Question 3

WHY DOES JEALOUSY ALWAYS FOLLOW LOVE AS A SHADOW?

Jealousy has nothing to do with love. In fact, your so-called love also has nothing to do with love. These are beautiful words which you use without knowing what.they mean, without experiencing what they mean. You go on using the word 'love'. You use it so much that you forget the fact that you have not experienced it yet. That is one of the dangers of using such beautiful words: 'God', 'love', NIRVANA, 'prayer' beautiful words. You go on using them, you go on repeating them, and by and by, the very repetition makes you feel as if you know.

What do you know about love? If you know anything about love, you cannot ask this question. because jealousy is never present in love. And wherever jealousy is present, love is not present.

Jealousy is not part of love, jealousy is part of possessiveness. Possessiveness has nothing to do with love. You want to possess. Through possession you feel strong: your territory is bigger. And if somebody else tries to trespass on your territory, you are angry. Or if somebody has a bigger house than your house, you are jealous. Of if somebody tries to dispossess you of your property, you are jealous and angry.

If you love, jealousy is impossible; it is not possible at all.

I have heard...

Up in the frozen Yukon, two trappers stopped at the last outpost to get supplies for the long dark winter. After they had loaded their sleds with flour, canned foods, kerosene, matches and ammunition, they were ready to mush off for six months in the wilds.

'Wait a minute, boys' the storekeeper called to them 'How about taking one of these?' And he showed them a large board curved like an hour glass.

'What is it?' asked one of the trappers.

The storekeeper winked. 'It's called a love board. You can hug it when you get lonely.'

'We'll take two!' exclaimed the men.

Six months later, one of the trappers, bearded and haggard, returned.

'Where's your buddy?' asked the storekeeper.

'Had to shoot him' muttered the trapper. 'Caught him messin' around with my love board!'

Jealousy has nothing to do with love. If you love your woman, how can you be jealous? If you love your man, how can you be jealous? If your woman is laughing with somebody else, how can you be jealous? You will be happy: it is your woman who is happy; her happiness is your happiness. How can you think against her happiness?

But look, watch. You laughed at this story but it is happening everywhere, in every family. The wife even becomes jealous of the newspaper if the husband goes on reading it too much. She comes and snatches it away: she becomes jealous. The newspaper is substituting for her. While she is present, how dare you read your newspaper? That is an insult! When she is there you have to be possessed by her totally not even a newspaper... The newspaper becomes a competitor.

So what to say about human beings? If the wife is present, and the husband starts talking to another woman and looks a little happy -- which is natural: people get tired of each other; anything new and one feels a little thrilled -- now the wife is angry. You can know well that if a couple is going by and the man looks sad, then he is the husband married to that woman. If he looks happy, he is not married to the woman. She is not HIS wife.

Once I was travelling in a train, and there was a woman in the.same compartment. At each station a man would come in. Sometimes he would bring bananas, sometimes he would bring tea, and ice cream, and this and that.

I asked her 'Who is this man?'

She said 'He's my husband.'

I said 'I can't trust that. I can't believe it. How long have you been married?'

She became a little disturbed. She said 'Now that you insist, we are not married. But how did you come to know?'

I said 'I have never seen any husband coming in at every station. Once the husband gets rid of the wife, he will come in at the last station hoping that she has dropped out somewhere in the middle. Each station bringing things... this and that... and rushing again and again from his compartment?'

She said 'You are right, he's not my husband. He's my husband's friend.'

That's right -- then there is no problem.

You are not really in love with your woman, or with your man, or with your friend. If you are in love, then his or her happiness is your happiness. If you are in love, then you will not create any possessiveness.

Love is capable of giving total freedom. ONLY love is capable of giving total freedom. And if freedom is not given, then it is something else, not love. It is a certain type of egoistic trip.

You have a beautiful woman. You want to show everybody, all around the town, that you have a beautiful woman -- just like a possession. Just as when you have a car and you are into your car, you want everybody to know that nobody has such a beautiful car. The same is the case with your woman. You bring diamonds for her, but not out of love. She is a decoration for your ego. You carry her from one club to another, but she has to remain clinging to you and go on showing that she belongs to you. Any infringement of your right and you are angry -- you can kill the woman... whom you think you love.

There is great ego working everywhere. We want people to be like things. We possess them like things, we reduce persons into things. The same is the attitude about things also.

I have heard...

A rabbi and a priest were neighbours, and there was a certain amount of 'needle' between them. If the Cohens had their drive done up, Father O'Flynn had his relaid, and so it went on.

One day the priest had a new Jaguar, so the rabbi bought a Bentley. When the rabbi looked out of his window it was to see the priest pouring water over the top of the car bonnet. He opened the window and shouted 'That's not the way to fill the radiator, you know.'

'Aha' said the priest 'I'm christening it with holy water, that's more than you can do to yours.'

A little while later the priest was taken aback to see the rabbi Lying in the road, hacksaw in hand, sawing the last inch of his car's exhaust pipe.

That is the mind -- continuously in competition. Now he is doing circumcision; he has to do something. That is the way we are living: the way of the ego. The ego knows no love, the ego knows no friendship, the ego knows no compassion. The ego is aggression, violence.

And you ask: WHY DOES JEALOUSY ALWAYS FOLLOW LOVE AS A SHADOW?

Never.