It is really mysterious that each relationship begins with the freedom to love, but ends with the bondage of the relationship.
It is really mysterious that each relationship begins with the freedom to love, but ends with the bondage of the relationship. Love comes like a strong breeze, carrying the lovers to unknown dimensions. Lovers go through peak experiences and then feel the need to settle down. But soon they start getting bored, craving the same peaks again. When this does not happen, they feel frustrated and fall into the ditch of misery.
The peaks in love are experienced when lovers fly high into the sky together. But the moment they start clinging to each other, love falls into an abysmal valley of misery. The attachment and clinging starts clipping their wings, ultimately killing love. The more they cling to each other, the more miserable they become. Then they sit wondering as to what happened to the love they once felt.
The pure feeling of love gets muddied with jealousy, hatred, frustration and anger. Lovers become blind and are unable to see that love needs freedom to flourish. Love is a very delicate flower. Be sensitive and gentle to it. Be meditative.
Osho says that an alive relationship is always changing; it has many climates, many moods, many surprises. A dead relationship remains stagnant. It is repetitive; it is the same — that’s when it is no longer a relationship. Then you are not two persons, but just two things staying together.
A relationship based on love and not any business will be flowing and river-like. As the Greek mystic Heraclitus points out, “One cannot step in the same river twice.” Alive love relationships come to fruition, but they are never complete. Completion simply means death and nothing else.
A life full of love is not static but vibrant. There’s a breeziness of freedom in love. Such love knows no bounds, no misery. It is all joy and bliss.
Osho gives the master key: “Just be yourself, silent, peaceful, meditative and love will arise in tidal waves and will go on coming to you from unknown sources which are hidden inside you. Those sources are as oceanic as any great ocean in the world. And you can share that love without humiliating anyone and without feeding your ego; these two things are done by responsibility, which feeds your ego, makes it stronger and humiliates the other person.”
He adds, “Love never humiliates; hence there is no question of revenge. It simply rejoices in giving: it gives and it forgets. It does not even remember to whom it has given, what it has given. It does not keep an account of all that it has shared. It goes on, moment to moment, singing its song to whoever is capable of understanding it. Whoever is capable of receiving it will receive it. He is not doing any social service and he is not a public servant. He is a man who knows how to celebrate. He is celebrating himself.”
Swami Chaitanya Keerti, editor of Osho World, is the author of Osho Fragrance
