Our love is of the very lowest kind, it is animal love

Beloved Osho,

Thank you for talking about your cool love. I’ve wanted something from you which is ugly, and not in you to give. But it is what I have known – the attachment and possessiveness of hot love. I have wanted and wanted for so many years for you to love me my way. I hope I am ready to learn to love your way. Osho, I feel so grateful for you. Can you forgive me for being such a relentless beggar?

Sudha, one thing – in fact, you will have to forgive me. I cannot forgive, for the simple reason that I have never been angry, I have never taken any offence.

For what can I forgive you? I can only rejoice in your understanding.

This has been your problem – like many other people, you love me and naturally you would like a response from me.

Your conception of love is very small. I cannot manage to love in such a small way. That does not mean I don’t love you, that simply means you are not receptive and open and available to me so that I need not come down, rather I can take you upwards.

Love can do both miracles. It can bring you down – and in all the ancient literature of all religions, love has been portrayed as bringing people’s consciousness downwards. Nobody has explored the psychology behind all those stories and parables, but it is a tremendously rewarding experience to look into the psychology of them.

For example, in the East there are hundreds of stories that whenever somebody is coming close to enlightenment… In Indian mythology the god Indra – who is the highest god in heaven – becomes troubled, because if somebody becomes enlightened there is a possibility that he may be chosen by existence to be Indra, and Indra may be demoted. There should not be any enlightenment anywhere; that is a protection of his power. Otherwise there will be a competitor who may be far superior.

So whenever somebody is coming close to enlightenment, immediately Indra sends beautiful girls from heaven to drag that man down from enlightenment. Just a step or two and he would have been enlightened, but the beautiful girls, called upsaras… they are not just women. They are always young, they never grow old. They don’t perspire, they don’t need deodorant. They are always fragrant.

And naturally, a man who has been avoiding the world, escaping deeper into the Himalayas, who has been repressing all his natural instincts – particularly sex – is sitting almost on a volcano, the sexual energy can explode.

It is the same energy that was taking him to enlightenment. Enlightenment is also an explosion, but creative. It gives you a new birth.

But these beautiful girls are sent to provoke the person sexually, dance sexual dances around him, create a whole pornographic atmosphere.

In most cases the man falls down, thinking it is love, and love sent from heaven! But those women have come simply to destroy his meditation, to create lust in him, and once that work is done they disappear. Only when they disappear does the person become aware that he was reaching to the climax of consciousness and now he is standing in total darkness.

In all the languages of the world, strangely enough, people use the phrase “falling in love.” Without any exception, in all the languages people say “I have fallen in love.” But why should you fall? Why can’t you rise in love?

Love up to now has been the condemned part of humanity.

To me, love is the only divine quality in you. All other qualities are part and parcel of your godliness, but love is the center.

You love me. I can accept your love. But you will receive my love only by rising a little higher towards enlightenment in your consciousness.

It is just the opposite from the whole of history. I want you to say one day, “I have risen in love.”

Love should bring more light to you, more understanding, more maturity, more freedom, more creativity.

Sudha, you need not be sad about your past. You may have desired the same kind of love; it is natural. You know only one kind of love and you can desire only that love.

My whole life is devoted to you, to making you aware of a higher love – a love which replaces God, a love beyond which nothing exists. But to understand my love you will have to climb higher in consciousness.

You will start feeling me only when you are close to enlightenment. It will be the same moment as when the god Indra becomes troubled: you will feel my love.

And if you become enlightened you will see all the psychedelic colors of love. Only the enlightened person knows the very spirit of love.

So it is not your fault but just your laziness in becoming enlightened!

And remember: I cannot forgive your laziness, because I am here today; tomorrow I may not be. I cannot be here with you forever; while I exist in the body, be a little quicker. If you can taste a little love while I am alive, then even after my death your connection with me, your trust, your love, will remain valid. It will go on for eternity. And a love that is not for eternity is just a biological strategy to produce more children.

Have you observed one fact, that while animals are making love, they don’t seem to be happy? Just… you know I am a little crazy; I have been studying things nobody else bothers about. My father was very much ashamed, because two dogs would be making love and I would be following them for half a mile, and my father would say, “You are a strange person. People come to us….”

I said, “But that is none of their business, I am studying.”

My father said, “My God, can’t you find something else to study?”

I said, “This is the most essential thing.”

I have watched all kinds of animals, birds… deep in the countryside near the villages it is so easy to see and watch. But nobody looks happy, that is the problem. They are making love… and just look at their faces! It seems they don’t mean it, it seems that it is a kind of torture.

They are unhappy, and there is a reason for it: they feel the biological slavery. They are more sensitive than you are. They can see that it is not their love, it is just something else forcing them. They are doing it in spite of themselves.

That’s why all animals just have small seasons for reproduction; it seems biology has not been able to convince the animals to make love all year round. And once the season is over the animals completely forget all about love and sex and girlfriends and boyfriends. Looking at the animals I used to wonder: is “boyfriend and girlfriend” applicable to animals? Because they look so sad that it seems “boy-enemy and girl-enemy” would be a better description of the reality.

It is only man who makes love all year round, and it is only man who thinks that this love is all. This love is not all; otherwise the whole world would have been a beautiful place to live.

This world is created by your love, your relationships – and you have virtually created a better hell than the one described in the scriptures! And everybody is loving – the father is loving, the mother is loving, the husband is loving, the wife is loving, the children are loving, the teachers are loving. Everybody is loving and the total result is always a world war. This is a strange kind of logic. Everybody loving, and then finally… where does the war come from?

Our love is of the very lowest kind, it is animal love. This love is not going to help you. This love can only be part of your biological slavery. And you have accepted it, you have not even raised the question that it is slavery.

When you come to me and you love me, your love has shadows on it of your past experiences. I cannot meet you on that wavelength. That does not mean that I don’t love you. I love you, but it just goes on above your heads. I try hard to hit your head at least, but it goes on above your heads.

If this understanding settles in you, Sudha, that you should try to raise your consciousness higher, then forget all about my love. One day suddenly you will be showered by it. You have been showered by it always.

But your umbrella is open, so close your umbrella!

Osho, Sermons in Stones, Ch 15, Q 2