Jealous Love Is Not Love
“Love cannot be learned, it cannot be cultivated. A cultivated love would not be love at all. It would not be a real rose, it would be a plastic flower. When you learn something, it means something comes from the outside; it is not an inner growth. And love has to be your inner growth if it is to be authentic and real.
Love is not a learning but a growth.
“All that is needed on your part is not how to learn the ways of love but how to unlearn the ways of unlove. The hindrances have to be removed, the obstacles have to be destroyed – then love is your natural, spontaneous being. Once the obstacles are removed, the rocks thrown away, the flow starts. It is already there – hidden behind many rocks, but the spring is already there. It is your very being
“It is a gift, but not something that is going to happen in the future: it is a gift that has already happened with your birth. To be is to be love. To be able to breathe is enough to be able to love. Love is like breathing. What breathing is to the physical body, love is to the spiritual being.
Without breathing the body dies; without love the soul dies.
“So the first thing to be remembered: it is not something that you can learn. And if you learn you will miss the whole point; you will learn something else in the name of love. It will be pseudo, false. The false coin can appear as a real coin; and if you don’t know the real, the false can go on deceiving you. Only by knowing the real will you be able to see the distinction between the false and the real.
“And these are the obstacles: jealousies, possessiveness, attachment, expectations, desires… And your fear is right: ‘If all these disappear, will anything be left of my love?’
“Nothing will be left of your love. Love will be left, but love has nothing to do with ‘I’ or ‘you.’ In fact, when all possessiveness, all jealousies, all expectations disappear, love does not disappear – you disappear, the ego disappears. These are the shadows of the ego.
“It is not love that is jealous. Watch, look, observe again. When you feel jealous, it is not love that feels jealous; love has never known anything of jealousy. Just as the sun has never known anything of darkness, love has never known anything of jealousy.
It is the ego that feels hurt, it is the ego that feels competitive, in a constant struggle. It is the ego which is ambitious and wants to be higher than others, wants to be somebody special.
“It is the ego which starts feeling jealous, possessive – because the ego can exist only with possessions. The more you possess, the more the ego is strengthened; without possessions, the ego cannot exist. It leans on possessions, it depends on possessions. So if you have more money, more power, more prestige, a beautiful woman, a beautiful man, beautiful children, the ego feels immensely nourished. When possessions disappear, when you don’t possess anything at all, you will not find the ego inside. There will be nobody who can say ‘I.’
“And if you think this is your love, then certainly your love will also disappear. Your love is not really love. It is jealousy, possessiveness, hatred, anger, violence; it is a thousand and one things – except love. It masquerades as love. Because all these things are so ugly, they cannot exist without a mask.”
To continue reading and see all available formats of this talk:
Osho, The Dhammapada: The Way of the Buddha, Vol. 3