Love is almost impossible in the ordinary state of the human mind. Love is possible only when one has attained to being, not before. Before that it is always something else. We go on calling it love but sometimes it is almost stupid to call it love.
A person falls in love with a woman because he likes the way she walks, or her voice, or the way she says "hello" or her eyes. Just the other day I was reading that some woman said about a man, "He has the most beautiful eyebrows in the world." Nothing is wrong in it--eyebrows can be beautiful--but if you fall in love with eyebrows then sooner or later you will be disappointed, because eyebrows are a very nonessential part of the person.
And for such nonessential things people fall in love! The shape, the eyes... these are nonessential things. Because when you live with a person, you are not living with a proportion of the body; you are not living with the eyebrows or the color of hair. When you live with a person, a person is a great and vast thing... almost indefinable, and these small things on the periphery sooner or later become meaningless. But then suddenly one is surprised: What to do?
Every love starts in a romantic way. By the time the honeymoon is finished, the whole thing is finished because one cannot live with romance. One has to live with reality--and reality is totally different. When you see a person, you don't see the person's totality; you just see the surface. It is as if you have fallen in love with a car because of its color. You have not even looked under the bonnet; there may be no engine at all, or maybe something is defective. The color is not going to help, finally.
When two persons come together their inside realities clash and the outer things become meaningless. What to do with eyebrows, and with hair and the hairstyle? You almost start forgetting them. They no longer attract you because they are there. And the more you know the person, the more you become afraid because you come to know the madness of the person, and the other person comes to know your madness. Then both feel cheated and both become angry. Both start talking revenge on the other, as if the other has been deceiving or cheating. Nobody is cheating anybody, although everybody is cheated.
One of the most basic things to realize is that when you love a person, you love because the person is not available. Now the person is available, so how can love exist?
You wanted to become rich because you were poor--the whole desire to become rich was because of your poverty. Now you are rich, you don't care. Or think of it another way. You are hungry, so you are obsessed with food. But when you are feeling well and your stomach is full, who bothers? Who thinks about food?
The same happens with your so-called love. You are chasing a woman and the woman goes on withdrawing herself, escaping from you. You become more and more heated up, and then you chase her more. And that's part of the game. Every woman knows this intrinsically that she has to escape, so the chase can be continued. Of course she is not to escape so much that you forget all about her--she has to remain in view, alluring, fascinating, calling, inviting and yet escaping.
So first the man runs after the woman and the woman tries to escape. Once the man has caught the woman, immediately the whole tide turns. Then the man starts escaping and the woman starts chasing--"Where are you going? With whom are you talking? Why are you late? With whom have you been?"
The whole problem is that both were attracted to each other because they were unknown to each other. The unknown was the attraction, the unfamiliar was the attraction. Now both know each other well. They have made love to each other many times and now it has become almost a repetition--at the most it is a habit, a relaxation, but the romance is gone. Then they feel bored. The man becomes a habit, the woman becomes a habit. They cannot live without each other because of the habit, and they cannot live together because there is no romance.
This is the real point where one has to understand whether it was love or not. And one should not deceive oneself; one should be clear. If it was love, or if even a fragment of it was love, these things will pass. Then one should understand that these are natural things. There is nothing to be angry about. And you still love the person. Even if you know the person, you still love him or her.
In fact, if love is there, you love the person more because you know. If love is there, it survives. If it is not there, it disappears. Both are good.
To an ordinary state of mind, what I call love is not possible. It happens only when you have a very integrated being. Love is a function of the integrated being. It is not romance, it has nothing to do with these foolish things. It goes directly to the person and looks into the soul. Love is then a sort of affinity with the innermost being of the other person--but then it is totally different. Every love can grow into it, should grow into it, but ninety-nine out of a hundred loves never grow to that point. The turmoils and troubles are so great that they can destroy everything.
But I am not saying that one has to cling. One has to be alert and aware. If your love consists of just these foolish things, it will disappear. It is not worth bothering about. But if it is real, then through all turmoils it will survive. So just watch...
Love is not the question. Your awareness is the question. This may just be a situation in which your awareness will grow and you will become more alert about yourself. Maybe this love disappears but the next love will be better; you will choose with a better consciousness. Or maybe this love, with a better consciousness, will change its quality. So whatever happens, one should remain open.
Love has three dimensions. One is animal-like; it is only lust, a physical phenomenon. The other is manlike; it is higher than lust, than sexuality, than sensuality. It is not just exploitation of the other as a means. The first is only an exploitation; the other (individual) is used as a means in the first (dimension of love). In the second the other is not used as a means, the other is equal to you. The other is as much an end unto herself or himself as you are, and love is not an exploitation but a mutual sharing of your being, of your joys, of your music, of your pure poetry of life. It is sharing and mutual.
The first is possessive, the second is nonpossessive. The first creates bondage, the second gives freedom. And the third dimension of love is godly, godlike: when there is no object to love, when love is not a relationship at all, when love becomes a state of your being. You are simply loving--not in love with somebody in particular, but simply a state of love, so whatever you do, you do it lovingly; whomsoever you meet, you meet lovingly. Even when you touch a rock, you touch the rock as if you were touching your beloved; even if you look at the trees, your eyes are full of love.
The first uses the other as a means; in the second, the other is no longer a means; in the third, the other has completely disappeared. The first creates bondage, the second gives freedom, the third goes beyond both; it is transcendence of all duality. There is no lover and no beloved, there is only love.
That's the ultimate state of love, and that's the goal of life to be attained. The majority of people remain confined to the first. Only very rare people enter into the second, and rarest is the phenomenon I am calling the third. Only a Buddha, a Jesus... There are a few people here and there, they can be counted on one's fingers, who have entered into the third dimension of love. But if you keep your eyes fixed on the faraway star, it is possible. And when it becomes possible, you are fulfilled. Then life lacks nothing, and in that fulfillment is joy, eternal joy. Even death cannot destroy it. (Love, Freedom, Aloneness: The Koan of Relationships, by Osho; "From Lust to Love to Loving," pages 59 - 62.)
No comments:
Post a Comment