The first question

Question 1

OSHO,

THERE IS DEEP IN MYSELF A YEARNING FOR THE PERMANENCY OF LOVE. IS THAT STUPID?

Prem Anna,

LOVE CAN EXIST in two dimensions: either as horizontal or as vertical. We are acquainted with the love which is horizontal. That is also the dimension of time; the vertical is the dimension of eternity.

The yearning in the heart is not for permanency; there you have misunderstood. But that misunderstanding is almost universal because we know only one plane: the horizontal, the dimension of time. In that dimension there are only two possibilities: either something is momentary OR permanent. But the permanent is nothing but many moments; that too begins and ends. Permanency is not eternal, it cannot be. Nothing can be eternal in time. That which is born in time is bound to die in time. If there is a beginning, there is an end.

And your love begins; it begins at a certain moment in time. Then it is bound to end. Yes, it can end sooner or later. If it ends quickly you call it momentary; if it takes a little longer time to end you call it permanent. But permanency also is not going to fulfill the heart, because the heart longs for that which does not end at all, which is forever. It is the longing for God. God is another name for eternal love.

Jesus says: God is love. And that is one of the greatest statements ever made. Love becomes synonymous with God. If you can know the eternal love you have known God. Nothing is left, all is fulfilled.

But the mind knows nothing of eternity. The heart yearns for the eternal, but the heart is continuously being interpreted by the mind. And mind knows only either a very short-lived love or a little long-lived love. But even if love lives a little longer the fear will always be there that it is going to end. And your fear is right -- it is going to end. In fact, it will be longer if you are unintelligent. If you are very very thick and very very unintelligent it will take a long long time for you to understand the futility of it all. If you are very intelligent it can end quickly because you will see that there is nothing much in it.

The more intelligent a person is, the more short-lived will be his love -- love as you know it. That's why as humanity is becoming more intelligent, love is becoming a short-lived phenomenon. In the past it was almost permanent; there was nothing like divorce. In uneducated countries still there is nothing like divorce. The more a country becomes educated, cultured, sophisticated, the rate of divorce increases, in the same proportion, for the simple reason that people can see that they get bored with each other. Then there is no point in dragging it on; then it is better to finish it.

But the mind can finish one thing and immediately substitute another illusion, again and again. Mind is a non-learner. Even the intelligent person remains a non-learner. And the mind has become so powerful that anything coming from the heart never reaches you, your being, uninterpreted by the mind.

The heart says eternity and the mind interprets permanency. That's where you are missing the point. The yearning of the heart is for a vertical dimension; that is the dimension of meditation. Mind lives horizontally; hence the mystics of all the ages have realized the fact that mind and time are not two different things: mind is time. Mind cannot live vertically; mind lives in the past, in the future. For the mind, present is non-existential. From the past to the future mind goes on moving. The present seems to be only a passage from the past to the future.

I have heard:

A hunter was going to the jungle to hunt. A friend wanted to accompany him; he also wanted to be a hunter, but he was very unskillful, amateurish. The hunter said, "Okay, you can come along."

The hunter brought him to a place where tigers used to pass and lions used to pass, because it was close to the pond and they are bound to come to the pond when they feel thirsty. So they were hiding in a bush. The hunter gave him indications, hints that "When it is going to happen, be alert and shoot immediately."

A tiger passed. The hunter was amazed because the friend remained almost frozen; he didn't even move, he didn't do anything to shoot him. He asked, "What happened? "

The friend said, "It went so fast that I saw him only when he was out of sight."

That's exactly what the present is: you see it only when it is out of sight; when it is already past, then only you see it. You never see it as present. Mind is not that quick. Mind is not alert, not aware. Mind is dreaming. It is always surrounded by past and future, and the small, atomic moment of the present goes fast. It must be moving faster than the light itself, because we never catch hold of it. By the time we are aware it is already gone. The time that we take in becoming alert is enough, and it is gone. You always know it when it is out of sight. So all that you are aware of is the past which is no more and the future which is not yet. You live between these two non-existential things.

