Question:YOU SAID IF ONE CAN REALLY LOVE, THEN LOVE ALONE IS ENOUGH AND THE ONE HUNDRED AND TWELVE METHODS OF MEDITATION ARE NOT NEEDED.AS YOU HAVE EXPLAINED REAL LOVE, I FEEL REALLY THAT I LOVE, I BELIEVE.BUT THE BLISS I ENCOUNTER IN MEDITATION FEELS TO BE OF QUITE ANOTHER DIMENSION THAN THE DEEP CONTENTMENT I EXPERIENCE FROM LOVE, AND I CANNOT IMAGINE BEING WITHOUT MEDITATION ALSO.SO EXPLAIN MORE ABOUT HOW LOVE ALONE WITHOUT MEDITATION CAN BE ENOUGH.

Answer:

"Many things will have to be understood. One, if you are really in love you will not inquire at all about meditation - because love is such a total fulfillment that it is never felt that something is lacking, that some gap is to be filled, that you need something more. If you feel that something more is needed, the gap is there. If you feel that something more is to be done and experienced, then love is just a feeling, not a reality. I do not doubt your belief, you may believe that you are in love. Your belief is authentic; you are not deceiving anyone. You feel that you are in love, but the symptoms show that you are not.

What are the symptoms of being in love? Three things. First, absolute contentment. Nothing else is needed; not even God is needed. Second, no future. This very moment of love is eternity. No next moment, no future, no tomorrow. Love is a happening in the present. And third, you cease to be, you are no more. If you still are, then you have still not entered the temple of love.

If these three things happen... If you are not, then who is going to meditate? If there is no future, then all methods become useless because methods are for the future, for a result. And if at this very moment you are content, absolutely content, where is the motivation to do anything?

There is a school of psychologists - and this is one of the most significant trends in modern thinking - that started with Wilhelm Reich. He said that every mental disease arises because of the lack of love. Because you cannot feel deep love, because you cannot be in it totally, this unfulfilled being craves for fulfillment in many dimensions.

When I say that "If you can love, nothing is needed," I do not mean that then love is enough. I mean that once you love deeply, love becomes a door - just like any meditation. What is meditation going to do? These three things: It will create contentment; it will allow you to remain in the present, help you to remain in the present; and it will destroy your ego. These three things meditation is going to do - with any method. So you can say it this way: love is the natural method. If the natural method has been missed, then other artificial methods have to be supplied.

But one can feel that one is in love; then these three things will become criteria for him. He will think that these should be made the touchstones, the measures and he will observe whether these three things are happening. If they are not happening, then his feeling can be many other things, but not love. And the feeling of love is a great phenomenon, it can be many things. It can be lust; it can be simple sex; it can be just a possessive tendency. It can be just an occupation because you cannot be alone, and you need someone because you are afraid and you need security. The presence of the other helps you to be secure. Or it may be just a sexual relationship.

Energy needs outlets. Energy goes on accumulating - then it becomes a burden. You have to throw it and release it. So your love may be just a release. Love can be many things, and love is many things. And ordinarily, love is many things except LOVE. To me, love is meditation. So try this: with your lover, be in meditation. Whenever your lover or beloved is present, be in deep meditation. Make this presence of each other a meditative state.

Ordinarily, you are doing the very opposite. Whenever lovers are together they are fighting. When they are separated then they are thinking of each other, and when they are together they are fighting.

When they are separated again, then again they are thinking about each other. When they are put together, again the fight starts. This is not love!

So I will suggest some points. Make the presence of your beloved or lover a meditative state. Be silent. Remain close, but be silent. Use each other's presence to drop the mind; do not think. If you are thinking while your lover is with you, then you are not with your lover. How can you be? You are both there, but miles apart. You are thinking your thoughts, your lover is thinking his thoughts. You just appear to be near, but you are not - because when two minds are thinking, they are poles apart.

Real love means cessation of thinking. In the presence of your beloved or lover, cease completely to think; then only are you near. Then suddenly you are one, then bodies cannot separate you. