Question: Beloved Osho, the search for the highest is individual for everyone, but can you explain the importance of the role of the Beloved in Tantra and our search for ourselves?
Osho: It is very difficult and confusing, but you need to understand it: if you are not in love, you suffer from loneliness. If you are in love, really in love, you become self-sufficient. Loneliness is sadness, self-sufficiency is not sadness. Loneliness is a feeling of inferiority. You need someone, and the one you need is not around. Loneliness is darkness, without a single ray of light. A dark house, waiting for someone to come and turn on the light.
Self-sufficiency is not loneliness. Self-sufficiency is the feeling that you are full. Nobody needed, you are enough. And such a feeling is possible only through love. Lovers become self-sufficient, through their love they touch their inner fulfillment. Love fills you. Lovers share with each other not because they feel the need for it, but because the energy overwhelms them.
Two people who suffer from loneliness can make contact, can live together. They are not lovers, remember. They continue to suffer from loneliness. Now, due to the presence of the other, they do not feel lonely - that's all. They are deceiving themselves. Their love is nothing more than a trick to deceive themselves: I am not alone, someone is nearby. Since there are two people suffering from loneliness, their loneliness doubles, or even increases. This is how it usually goes.
You suffer from loneliness when you are alone with yourself, and when you are in a relationship you feel unhappy. This is what you see every day. When people suffer from loneliness, they feel it and look for someone to get rid of their loneliness. When they are in a relationship, then suffering begins; then they feel that it is better to be single - this relationship is too difficult for them. What's going on?
There are two loneliness - this means that two gloomy, sad, unhappy people meet. Their suffering is multiplied. How can two ugliness become beauty? How can two loneliness, walking side by side, become fullness, totality? It's impossible. They exploit each other, they somehow try to deceive themselves through the other. But this deception will not lead to anything good. By the time the honeymoon is over, the marriage is over too. This relationship is very short lived. This is just an illusion.
True love is not a search to get away from loneliness. True love is the transformation of loneliness into self-sufficiency. To help another, if you love a person, you will help him become self-sufficient. You don't fill him / her with yourself. You help the other to be self-sufficient, to be so filled with his / her own essence that you will not be needed.
When a person is absolutely free, then dialogue is possible from this freedom. Then the lovers give a lot to each other, but not because one has to give; they give a lot to each other, but it doesn't seem like a bargain. Lovers give a lot to each other, because they have something to give. They give because they enjoy it. Lovers are self-sufficient, and a truly loving person will not violate your self-sufficiency. You will always respect each other's self-sufficiency. It is sacred. Lovers keep their distance and do not violate this sacred space.
Promotional video:
But usually, lovers, so-called lovers, are very afraid of each other, his / her self-sufficiency, his / her independence; they are very much afraid - because they think that if the other is independent, then they will not be needed, and then they will be abandoned. Therefore, a woman tries to make her husband remain dependent on her, so that she remains valuable to him. And also the husband tries in every way to make the woman need him, and he remains valuable. This is a deal, and this is a constant conflict, a struggle. Struggle to get another's freedom.
Love gives freedom, not only gives, but also strengthens it. Anything that takes away freedom is not love. This is something else. Love and freedom go together; they are like two wings of one bird. Whenever you feel that your love is contrary to freedom, it means that this is not love, you only hide behind it.
Let this be your criterion: freedom as a criterion; love gives you freedom, makes you free, sets you free. And then, when you completely belong to yourself, you will feel gratitude to the person who helped you. This gratitude is almost religious. You feel something divine in another person. He made you free, or she made you free, and love did not become possession.
When love breaks down, it turns into possession, jealousy, power struggles, politics, domination, manipulation - a thousand and one nuances that are all ugly. When love soars high in the clear sky, it is freedom, absolute freedom. This is moksha - absolute freedom.
And now the question: "The search for the highest is individual for everyone, but can you explain the importance of the role of the Beloved in Tantra and our search for ourselves?"
