Love is never too much

Question 1:

Sambodhi Amrita, I do not love you, I am simply love. One loves when one is not love himself. Then love is only a passing moment; it comes and goes.

The day you realize yourself, your very being becomes love. It is no longer a relationship, it is no longer addressed to anyone in particular; it is simply overflowing in all directions and all dimensions.

And it is not something on my part, that I am doing it. Love cannot be done. And the love that is done is false; it is only pretension.

You are asking me, "How is it possible that You love us so much?" I am simply helpless, I cannot do otherwise. It is just my heartbeat, my love is my life; nobody is excluded from it. It is so comprehensive that it can contain the whole universe... you too.

You are saying, "When I allow myself to feel your love, to let myself be loved by you, there is so much pain and so much gratitude that I cannot say it."

Perhaps you are not aware of many aspects of love. One is that when too much love descends upon you, its very intensity appears like pain. You must have heard, once in a while it happens that just out of sheer joy somebody dies of heart failure. The joy was too much and his heart was too small.

I will tell you a story: A very poor man had made it a habit to purchase, every month, one ticket for the lottery. He had been doing that for almost twenty years.

In the beginning the family, the friends, used to ask him, "Why are you wasting your money? You earned just one rupee with so much hard labor, changing your blood into perspiration. You go on wasting every month one rupee, and you have not won any lottery." But slowly, slowly they dropped advising him; it had become almost a routine habit. In the beginning he used to think that some day the lottery would come up in his name, but by and by he even forgot that too. Just like a robot, the first day of the month would come and he would purchase a ticket.

And one day it happened, the lottery came up in his name for twenty-five lakh rupees. He was not at home. The wife became very much afraid when she received the message that the lottery had come up in her husband's name. She was a Christian - she ran to the church. She was afraid; "This is too much. He has not seen even twenty-five rupees together... twenty-five lakhs! He is sure to die just out of too much happiness. So I should pray to God, and also I should ask the priest some way to save his life. Poverty has not been able to kill him, but this richness will kill him immediately."

The priest said, "Don't be worried. I am coming with you and I will tell your husband when he comes home, very slowly, slowly, 'You have won one lakh rupees.' When I see that he has absorbed that, I will tell him, 'In fact, you have won two lakh rupees.' And when I see he has absorbed that and is still alive, then I will say, 'You have really won three lakh rupees.' Slowly, slowly I will reveal the whole truth about the twenty-five lakh rupees."

The wife said, "If you can save his life, I will give one lakh rupees to the church." And the priest said, "One lakh rupees?" And he dropped flat on the earth, dead! He had never hoped that anybody was going to give him one lakh rupees.

Anything for which you are not prepared - it may be bliss, it may be joy - will be so intense in the beginning that it is bound to appear just like pain. You are well-acquainted with pain - you know it; that is the closest experience.

When love comes to you without asking, and when love comes from a source which you have never expected, never thought of, never hoped for, you never had the idea that you deserve it or you are worthy of it.... When it is a relationship, it is a very superficial phenomenon. But when you come across somebody who is love, the whole ocean has poured into your heart. It feels as if you are bursting, dying. It is immensely painful. But at the same time you can feel the distinction. It is very close to pain, but it is not pain.

Your being understands things which your mind does not understand.

Experiences come that your mind will say are painful, but your being will not accept this, because it is not pain, it is too much blissfulness. The problem is that you are not accustomed to so much love, so much joy; hence on the one hand you feel pain, that is the interpretation of your mind, and on the other hand you feel gratitude - that is the interpretation of your being.

Whenever there is any conflict between your mind and your being trust the being, because the being is vast and can understand experiences which the mind is incapable of. The mind is a small entity; your being is as vast as the whole universe. If you go on listening to your being and not paying attention to the mind, slowly, slowly you will see, pain has disappeared. The pain is the intensity of joy, it is too much joy, and you have to make space for it.

Hence my insistence that if you continue to meditate - and meditation and love happen together to you - there will be no pain at all. Meditation makes your consciousness wider, expands it, makes it as big as the sky. It can contain infinite love, infinite joy.

