God, then he's really an actor! Only an actor can do that. I am not an actor, you just forgive me. If it is his wife ... I was thinking it must be somebody else. I can also kiss somebody else's wife, but kissing one's own wife? This must be the greatest actor we have in our country."

You will have to change the meaning of love. It is not something that you are trying to get from the other. And this has been the whole history of love - everybody is trying to get it from the other, as much as possible. Both are trying to get, and naturally, nobody is getting anything.

Love is not something to get.

Love is something to give.

But you can give only when you have it. Do you have love in you? Have you ever asked this question? Sitting silently, have you ever observed? Do you have any love energy to give?

You don't have; neither has anybody else. Then you get caught in a love relationship. Both are pretenders, pretending that they are going to give you the very paradise. Both are trying to convince each other that "Once you get married to me, a thousand Arabian nights will be forgotten - our nights, our days will all be golden."

But you don't know that you don't have anything to give. All these things you are saying just to get.

And the other is doing the same. Once you are married, then there is going to be trouble because both will be waiting for a thousand Arabian nights and not even an Indian night is happening!

Then there is an anger, a rage which slowly, slowly becomes poisonous.

Love turning into hate is a very simple phenomenon, because everyone feels betrayed. You show one face at the beach, in the movie hall, on the dance floor. It is perfectly okay for half an hour or one hour - sitting on the beach, holding each other's hands, dreaming about the beautiful life that is ahead of you. But once you are married, all that you have been expecting, dreaming, will start evaporating.

I have heard of one couple. They were entering a hotel with their suitcases, with the labels saying "Just Married." They were on their honeymoon. The man immediately went to the bed and covered himself with the blanket. The wife went into the bathroom to prepare for sleep.

The man said, "Please, put the lights off. I cannot sleep with lights on."

She said, "It is only a question of five minutes. I am coming, and then I will put them off."

He said, "First you have to put them off!"

And the quarrel started. The woman said, "Why, in the ... why can't you wait for five minutes? And you have been waiting for me for five years!"

The man said, "Forget about all that. You first put the lights off!"

The woman said, "I cannot do that. I will put them off when I come under the blanket."

The man said, "Strange ... what is the reason?"

The woman said, "If you are so rational, first tell me your reason - what are you going to lose in five minutes?"

He said, "It is better to tell you the truth ... because now it is going to be twenty-four hours together.

How long will I be under the blanket?"

The woman said, "What do you mean?"

The man said, "The reality is, one of my legs is false, so I want darkness to remove it so you don't see it."

The woman said, "That relaxes me because my hair is false, my teeth are false, my breasts are false ... now there is no problem, light or no light."

Listening to this - that the hair is false, the teeth are false, the breasts are false, the man jumped out of the bed and escaped, and he has not been found since. And he was dying to marry this woman!

Human relationship needs understanding.

My suggestion to you is: meditate. Become more and more silent, quiet, calm. Let a serenity arise in you.

That will help you in a thousand and one ways - not only in love, it will also help you to create better sculpture. Because a man who cannot love human beings ... how can he create? What can he create?

A loveless heart cannot be authentically creative. He can imitate, but he cannot create.

All creation is out of love, understanding, silence.

Question 2:

It is one of the most fundamental questions.

One does not know what truth is. But when one comes across it, a few things become clear: that whatever he has believed up to now was not truth, because it has not given him this depth in the eyes, this silence in his presence, this authority in his words, this poetry to his life.

The false is barren.

So although you do not know what is true, when you come across truth, you immediately know what is false. And if you understand what is false, a vague insight into truth starts arising in you. Because the truth that you see in my eyes is also in your eyes, just asleep. You have never awakened it.

Let the false go, and your eyes will have the same truth. Your words will have the same music, your presence will have the same charisma.

Nobody comes to know truth first. Everybody comes to know first the false, and as the false is dropped ... because in the very understanding that it is false, it slips out of your hands. And when the false is not there, what remains is the truth.

You may not have seen beauty. But looking at a sunset with all the colors on the horizon ... you may not be able to say that this is beauty, but you feel an awe. You know something is there that touches your heart, and perhaps even reaches to your very being. Seeing this, you will start thinking - if this is so impressive, so deep-reaching in you, so touching that you want to dance and sing, then what was your whole life? Because before this, you have been dancing too, but it was only a sociality.

The dance was not coming from you, it was only a social custom.

People were asking you to sing ... and you know the technical side of singing or playing music, but the technical side is not the real thing. You may sing, but your heart is not singing. You are simply being polite to the friends who are insisting that you sing. But when you see a sunset and you start singing ... nobody has asked. The sun has not asked, there is nobody around. Even you are surprised: from where is this song coming? Why are you feeling a tremendous urge to dance?

Knowing this dance and this song, all your dances and songs will become false, and you will know for the first time something of the truth.