Tantra is pure love. Tantra is a way of purifying love from everything that poisons it. When you are in love, I am talking about LOVE, your true love will help another to become whole. Your true love will have a cementing power for the other. In your love, the other will find inner harmony, because your love gives freedom; in the shadow of your love, under the protection of your love, another will begin to grow.
Any growth needs love - unconditional love. If love sets conditions, then growth cannot be total, because these conditions become obstacles in its path. Love unconditionally. Don't ask for anything in return. A lot comes naturally. Don't be a beggar. Be an emperor in love. Just give it and see what happens…. it will return a thousandfold. But this needs to be learned. Otherwise, you will remain a miser. Most often they give a little, but they expect a lot in return, and your expectations and hopes destroy all the beauty of love.
When you wait or expect something, the other feels that you are being manipulated. He may or may not say so - but he will feel that you are being manipulated. And when you feel that you are being manipulated, you want to rebel against it, because it contradicts the needs of your soul, because any demand from the outside violates your integrity. Any demand from the outside divides you in half. Any demand from the outside is a crime against you, because it pollutes your freedom. You are no longer sacred. You are no longer perfection itself - you have been used. And the most immoral in the world is to take advantage of someone.
Every being is a goal for itself. Love accepts you for who you are. You shouldn't have any expectations. Tantra is the highest form of love. Tantra is a science, yoga of love.
So, remember a few points. First: love, but not as a necessity, but as a dialogue. Love, but don't expect - come on. Love, but remember that your love should not be a prison for another. Love, but be careful; you "walk" on sacred ground. You enter the highest, purest, holiest temple. Be vigilant! Leave all the dirt outside the temple. When you love a person, love him like God, no less. Never love a woman as a woman and a man as a man, because if you love a man as a man, your love is ordinary. Your love goes no further than lust. If you love a woman as a woman, your love will not float in the clouds. Love a woman like a goddess, then love will become freedom.
In Tantra, a man who wants to make love to a woman must worship her as a goddess for months. He has to visualize the mother goddess in the woman. When the visualization becomes total, then lust will not arise at the sight of a naked woman sitting next to him, he will simply feel a trembling from the divine energy. There will be no lust, the woman herself will become divine, all thoughts will stop, and only reverence will remain - only then can he make love to her.
This sounds like an absurdity or a paradox. When you no longer need to make love, then you can make love. When a woman becomes a goddess, then a man can make love to her - because now love can soar high in the sky, love can reach its peak, its peak. Now it will not be earthly love, it will not be the love of this world; will not be the love of two bodies, but the love of two entities. It is a meeting of two existences. Two souls meet, merge, mix, and both will come out of this absolutely self-sufficient.
Self-sufficiency means purity. Self-sufficiency means that it's just you and no one else. Self-sufficiency means that you are the purest jewel, just gold and nothing else … just you. Love makes you self-sufficient. Loneliness will disappear, but self-sufficiency will appear.
Loneliness is a state when you are sick with yourself, tired of yourself, tired of yourself, and you want to go somewhere and forget yourself in someone else. Self-sufficiency is when you get a delightful shiver from your essence. You are happy to be yourself. You don't have to go anywhere. The "need" disappears. You are self-sufficient. But now, the new appears in your essence. You are so filled that you can no longer contain it all. You need to share, you need to give it. And whoever accepts this gift, you will feel gratitude to him for accepting it. After all, he could reject him.
Lovers are grateful that their love was accepted. They feel grateful because they were so energized and needed to pour it out on someone. When a flower blooms and spreads its fragrance to the winds, it is grateful to the wind - the fragrance grew larger and larger and became heavy on it. It has become an almost unbearable burden. It's like a woman who is pregnant, nine months have already passed, and the baby is not being born. At this moment it is very difficult for her; she wants to give a baby to this world. This is the meaning of birth.
Until that moment, she carried the child in her. It was her child. But now it's hard; she can no longer wear it. It must be presented; the child must be presented to the world. The mother must drop her greed. The moment the child leaves the womb, it no longer belongs to her alone; step by step he leaves her, and goes further and further. He becomes a part of this vast world. The same thing happens with a cloud full of rain and ready to pour rain, and when it rains, downpour, the cloud feels liberated from this burden and happy and grateful for the thirsty earth, because it accepts this rain.