Your meditation is not, Amrita, yet so vast. But I am helpless. I cannot give you love in installments according to your capacity; I can give you only my undivided wholeness. You have to be prepared.

Your pain shows your unpreparedness, but your gratitude shows that you are capable of being prepared. Just a little meditation, just a little more silence, just a little more serenity and you will be able to dance with joy. The more intense the joy is, the greater will be the dance.

You have also raised a very significant question: "Suddenly I see that there has been this fear my whole life not to be part of it, not to belong, not to be in your family. Is it possible that I am already in it?"

The first thing is, I don't have a family. I have people whom I love, who love me, but there is no binding of any family ties. Nobody belongs to me, neither do I belong to anybody. Everybody here has his own individuality, totally pure, without any kind of imprisonment in the name of love, in the name of religion, in the name of nation, in the name of race - beautiful names but only hiding ugly prisons.

It is good that you have been afraid all your life," not to be part of it, not to belong, not to be in your family." I don't have any family. And you should remember not to belong to any family at all.

My vision of a real humanity is of pure individuals - relating to each other but not tied in any relationship; loving to each other but not being possessive of each other; sharing with each other all their joys and all their blessings, but never even in their dreams thinking of dominating, thinking of enslaving the other person... a world consisting not of families, not of nations, not of races, but only of individuals.

Only a world where families have disappeared and nations have died and races are no longer existent can have beauty, and can have immense possibilities for human growth. Otherwise all your relationships are destructive, because they are all possessive - your love is followed by your jealousy; your love is full of suspicion, mistrust. Everybody is trying to keep the other remaining within his control. It is a very strange situation where everybody is a prisoner and everybody is a jailer too. You are the jailer, you are the jail, you are the jailed, and you are trying to manage all three functions simultaneously. Certainly your life has become a mess!

Amrita, at least here you need not be afraid. It is not Italy, and it is not a Mafia. Mafia simply means "the family." Here, everybody is an individual - loved, respected, accepted as he is. Nobody is expecting him to be somebody else; no ideals are provided for you to imitate, no discipline is given to you so that you become a robot, a mechanical personality, repeating actions, words and never meaning really....

You say to people, "I love you," but you have never thought exactly... do you really mean it? Your words have become so phony, your actions have become so false, your faces have become masks.

You have completely lost your originality.

My effort here is to help you to discover your original face. And that is the greatest thing that can happen to any human being, to know his original face, because that is the face of God.

Question 2:

Sadhan, it is certainly one of the most significant words in the whole language. It started with Gautam Buddha. The language that Gautam Buddha used was Pali. It has died; now it is no longer a living language. But a few words were so important that they have remained alive in other languages.

The Pali word for suchness... because suchness is only a translation of that word; in English there has been nobody who has used that word or experienced the taste of that word. The Pali word is tathata. And because of the word tathata, one of the names of Gautam Buddha is tathagata. He was the first to use that word and give it so much meaning and depth.

The English word suchness perfectly translates the Pali word tathata. If you understand its meaning, just the very understanding of the word is certainly going to bring great healing to you, great silence, great peace. But try to understand from Gautam Buddha, because he is the original source of that certain meaning.

If somebody came to Gautam Buddha and said, "I am blind".... if the same man had gone to Jesus Christ, perhaps he would have done a miracle and given the blind man his eyes. But I say unto you that Gautam Buddha did greater miracles. They are so great that most often you have completely missed their meaning. If somebody came and told him, "I am blind, in both my eyes"... Buddha would say, "I am not blind, but I have seen the whole world, and the real joy and the peace that I have found has been found with my eyes closed. Accept your blindness as a blessing.

"I have to close my eyes, your eyes are already closed. And even if people who have eyes close their eyes, images which they have seen with open eyes go on disturbing them. You are fortunate, your blindness is a blessing in disguise. Accept it as a gift of existence. This is the way existence wants you to be. This is the meaning of tathata - that it is perfectly alright that you are blind; nothing is missing, just you have to learn how to use your blindness for your spiritual growth.

