Chapter 24
I was saying to you that friendship is a higher value than love. Nobody has said it before. And I also say that friendliness is even higher than friendship. Nobody has even mentioned that. I will certainly have to explain.
Love, howsoever beautiful, remains earthbound. It is something like the roots of a tree. Love tries to rise above the earth and all that it implies - the body - but it falls again and again. It is no wonder that people say somebody has "fallen in love." This phrase exists in all languages, as far as I know.
I have tried to explore the matter by asking many people from various countries. I wrote to all the embassies asking whether they have a phrase in their language which is exactly the equivalent of "falling in love." They all replied, "Of course."
And when I asked, "Do you have a phrase or something similar to what I call 'rising in love'?" they either laughed, giggled, or started talking about something else. If I asked by letter, then they never replied. Certainly nobody replies to a mad-man who is asking, "Is there a word in your language for 'rising in love'?"
No language has that kind of word, and it cannot be just coincidence. In one language maybe, even two perhaps, but it cannot be a coincidence in three thousand languages. It is not just by chance that all languages have conspired together to make the phrase in three thousand ways always to mean "fall in love." No, the reason is, love is basically of the earth. It can jump a little bit, or rather you could call it jogging....
I have heard that jogging is in fashion, particularly in America. So much so that just the other night I received a gift from a lady who loves my books. She sent me a jogging suit. Great idea! I loved it. I told Chetana, "Wash it, and I will use it."
She said, "Are you going to jog?"
I said, "In my sleep! I will use it as my sleeping robe." And, by the way, you probably know that all my sleeping robes are jogging suits already. I like them, because in my sleep I can still jog and exercise, or wrestle with Muhammad Ali the great, and do all kinds of things - but only in my sleep, under my blanket, in absolute privacy.
I was telling you that love, once in a while, jumps and feels as if it is free from the earth; but the earth knows better. Soon he comes back to his senses with a thump, if not with broken bones. Love cannot fly. It is a peacock, with beautiful feathers - but remember, they are not able to fly. Yes, the peacock can jog.
Love is very earthly. Friendship is a little higher, it has wings; not just feathers, but the wings of a parrot. You know how parrots fly? From one tree to another, or maybe from one garden to another, from one grove to another, but they don't fly towards the stars. They are poor flyers. Friendliness is the highest value, because friendliness has no gravitation at all. It is just levitation, if you allow me to use that word. I don't know whether the pundits of English will allow "levitation." It only means "against gravity." Gravitation pulls downwards, levitation pulls upwards. But who cares about the pundits? - they are very grave, they are already in their graves.
Friendliness is a seagull - yes, like Jonathan, it soars beyond the clouds. This is just to connect with what I was saying to you....
My grandmother wept because she thought I would not have friends. In a way she was right, in another way she was wrong. She was right as far as my school, college, and university days were concerned, but wrong as far as I am concerned. Because even in my schooldays, although I did not have friends in the ordinary sense, I had friends in a very extraordinary sense. I told you about Shambhu Babu. I have told you about Nani herself. In fact these two people spoiled me, and spoiled me in such a way that there was no going back. What was their strategy?
My Nani comes first, chronologically too; she was so attentive to me. She listened to all my nonsense, my gossip, with such rapt attention that even I believed I must be saying the very truth.
The second was Shambhu Babu. He again listened with unblinking eyes. I had never seen anyone listen without blinking; in fact I know of only one other person, and that is me. I cannot watch a film for the simple reason that when I do I forget to blink. I cannot do two things together, particularly if they are so divergent as looking at a film, and blinking. Even now it is impossible for me. I don't watch films because two hours without blinking gives me a headache and tired eyes, so tired that they cannot even sleep. Yes, tiredness can be so great that even sleep seems to be too much effort.
But Shambhu Babu used to listen to me without blinking. Once in a while I would tell him, "Shambhu Babu, please blink. Unless you blink I will not say anything more."
Then he would blink quickly two or three times and say, "Okay, now continue and don't disturb me."
Bertrand Russell once wrote that there would come a time when psychoanalysis would become the greatest profession. Why? Because they are the only people who listen attentively, and everybody needs someone to listen to them at least once in a while. But to pay a psychoanalyst to listen to you
- just think of the absurdity of it, paying a person to listen to you. Of course he doesn't really listen at all, he pretends. That is why I was the first man in India to ask people to pay to listen to me. That is just the opposite to psychoanalysis, and that makes sense. If you want to understand me then pay for it. And in the West people are paying just to be listened to.