In the East, it has been the oldest tradition: people used to go walking thousands of miles just to look into the eyes of Gautam Buddha, or Mahavira. Just to sit for two minutes close to Gautam Buddha, holding his feet in their hands ... and people have traveled thousands of miles. All those people were not fools - just these two minutes transformed their life. Now they know what a true man, what an authentic man means. They have touched his feet, they have felt his vibe, they have been showered by his love and compassion. They have looked into his eyes and seen the whole universe opening up. Those one thousand miles, walking for months, were worth it.

The day Gautam Buddha died, ten thousand sannyasins had gathered from all over the country, because this was the last time they would be able to see this man. Once he is gone, people will not even believe that such a man ever existed. They will not accept that Gautam Buddha is a historical person.

Ananda was Gautam Buddha's constant companion for forty years, but he had not become enlightened yet. Many who came later on became enlightened, but Ananda was stuck somewhere.

He asked about it many times.

Gautam Buddha said, "I know where you are stuck. I knew it the very first day you came to me."

Ananda was Gautam Buddha's cousin-brother and elder. When he came for initiation, he asked Gautam Buddha: "After initiation, I will be a disciple. Whatever you say, I will do it, there is no question of any doubt. So before I get initiated, I want you to promise me three things. As your elder brother, I demand it - right now, I am not your disciple."

Gautam Buddha laughed. He said, "Okay, what are your conditions?"

He said, "Not very great conditions, very small. One is that I will always be with you. You can not send me to spread the word, to faraway parts of the country, no. Twenty-four hours ... even in the night, I will sleep in your room. Granted?"

Buddha said, "Okay."

"And my second condition is that howsoever stupid a question may be, if I ask it, you will have to answer it. You cannot say,'This is stupid, meaningless.' You cannot avoid it, you cannot change the subject. You have to answer it. And third, if I bring someone to meet you, even in the middle of the night when you are asleep, I am entitled to wake you up because I have brought a friend to see you and meet you."

Buddha said, "Perfectly okay."

Ananda was initiated. After forty years, on the last day, when he was dying, Buddha said, "Because you made conditions on your master - just because of an ordinary relationship of being a cousin- brother - that's where you are stuck. You cannot forget that you are the elder brother of Gautam Buddha. Although you are a disciple, deep down you are still older than me. And in India, old age is very much respected. But don't be worried. The moment I die, within twenty-four hours you will become enlightened. Only my death can help. For forty years, you have been trying - nothing has happened. But even if it were just for you that I had to die, I would have died."

Ananda was crying.

Buddha said, "Don't waste time, don't waste your tears. Because of your egoistic idea of being an elder brother, you have not even seen into my eyes. Although you are holding my feet in your hands, I don't see that there is any communication."

Buddha died, and within exactly twenty-four hours, Ananda became enlightened. And for forty years, he had been sitting by the side of the river, thirsty.

If you can see me, not as a body ... if you can see into my eyes, if you can feel my presence, if something stirs in your heart, then certainly you will know that the life you have lived up to now is a life of falsity.

But once you have known even a little bit of the truth, you cannot go back. Then, there is only one way and that is to go ahead.

What you have seen in my eyes, others will see in your eyes soon. What you have felt in my presence, others will start feeling in your presence. Because whatsoever I have got, you have got.

It is just that, you have not unpacked; your suitcases are locked.

Question 3:

Something is right in you for the first time in your life. Energy is a playful phenomenon. If you are feeling joyous and happy with your own feminine energy - and you feel good, harmonious with the male energy; you love to play with the male energy and it does not turn into sexuality, it is a spiritual growth.

If men and women who are in deep love can be playful with each other's energies, there is no need of indulging in sex, because sex cannot give you anything - it simply takes something away from you. It brings your death closer. It is your life force.

But if the woman and the man can just be playful, then they are enriching each other. Then the dialectics of life works, and they both are more than they were before. Both have gained; nobody has lost anything.

What is happening to you should happen, has to happen to every sannyasin. You just have to be aware of one thing: people are very much in a hurry, and they want to finish a job as quickly as possible - but it is not a job. In fact, people have completely forgotten the foreplay before making love, and they have absolutely no idea of afterplay when you have made love.

But one of the most insightful men into sexual energy is Vatsyayana, in his KAMASUTRAS. He wrote them sometime three thousand years ago, and those people among whom Vatsyayana must have lived were really innocent, but intelligent - not knowledgeable, but wise.

If I talk about sexual energy then the whole world condemns me - and Vatsyayana was the first person in the whole history of man to write a treatise on sex energy, KAMASUTRAS - aphorisms about sex. But three thousand years ago, people called him a seer, a man who has realized himself.

Because unless that realization had happened, he could not say what he was saying. His treatise, KAMASUTRAS is exhaustive; he has said everything that is significant to be said about sex. And one of the things, in reference to your question, is that if a couple is in love and just goes on playing and is not in a hurry to finish, it then you will be surprised: The energy starts from a certain level where you are, moves upwards, and reaches to a peak without any sex. And it is so peaceful, so blissful, so silent, that you disappear into each other, that you become one energy. And then slowly, it becomes more and more absorbed, but no sex is involved.

