Osho on love

Love is our deepest longing. Just as the body needs food the soul needs love — it is nourishment, spiritual nourishment. Without the food, air and water, the body will deteriorate; without love the soul starts shrinking. And everybody is living with a very small soul for the simple reason that they have not loved.

 And why have they not loved? If you enquire into the question you will be surprised, because for the whole of their life everybody is trying to get love. But people are trying to get, not to give, and the law of love is that you get only when you give. Giving comes first, getting is only a consequence.

 To be in relationship and become dependent is the sign of weakness. And to escape to the Himalayas or to some Catholic monastery because of the fear of becoming dependent is again the sign of weakness; it is cowardly. To live in relationship and yet remain independent, that is what courage is.

 If you move into a relationship when you are feeling lonely, then you will exploit the other. The other will become a means to satisfy you. You will use the other, and everybody resents being used because no man is here to become a means for anybody else.

 So give as much love as possible and you will get so much in return that you will not be able to believe it in the beginning. It is absolutely unbelievable that the whole existence starts pouring love towards you.

You just show the gesture of giving, with no strings attached to it, with no conditions, no expectations, let your joy be in the giving itself — love for love’s sake — and you will be in for a great surprise: thousands of windows suddenly open and the sun and the wind and the rain and the whole existence starts flowing towards you. It floods you, and that flooded life is the life of a buddha, that life is the goal of a sannyasin.

OSHO

-Capri