The dimension of the vertical is a totally different phenomenon: you jump out of mind. That's what meditation is all about: you get out of the mind, you get out of the past and the future, you get out of time. You are no more thinking, you are no more dreaming, you are no more desiring. There is no memory, no imagination. All is silent.

Then you can see the present, and you can see there is only present and nothing else. And present is eternal. In fact, present is not part of time at all; present is part of eternity. It is always now, it is never otherwise. And that is the yearning of the heart.

Anna, you are not being stupid because of the yearning of the heart, but you are misunderstanding it. You want a love which is born out of meditation, not born out of the mind. That is the love I continuously talk about. That is the love Jesus is speaking of, that love is God. It is not your love; your love cannot be God. Your love is only a mind phenomenon; it is biology, it is physiology, it is psychology, but it is not eternal. Eternal is of the essential being.

The DESIDERATA will call my love essential and your love non-essential. The non-essential cannot become eternal. Even if you try to make it permanent you can manage, but it will die sooner or later. You can even befool yourself that it is still there; you can pretend at least as if it is there.

Millions of couples around the world are living as if it is there. They are living in a world of "as if." Of course, how can they be joyous? They are drained of all energy. They are trying to get something out of a false love; it cannot deliver the goods. Hence the frustration, hence the continuous boredom, hence the continuous nagging, fighting between the lovers. They both are trying to do something which is impossible. They are trying to make their love affair something of the eternal, which it cannot be. It has arisen out of the mind and mind cannot give you any glimpse of the eternal.

Anna, my suggestion is, if you are really ready to fulfill the longing of the heart, then forget all about love. First go into meditation, because love will come out of meditation. It is the fragrance of meditation. Meditation is the flower, the one-thousand-petalled lotus. Let it open. Let it help you to move in the dimension of the vertical, no-mind, no-time, and then suddenly you will see the fragrance is there. Then it is eternal, then it is unconditional. Then it is not even directed to anybody in particular; it cannot be directed to anybody in particular. It is NOT a relationship; it is more a quality that surrounds you. It has nothing to do with the other. You are loving, you are love -- then it is eternal. It is your fragrance. It has been around a Buddha, around a Zarathustra, around a Jesus. It is a totally different kind of love: it is qualitatively different.

You are asking only for a little more quantity -- not one day but two days, three days, four days; not one life but a few lives -- but anyway it is going to end. And the longer you stretch it, the thinner it will become, the more boring it will become, because it wants to die and you are stretching. And sometimes it dies but you are not able to drop it; you go on carrying the corpse. It stinks! Once it was a beautiful phenomenon; now it is simply dead and it stinks.

There is a beautiful story in the Indian scriptures about Shiva. His wife, Parvati, died, and he carried the corpse of his wife for twelve years all around the country, hoping that somewhere some physician may be of some help. Slowly slowly, limbs of the dead body started falling, but he continued his journey in search of a physician; some alchemist, some magician, some miracle-maker may do it. Crying, weeping, he went around the country.

There are in India twelve sacred places. It is said that these are the places where the parts of the body of Parvati fell. Wherever a part fell it became a sacred place.

You can carry the dead body -- but you cannot find the physician.

This is far truer than the story of Jesus reviving a dead man, although it looks impossible that a man like Shiva will carry a dead woman. But my own observation is that I have seen millions of people carrying dead love affairs which have gone dead long before, but carrying out of fear, clinging -- just clinging with the known, with the familiar, although it is just misery and nothing else, but clinging.

When love dies, it dies. In time one has to accept death and one has to say goodbye, with no complaint. no grudge, because when something ends what can you do? In time that is the nature of things: they begin and they end. Buddha says: Everything that happenS in time is bound to die. So accept -- it is the suchness of things.

But if your heart is really yearning for something eternal, then I can show you the way. Then drop the idea of love. Before you can give you must have. You are trying to give something which you don't have; you are trying to get something from somebody who has not got it in the first place. Then how can it be eternal? Sooner or later the disillusionment IS BOUND to happen. How long can you carry it? How long can you remain in a deception?

That's why I say the more intelligent you are, the quicker it slips out of your hands. Only stupid people can live a married life, thinking that it is something permanent. Intelligent people cannot live the so-called married life, or if they live it then they will have to change their partners many times in their life. But each time the same thing will happen.