"People who have eyes have to learn how to use their eyes; you have to learn how to use your blindness. And I say to you that you are in a better position. Relax, and feel grateful to existence that it has not given you all the distractions which are possible when you have eyes. You are already without any distractions, without any images. Your insight is already calm and quiet."

Because this was Buddha's attitude about everything, tathata became his very foundation of religion.

When Buddha's teachings were translated into English, they were not able to find right words for many things. But it is a great coincidence that suchness has the same flavor as tathata.

You are blind - such is the case. Accept it in its total suchness. Don't try to be miserable about it, because millions of people have eyes, but what have they done with their eyes?

I would like to tell you one story about Jesus which was not compiled by the Christians, because it is a very strange story. When they were compiling the New Testament, three hundred years after Jesus' crucifixion, they left out many things for the simple reason that it was so difficult first to explain them, and second to avoid contradictions. This is one of the stories that has been left out, but it has been preserved by the Sufis.

The story is... Jesus enters into a town and he sees a young man going after a prostitute. His eyes are full of lust, his whole presence stinks of passion. Jesus prevents the young man and says, "Are you aware of what you are doing?"

The young man suddenly becomes angry and he says, "I was blind. It was you who cured my eyes; otherwise I was not aware that there are prostitutes. You are responsible for it. By giving me eyes you have given me so many troubles. When I was blind, everybody was sympathetic to me. When I was blind I had no responsibilities. People were very loving and very kind - they were providing food, clothes, shelter. By giving me eyes you have taken away all their kindness, all their sympathy, all their love. Now I have to work the whole day to earn my food. And what do you suppose, when I see a beautiful woman and my passion arises? - what should I do?"

Jesus had never thought about it, that a blind man would be so angry because his eyes are cured.

Jesus was very sad. Leaving the young man because he had no answer for him, he entered the town and he saw another man who was completely drunk and had fallen in the gutter. Jesus shook the man and asked him, "Is life given to you to waste in such ugly ways?"

The man opened his eyes and he said, "Right - you are the man who made me alive; I had died.

And now there are so many problems and so many anxieties that without drinking I cannot even sleep. Why did you make me alive again? I had died! And who gave you the authority? I had not asked you."

Jesus was really shocked. He was thinking he was doing a service to people, and things have turned out to be just the opposite. He did not go into the town; he felt so miserable. He went out of the town to meditate and to pray to God, "Give me clarity - what should I do?" As he was going out of the town he saw one man was trying to commit suicide by hanging himself from a tree. Somehow he prevented him.

The man said, "You have come again. Why are you continually after me? Once before I committed suicide - you are a strange fellow. I am tired of life, I don't want to live, but you saved me. It would be better if you save others. I don't want any savior, just let me die. And remember that I don't want to be revived back to life. You did it once, but now I am preventing you myself."

The whole story has been dropped out of the New Testament because the whole story would have been a great trouble to Christian theologians. Their whole religion depends on the miracles of Jesus; they go on praising the miracles of Jesus, and this story seems to be just contradicting all the miracles.

Gautam Buddha's approach was whatever happens, allow it to happen, and accept it with your total heart. This is how existence wants it to be. Remain in this attitude of suchness... such is the desire of the whole, and I am part of the whole; I cannot go against the desire of the whole.

Certainly if you understand it, it will give you tremendous insight and be a great help in your meditations. It will help you not to resist existence, not to fight against the current, but just to go with the current. Allow the river to take you to the ocean.

Sadhan, you are right when you say, "There is a word that has often touched me deeply. By just remembering it from time to time it feels as if it can heal wounds, and it brings stillness and contentment. This word is SUCHNESS." Just try it in moments of turmoil, in moments of pain, in moments of misery. In the darkest nights of your life, just try, "Such is the will of existence, and I am part of it. I will relax with it. If this is the will of the whole, so it will be."

Sufis have preserved the story because Sufis have a similar attitude to Gautam Buddha. If you listen to a Sufi mystic you will be surprised about one thing. In each sentence he uses certain words, and they are, "God willing." If you ask him, "Can I come to see you tomorrow?" - just a simple thing - he will say, "You can come, God willing. It is not in my hands. What is going to happen tomorrow I cannot predict. As far as I am concerned, I am ready, you can come. But remember, neither I can decide for tomorrow, nor you can decide for tomorrow. We can only hope."

They use the words God willing so much that when I used to see Sufi mystics I told them, "This is too much. Each sentence either begins with 'God willing' or ends with 'God willing', or in the middle of it, 'God willing.' Don't you get tired of it?"

The man said, God willing, sometimes I get tired, sometimes I don't get tired, but it all depends on God. Nothing is in my hands."

Gautam Buddha has no God; his approach is more sophisticated. If somebody insults him and his disciples become angry, he says to them, "You don't understand, such is the case. That man could not do anything else. If you had been brought up in the same conditions, in the same situations, you would have insulted me also. And I can see so clearly that he does not have any bad intentions.

All that he could do, he has done. And all that I can do, I am doing. He can insult me;this is his suchness. I can still feel love and compassion for him; this is my suchness."

The suggestion of Sadhan is so great, it can be helpful to you all.

Just remember - not as a word but as a feeling - suchness. Then there is no grudge, no complaint, no desire that things should be different than they are. A tremendous acceptance arises. This acceptance is real and authentic religiousness.

Question 3:

Veet Kamaal, the first thing to be remembered is that the fear of love is not, and can never be, out-of-date. It is as new as love. You don't say love is out-of-date, although millions of people have loved. Still, when love happens to your heart it is fresh, absolutely new, as if you were the first lover in the world. The fear that follows love is love's shadow.

You want love, but you don't accept the shadow of it. If your insight grows deeper, you will accept the shadow too; it is part of love. The fear is as natural as love. The fear is, who knows? - love is so beautiful in this moment, so nourishing, so fragrant, what about the next moment? The next moment is just coming in, and one cannot be in control of experiences like love. It is a breeze that comes, and you can enjoy it and you can dance with it, but you cannot hold it in your fist.

Hence, the fear that as soon as it has come it may go. But if you meditate on the whole problem... if it has come - the breeze, the love, the joy - existence is not exhausted; it will be coming again and again. And the more mature you become, the more is the possibility of love coming to you. And your maturity will soon be that you don't close the windows and doors to keep love imprisoned - that is childish.

If you close all the doors and all the windows, even the freshest breeze will die, even the strongest and youngest bird will start hitting its head against the walls, running here and thither, trying to find a way out, because nobody in existence wants to be imprisoned. Even if you make a prison of gold, then too, nobody wants to be imprisoned. And the fear is that the love will come and will go - you cannot control it.

There are only two ways. One is that of the immature person, who will close his windows before love enters in so that he is safe from the misery, from the pain, from the fear that love may leave him.

He has closed the doors and windows; he is safe, but this safety is very costly. And because he wants to be safe and he is afraid, love may be strong enough... it may be a storm and may open the windows and doors. Not to take the risk, you say you close the doors and windows and you escape from the back door. This is the way of the immature person.

The mature person will make as many doors and as many windows in the house as possible, or perhaps he will live in the open where breezes are continuously coming and flowing. And each time the breeze goes, he knows deep in his heart that this is only a moment of rest; a fresher breeze with more fragrance will be coming. And as it goes on happening again and again, one becomes more and more mature, and the fear fades away. It becomes just what it is - a negative shadow; it has no existence.

You are asking, "Cleaning the house, preparing the tea, being in joyful anticipation - then you are right in front of me, showering your love on us, and from time to time I see myself closing the doors and the windows as fast as possible and escaping from the back door. Beloved Osho, this old fear of receiving love and staying open, this old voice saying, 'This is too much for me,' seems so ridiculous and out-of-date. How to drop them?"

