Osho - Weekly Meditation For The Here And Now
Weekly Meditation - Week 8. Love - Hate
February 19
Love - Hate
Whenever you love something, you hate it too.
You will find excuses for why you hate, but they are not relevant. Never let your hate decide anything. Knowing well there is hate, always let love decide. I'm not saying to suppress hate, but never let it decide. Let it be there, let it have a secondary place. Accept it, but never let it be decisive.
Neglect it, and it dies of its own accord. Pay more attention to love; just let love decide. Sooner or later, love will take possession of your whole being, and there will be no place left for hate.
February 20
Smokeless Flame
Wherever you see light, feel worshipful. The temple is there.
Look at the mysteries of light. Just a small flame is the most mysterious thing in the world, and the whole of life depends on it. The same flame is burning in you. That's why continuous oxygen is needed, because the flame cannot burn without oxygen. This is why yoga emphasizes breathing deeply, breathing more and more oxygen so that your life burns deeper and the flame becomes clearer and no smoke arises in you - so that you can attain a smokeless flame.
February 21
The Door
All relationship is imagination, because whenever you go out if yourself, you go only through the door if imagination. There is no other door.
The friend, the enemy: both are your imagination. When you stop imagination completely, you are alone, absolutely alone. Once you understand that life and all its relationships are imagination, you don't go against life, but your understanding helps you to make your relationships richer. Now that you know that relationships are imagination, why not put more imagination into them? Why not enjoy them as deeply as possible? When the flower is nothing but your imagination, why not create a beautiful flower? Why settle for an ordinary flower? Let the flower be of emeralds and diamonds.
Whatever you imagine let it be that. Imagination is not a sin, it is a capacity. It is a bridge. Just as you cross a river and you make a bridge between this shore and that, so imagination functions between two people. Two beings project a bridge - call it love, call it trust - but it is imagination. Imagination is the only creative faculty in human beings, so whatever is creative is going to be imagination.
Enjoy it and make it more and more beautiful. By and by you will come to a point where you don't depend on relationships. You share. If you have something, you share it with people, but you are content as you are. All love is imagination, but not in the condemnatory sense that the word is ordinarily used. Imagination is a divine faculty.
February 22
Storms
It is good to be available to the wind, to the rain, to the sun, because this is what life is. So rather than becoming worried about it, dance!
Growth means that you are absorbing something new every day, and that absorption is possible only if you are open. Now your windows and doors are open. Sometimes the rain comes in and the wind comes in, the sun comes, and life moves within you. So you will feel a few disturbances: Your newspaper will start moving in the wind, the papers on the table will be disturbed, and if the rain starts coming in your clothes may become wet. If you have always lived in a closed room, you will ask, "What is happening?"
Something beautiful is happening. It is good to be available to the wind, to the rain, to the sun, because this is what life is. So rather than becoming worried about it, dance! Dance when the storm comes, because silence will follow. Dance when challenges come and disturb your life, because in responding to those challenges you will be growing to new heights. Remember, even suffering is a grace. If one can take it rightly it becomes a stepping stone.
People who have never suffered and have lived a convenient and comfortable, life are almost dead. Their lives will not be like a sharp sword. It will not even cut vegetables. Intelligence becomes sharp when you face challenges. Pray every day to God, "Send me more challenges tomorrow, send more storms," and then you will know life at the optimum.
February 23
Relating
The more centered you become, the more relaxed you become, the more possibility there is to enter into a relationship deeply.
It is you who goes into a relationship. If you are not there - if you are tense, crippled, worried, and fragmented-who is going to go deeply into a relationship? Because of our fragmentedness, we are really afraid of getting into the deeper layers of a relationship, because then our reality will be revealed. Then you will have to open your heart, and your heart is just fragments. There is not one person inside you - you are a crowd. If you really love another and you open your heart, the other will think you are a public, not a person - that is the fear.
That's why people go on having casual affairs. They don't want to go deep; just hit-and-run, just touching the surface and escaping before anything becomes a commitment. You only have sex and that too is impoverished, superficial. Only boundaries meet, but that is not love at all; it may be a bodily release, a catharsis, but it is no more than that.
We can keep our masks if a relationship is not very intimate. Then when you smile, there is no need for you to smile, just the mask smiles. If you really want to go deep, there are dangers. You will have to go naked-and naked means with all the problems inside made known to the other.
February 24
Going Astray
To know something, one has to lose it.
Everybody goes astray from their inner world, the inner space, and then by and by one feels starved, hungry for it. An appetite arises, a thirst is felt. The call comes from the innermost self to come back home, and one starts traveling. That's what being a seeker is. It is going to the warm inner space that you left one day. You will not be gaining something new. You will be gaining something that was always there, but it will still be a gain because now for the first time, you will see what it is. The last time you were in that space, you were oblivious to it.
One cannot be aware of something if one has not left it. So everything is good. Going astray is also good. To sin is also good, because that is the only way to become a saint.
February 25
Settling Down
Lovers become afraid when things go smoothly.
They start feeling that perhaps love is disappearing. When love settles, everything becomes smooth. Then love becomes more like friendship - and that has a beauty of its own. Friendship is the very cream, the very essence, of love. So settle! And don't be worried, otherwise sooner or later you will start creating trouble.
The mind always wants to create trouble, because then it remains important; when there is no trouble, it becomes unimportant. The mind is just like the police department. If the city is calm and quiet, they feel bad: no robbery, no riot, no murders - nothing! They are not needed for anything. When everything is silent and peaceful, the mind has a fear, because if you really settle, the mind will be no more.
Just remember this. The mind has to go, because it is not the goal. The goal is to go beyond the mind. So help each other to be silent, and keep things going smoothly. If the other starts to get panicky, try to help.