The mind goes on finding other causes, but never looks at the real cause. It cannot, because to look at the real cause means suicide of the mind. It will find a thousand and one faults in the woman, in the man you have been living with -- that's why the love has failed. Not that the love in time is bound to fail, there are faults in this woman. You have chosen a wrong woman, you don't fit with her, you are not made for each other, and so on, so forth. But one day you were thinking you are made for each other, and you have completely forgotten it. Remember those days, the beginning days of the love affair... and you were thinking, "This is going to last forever!" You had even promised to each other that "This is going to last forever."

Just a few days ago, Aneeta and Anubhava wanted to live together. My suggestion was that they should live separately and continue to meet. But lovers are lovers -- fools are fools. That's why it is called "fooling around"! They wanted to live together. Aneeta even gave in writing that "We will never separate, and I promise. And we are absolutely certain that we want to live together, twenty-four hours a day together." So I said, "Okay, then it is up to you."

And not two months have passed, and yesterday I received Aneeta's letter that "We want to separate." Just two months! She has forgotten that she has given in writing that "We will never separate," that "We will always live together."

It happens to everybody. This is an illusion, a mirage. And you want to make a mirage permanent? How can you make a mirage permanent? How can you make a dream permanent? The morning will come and you will have to wake up. and once you wake up you can close your eyes again and go on trying to find the dream, where it has gone. You want to continue it, but you cannot continue the dream again. It is lost forever. Once you are awake it is broken forever; you cannot find the thread again. It is un-mendable, remember.

You cannot mend a broken love -- a broken mirror, maybe. Ways can be found: it can be again melted and again it will be one. But a broken love there are no ways no possibilities. Hence the fear. The fear shows that deep down you are aware it is slipping out of your hands, so you want to make it permanent. Now the way is to go to the court and get married. These are the ways to make it permanent. Make it a legal phenomenon so that the court and the police and the magistrate and the law and the state will hinder in every possible way. If you want to separate they won't allow you to separate.

It is good that Aneeta has given it in writing to me, not to the court! She need not be worried -- the day she gave it I threw it away because I know there is no point in keeping it -- sooner or later it is going to end. And I don't want her to feel embarrassed! I have thrown it. She can separate... but she will do the same thing again, that is the problem. And you believe me, she can write it again, just after two months.

Now she wants to be absolutely alone; she does not even want to live with anybody -- finished! She is awakened! But this will happen again and again. At least a few times more it is going to happen, because I can hear her snoring so I know she will dream again! And no dream can be permanent, and your love is a dream. And mind can only dream; it cannot give you the reality.

Get out of the mind. Forget all about love. You don't have any understanding of love -- you CAN'T have any understanding of love. Only through meditation will you change the dimension of your being. From horizontal you will become vertical. From living in the past and the future... Now, why this permanency? Permanency means you are trying to figure it out even in the future. You want it to remain as it is even in the future -- but why? In fact, it must already have flown away; then only one starts thinking about permanency.

When two lovers are really in the illusion they don't think about permanency. Ask any two lovers in their honeymoon days -- they don't care. They know that they are going to be together forever.

But the moment it starts slipping out of your hands, then the mind says, "Now cling. Make it permanent. Do everything to make it permanent. Don't look at the cracks that are happening. Don't look, avoid, forget all about them. Go on covering them up -- somehow manage it."

But you are asking for the impossible.

I can teach you meditation, and out of meditation a different quality of love will happen. Then it is not fooling around. Then it is wisdom, not foolishness. Then you don't fall in love, you rise in love. Then love is a quality to you. Just as light surrounds a flame, love surrounds you. You ARE loving, you ARE love. Then it has eternity. It is unaddressed. Whosoever comes close to you will drink out of it. Whosoever comes close to you will be enchanted by it, enriched by it. A tree, a rock, a person, an animal, it does not matter. Even if you are sitting alone... Buddha sitting alone under his tree is radiating love. The love is continuously showering around him. That is eternal, and that is the real longing of the heart.