There is no need to drop them, they will disappear on their own accord. You have just to grow more in maturity and understanding - your conceptions are not right. No love is too much for anyone.

And if it feels too much, that means you are not trying to expand your consciousness. And what is meditation for? Love is a test - if it feels too much, that means your consciousness is too small.

Rather than being worried about love, you should be more concerned about expanding your consciousness... a few more acres are needed. And whenever you feel it is too much, always remember, you need more space. Love is never too much, it is always that the space is too small.

Your insistence should be on the space, because that is in your hands, to make it bigger or not.

Love is not in your hands.

Love is something that comes from beyond.

But you can make a bigger space to allow that love. Drop this idea, "This is too much." Love is never too much.

Secondly, you are thinking about love intellectually. That's why you say it seems so ridiculous and out-of-date. If you look through intellect the fear appears to be ridiculous, because love is not going to harm you, why are you afraid? But love is going to destroy something in you which you have been strengthening your whole life - your ego. That is the fear. It is not ridiculous, it is significant.

Create more space, and say goodbye to your ego. And then there will not be this idea that this fear is ridiculous, that it is out-of-date.

These are intellectual condemnations, but they don't help; they simply make you feel that you are very intelligent. Love does not need your intelligence, love needs your heartfulness.

And these conceptions of ridiculousness, being out-of-date, these are not of the heart. Heart knows nothing about ridiculousness, about being out-of-date-these are your mind games. And love is a phenomenon which has nothing to do with the mind.

And, Kamaal, as far as I am concerned, your strategies won't work, because I may start entering from the back door. You may be caught red-handed escaping from the back door. So keep all your doors and windows open, otherwise I will have to tell Neelam. Then what? "Whenever Kamaal tries to close the doors and windows, you start opening them."

Women listen to me very obediently. And I can trust Neelam; moreover, she is my secretary. If I say, "Open all the doors and windows!" she is not going to listen to you, Kamaal.

Question 4:

Krishna Priya, it is a beautiful question and very relevant to almost everybody. She is saying, "I went inside to wait for the guest, and the host was there. In a wild panic, I closed the door and ran away."

You think, you have been told to think, that God will come as a guest. It is a poetic metaphor. But in fact, God is already sitting in you as a host - who do you think you are?

So the question is beautiful; she says, "I went inside to wait for the guest to come" - because God has always been conceived as someone outside, who is going to come. The fact is, he is already inside you, he is you, he is the host.

"In a wild panic I closed the door and ran away." Naturally, If you are thinking that the guest will come, you are thinking yourself to be the host. And if you go inside your house and you find the host is sitting there, naturally, there will be panic. Then who are you? The host is sitting there, the guest is going to come, and who are you?

Out of panic, out of fear, she says she escaped. "When I realized what happened, I crept back: Host was gone, guest was gone too. Only a beautiful fragrance remained."

In language, in words, we have to speak in dualities - the guest, the host, the soul, the God, the individual, the universal - but in reality, there is no duality, there is only one-ness. Neither the host is there, nor the guest is there. And when both disappear, what remains is just a fragrance, just an eternal fragrance, a silence full of fragrance. This is what the seers of all the ages have called samadhi. All duality is gone. Because of the duality you were not able to see the beauty of oneness, of an organic unity; you were not able to see the light, the clarity, the immortal life force.

Priya is asking, "But why such a panic?" The panic is of the mind, the panic is of the ego because now the ego cannot remain. The ego follows the politician's rule - divide and rule. If you remain in a split, the ego goes on becoming more and more powerful. The more you are fragmented, cut into pieces, the more the ego is happy, and the more your mind is powerful - because it has become the master and it has reduced the master into a slave. But when the guest and the host disappear, all dualities fall down; there is no function left for the ego, and no function left for the mind.

The panic is of the mind. Just wait a little. As the mind will be gone, the panic will also be gone. The panic of the dying ego... just let the ego die, and the panic will disapppear. And where you were full of panic you will be full of blissfulness, full of benediction.

Okay, Vimal?

Yes, Osho.