Sigmund Freud, being the perfect Jew, created one of the greatest inventions in the world - the psychoanalyst's couch. It is really a great invention. The poor patient lies on the couch, just like me here - but I am not the patient, that's the difficulty.
The patient is writing the notes; Doctor Devageet, he is called. He is called doctor, but he is not like Sigmund Freud. He is not here as a doctor. Strangely - with me everything is strange - the doctor is lying on the couch, and the patient is sitting in the doctor's seat. My own doctor is sitting here, just by my feet. Have you ever seen any doctor sitting at his patient's feet? Here, it is a totally different world. With me everything goes rightside up - I cannot say upside down.
I am not a patient, although very patient; and my doctors are not doctors, although perfectly qualified as doctors - they are my sannyasins, my friends. That's what I am talking about, what friendliness can do, a miracle. It is alchemy. The patient becomes the doctor, the doctor becomes the patient - this is alchemy.
Love cannot do it. Love, although good, is not enough. And eating too much of even a good thing is bad for you - it gives you diarrhea or cramps in the stomach, and whatnot. Love can do everything except go beyond itself. It goes lower and lower. It becomes bickering, nagging, fighting. Every love, if naturally followed to its logical end, is bound to end in divorce. If you don't follow logically, that's another matter; then you are stuck. To see any person stuck is really terrible; you should do something about it. But these stuck people, if you do something about it, they will both fight you together, tooth and nail.
I remember just a few weeks ago, a man came from England to take sannyas, and you know an English gentleman - he was so stuck, as you say, up to his very neck. You could not see anything, he was so stuck in the mud. You could only see a few of his hairs, only a few because he was a bald man, just like me. If he had been completely bald it would have been far better; at least nobody would notice him. I tried to pull him out, but how can you pull out a man with only a few hairs showing from the mud? I have my own ways.
I asked his friend and his friend's wife to help the poor man. They said to me, "He wants to separate from his wife." I had seen his wife too, because she had insisted that she had to be present when he took sannyas. She wanted to see how he was being hypnotized. I had allowed her to be present because there is no hypnotism practiced here. In fact she even became interested herself. I invited her too, saying, "Why don't you become a sannyasin?"
She said, "I will think about it."
I told her, "My own principle is 'Jump before you think,' but I cannot help, so you think about it. If I am still around by the time you have thought about it, I will be ready to help you."
But I told the friend and his wife - who are both my sannyasins, and are of those few who are really close to me - to help their friend. I told them to make every arrangement for his wife and her children
so she should not be at a loss but spiritually her husband should not suffer any more. Even if he has to leave everything to his wife, let it be so. I alone am enough for him.
I had seen the man, and had seen his beauty. He had a very simple, childlike quality, the same fragrance you find when it rains for the first time and the earth rejoices - the fragrance and the joy.
He was happy to be a sannyasin.
Just the other day I received a message saying that he is continuously sleeping, just because of his fear of his wife. He does not want to wake up. The moment he wakes up, he again takes sleeping pills. I told the friend to tell him, "This sleeping is not going to help. It may even kill him, but it will not help him or his wife either. He must face the truth."
Very few people face the truth, that what they call love is only biological, and ninety-nine percent of love is biological. Friendship is ninety-nine percent psychological; friendliness is ninety-nine percent spiritual. The one percent left in love is for friendship; the one percent left in friendship is for friendliness. And the one percent left in friendliness is just for that which has no name. In fact the UPANISHADS have called it exactly that: "Tat tvam asi - Thou are that." Tat... what am I going to call it? No, I am not going to give it any name. All names have betrayed man. All names without exception have proved to be enemies of man, so I don't want to give it a name.
I simply indicate with my finger towards that. and whether I give it a name or not, it has no name. It is namelessness. All names are our inventions. When are we going to understand a simple thing?
A rose is a rose is a rose; whatsoever name you call it, it makes no difference at all because even the word "rose" is not its name. It is simply there. When you drop the language between you and existence, suddenly - the explosion! - the ecstasy!
Love can help, hence I am not against love. That would be as if I am against using a staircase.
No, a staircase is good, but walk carefully, particularly on an old staircase, and remember: love is the oldest. Adam and Eve fell from it; but there was no need to fall, no necessity, I mean. If they had chosen - and once in a while one wants to fall too, then it is just your choice; but to fall out of freedom is one thing, and to fall as a punishment is totally another.