If it is happening, it is something to be greeted, welcomed.

I have heard.... A man went to a doctor, his friend, and asked him: "It is too much! I want to kill my wife in such a way that I am not caught; you have to advise me."

The doctor thought for a moment and then he said, "The easiest way is to make love to her so much that within six weeks she will be dead."

But the man said, "Six weeks and too much love? I will be dead before that! So you will have to give me some medicinal help."

He said, "Yes, I'm going to give you these tablets. Take six tablets, two at a time every day, and you can make love six times every day."

The man said, "My God! You had these tablets and you never told me? And you pretend to be my friend!"

He rushed home with the bottle. Just on the way, he swallowed two tablets. A month passed ...

there was a fundraising campaign in the church one Sunday, and the doctor saw the man - he was in a wheelchair! Somehow, with difficulty, he was trying to reach the doctor.

The doctor said, "What happened?"

He said, "Don't be worried, doctor. Only two weeks more and she will be finished!"

Sex is your energy, it is your life. If you can absorb it back into your system, you will have a new feeling of well-being. But if it is released, leaks out - that's what you call making love; energy leaking out - a plumber is needed.

If you can - and a meditative person can - absorb the energy back, it rises to a peak and then subsides and goes to your blood, to your bones, to your marrow. It is a tremendous nourishment.

So don't say that something wrong is happening to you - people must be telling you that something wrong is happening to you. Something right is happening to you. Remember it and tell those people, "I am feeling so joyous and so full of love, how wrong can happen to me? You are looking so miserable, so British, hangdog British - something must be wrong with you!"

You enjoy your play. And once you have learned - with your friend, with your lover - it is not a very big step. One day you may be able to play with your sexual energy alone - dancing, singing. There is no need of the other; you will absorb the energy yourself. Only in the beginning, the other is needed. That does not mean that you have to drop the other. He has been a great help, and there is no harm in being playful with anybody you feel loving towards.

Sex has to disappear.

The moment sex disappears, the same energy starts rising in you, transforming you into a new man:

the man who knows no death, the man who knows every mystery of life, the man who has come home.

Question 4:

Every desire leads not to the goal it has promised you; it leads to just the opposite of it. You want to be special? you have already accepted your ordinariness. One who is special does not want to be special; he's not even aware that he is special.

Whatever you want, one thing is certain: you are not that. And from where are these desires and wants coming? - imitation. All around, you see people: somebody is so rich, somebody is so intellectual, somebody is a wrestler, somebody is a boxer. And you are nothing - it hurts. It hurts because of your wrong conceptions about life.

So you have to note down a few things in your being: one, you cannot be anybody other than who you are. If you try to be somebody other than who you are, you will never be somebody else, but you will miss being that which you were destined to become.

It is almost as if a roseflower wants to become a lotus. His whole energy will be in how to become a lotus; he will forget all about the roses. All his energy will become misdirected. He will never become a lotus because he has no seeds, no potentiality to be a lotus. Only one thing is certain: now he will not become even a flowering bush of roses.

And who said that a lotus is better than a rose? They are both beautiful and they are both needed.

Even the smallest blade of grass is as much needed as the biggest star in the sky. This whole universe is one organic unity. Here, nothing exists that is not needed, and the most-needed persons are those who simply accept themselves as they are and enjoy themselves as they are - nobodies.

But to be a nobody is the highest point of bliss in existence. Don't try to be special. Just allow nature, wherever it leads you. Don't go upstream; otherwise, your failure is certain. Go with the stream, let go. Don't even swim! And the stream will take you joyously, dancingly, to the ocean.

As far as I am concerned, from my very childhood I have been told ... how many times it is difficult to enumerate, because everybody was telling me: "The way you are behaving, the way you are living, the way you are doing things, you will turn into a nobody." And they were all right! I have turned into a nobody, but I don't want to be anything else. I never wanted that, because by being nobody, I don't have any worry, I don't have any tensions. I don't even have dreams, because nothing is repressed.

I am living moment-to-moment, and life is such an ecstasy.

And because I am nobody, I can contain the whole universe within me. Nobody, nobodiness, has no boundaries.

The more special you become, the more you shrink. The more special you become, the more hard you become. The more special you become, the more you are against existence - and nobody can win against existence.

There is only one victory, and that is just to be nobody, and the whole universe is within you. You are victorious. You will not know it, but birds will talk about it. Flowers will say, "Yes, it has happened."

The whole universe will know it except you.

So it is good that you have failed in becoming special - you are blessed.

Now try my way. And it is a shortcut - you have not to go anywhere, you can be nobody just sitting here right now.

I don't promise you anything for tomorrow.

I promise you only this moment.

Just be silent, and nobody, and see the beauty of it, the truth of it, the glory of it.

Question 5:

Milarepa, she must have seen you!

A few other people have also reported that a ghost has been seen around who looks like Milarepa.