There are two kinds of love. First: love, when you suffer from loneliness - as a necessity, you go to another. Second, when you do not suffer from loneliness, you are self-sufficient. In the first case, you go to receive something, in the second - to give. The one who gives is the emperor.
Remember, Tantra is not an ordinary love. It has nothing to do with lust. This is the greatest transformation of lust into love. The basic search is individual - but love makes you an individual. If she does not make you an individual, if she tries to make a slave of you, then this is not love - it is hatred pretending to be love. Pretending to be love, hatred hides behind it and somehow it tries to control you by pretending to be love.
Such love kills, destroys your individuality. It allows you less and less to be individual. She pulls you down. You don't get better, you don't get attractive. You're being pulled into the mud. And you begin to feel as if you are immersed in something dirty. Love should give freedom - never settle for less. Love should make you a white cloud, absolutely free, soaring across the sky of freedom, without a single attachment. Love is not attachment, lust is.
Meditation and love are two ways to get closer to the personality that I am talking about. Both are very, very, very related to each other. In fact, these are two sides of the same coin: love and meditation.
If you meditate, sooner or later you will go towards love. If you meditate deeply, sooner or later, but you will feel a tremendous love rising in you, which you did not know about before - a new quality of your essence, a new door opens. A new flame has arisen in you, and you want to share it.
If you love deeply, step by step you will realize that your love is becoming more and more meditative. The subtle quality of silence enters you. Thoughts disappear, gaps of silence appear. You touch your depth.
Love makes you meditative if it is true love.
Meditation makes you loving if it is true meditation.
And basically, in the world, there are two types of people: those who come to meditation through love, and those who come to love through meditation.
For those who come to meditation through love, this is the path of Tantra, this is their way. For those who come to love through meditation, this is Yoga, this is their way.
Tantra and Yoga are the only two ways - basic and very fundamental. But in both cases, you can go in the wrong direction if you don't understand them correctly. Therefore, the criterion - listen - if you meditate and it does not become love, you should know that you are going somewhere. You will find 99 out of 100 yogis who go in the wrong direction. The more they go into their meditation, the further they are from love. In fact, they are afraid of love. They start to think of love as a distraction. Then their meditation is not real. Meditation from which love does not arise is not meditation at all. This is a departure from reality, this is not growth. It is as if the seed is afraid to become a plant and a blooming flower, and is afraid to spread its fragrance in the air - the seed will become miserable.
You will find such yogis all over India. Their meditation did not blossom. Their meditation stopped halfway somewhere. They are stuck. You will not see gratitude on their faces, you will not see wisdom in their eyes. You will feel the atmosphere of boredom and stupidity around them. You will not find them alert, aware, alive. They are dead…. because if you are alive you will become loving. To avoid love is to avoid life.
And these people run away to the Himalayas, somewhere where they can be in seclusion. It will not be self-sufficient, it will be loneliness - you can read it on their faces. They are unhappy in their loneliness. You will see torment on their faces - what nonsense! - as if they are sacrificing themselves. You will find the ego there; not humility, because when humility comes, then love also comes. When the ego becomes too strong, then love is destroyed completely. Ego is the opposite of love.
Yoga is in the hands of the wrong people. And the same thing happens with Tantra. Under the name of Tantra, people simply began to satisfy their lust, sex and perversions. She never becomes meditative. She became a valid excuse for lust, sex, and passion. It became a gimmick; you can hide behind this. Tantra has become a screen for all kinds of perversion.
So remember. The man is very cunning. He destroyed yoga, he destroyed Tantra. Stay alert! They are both very good, they are extremely healing, but it should be remembered that if you do one correctly, then the second follows the first like a shadow. If this does not happen, then you are going in the wrong direction.
Step back, start over. Go into your mind, analyze your mind. Somewhere you deceived yourself. And it is not difficult - because you can deceive others, but you cannot deceive yourself. It's impossible. If you just look inward and observe, you will find where you deceived yourself. No one can deceive himself, it is impossible. How can you deceive yourself?