If I were to write the BIBLE again... I would not do such a stupid thing, believe me. I am saying IF I were to write then I would make Adam and Eve fall, not as a punishment but as a choice, out of their own freedom.
What is the time?
"Five past eight, Osho."
That's good, because I have not even begun. The beginning takes a long time.
Love is good, just good, but not enough, not enough to give you wings. For that, friendship is needed, and love does not allow it. So-called love, I mean, is very against friendship. It is very afraid of friendship because anything higher is a danger, and friendship is higher.
When you can enjoy the friendship of either a man or a woman, then you know for the first time that love is a cheat, a deception. Alas, then you realize how much time was wasted. But friendship is
only a bridge. One should pass over it; one should not start living on it. A bridge is not for living on.
This bridge leads to friendliness. Friendliness is pure fragrance. If love is the root, and friendship the flower, then friendliness is the fragrance, unseen by the eye; you cannot even touch it; you cannot hold it in your hand, particularly if you want to keep it in your closed fist. Yes, you can have it on your open hand, but not in your closed hand.
Friendliness is almost what, in the past, mystics have called prayer. I don't want to call it prayer for the simple reason that the word is associated with wrong people. It is a beautiful word, but to be in the wrong company contaminates; you start stinking of your company. The moment you say "prayer"
everybody becomes alert, afraid, attentive; as if a general had called his soldiers to attention, and they have all suddenly become statues.
What happens when somebody mentions a word like "prayer," "god" or "heaven"? Why do you become closed? I am not condemning you, I am simply saying - or rather bringing to your notice that these beautiful words have been immensely dirtied by the so-called "holy ones." They have done such an unholy job, I cannot forgive them.
Jesus says, "Forgive your enemies" - that I can do - but he does not say, "Forgive your priest." And even if he did say it I would say to him, "Shut up! I cannot forgive the priests. I can neither forgive them nor forget them, because if I forget them then who is going to demolish them? And if I forgive them, then who is going to undo what they have done to humanity? No, Jesus, no! Enemies I can understand - yes, they should be forgiven, they don't understand what they are doing - but priests?
Please don't say that they don't understand what they are doing. They understand exactly what they are doing. That is why I cannot forgive, nor can I forget. I have to fight to my very last breath."
Love takes you, it is a step; but only if it takes you towards friendship is it love. If it does not take you towards friendship, then it is lust, not love. If it takes you to friendship, be thankful to it but don't allow it to encroach upon your freedom. Yes, it has helped, that does not mean that now it has to hinder too. Don't carry the boat on your shoulders just because it carried you to the other shore.
Don't be foolish! I mean - excuse me, Devageet, that word I have reserved for you - I mean, don't be idiotic. But I go on forgetting. Again and again I use the wrong word, "foolish," for others, when it is a special word for Devageet. Particularly in this Noah's Ark - that's my name for this cabin.
Love is good - transcend it, because it can lead you to something better: friendship. And when two lovers become friends, it is a rare phenomenon. One wants to cry just out of joy, or celebrate, or if one is a musician, play on the guitar, or if one is a poet, then write a haiku, a Rubaiyat; but if one is not a musician or a poet, one can still dance, one can still paint, one can sit silently and look at the sky. What more can be done? Existence has done it already.
Ashu, now look at the time....
"Eight twenty-five, Osho."
Look at your watch.
"Eight twenty-seven, Osho."
Eight twenty-seven? Look, I am a Jew - I still saved a few minutes. I believe your watch, but I will speak just a few minutes longer.
From love to friendship, and from friendship to friendliness - that can be said to be my whole religion.
Friendship is again a "ship," a relation-ship, a certain bondage... very subtle, more subtle than love, but it is there; and with it all the jealousies and all the diseases of love also. They have come in a very subtle form. But friendliness is freedom from the other, hence there is no question of relationship.
Love is towards the other, so is friendship. Friendliness is only an opening of your heart to existence.
Suddenly, at a particular moment, you may be opening it to a man, to a woman, a tree, to a star...
at the beginning you cannot just open it to the whole of existence. Of course in the end you have to open your heart to the whole, simultaneously, unaddressed to anybody. That is the moment. let us just call it the moment. Let us forget the word enlightenment, Buddhahood, Christ-consciousness, just let us call it THE MOMENT - write it in capitals.
It has been so good. I know there is time, but it has been so beautiful, and with anything beautiful - more should never be asked for. The more destroys.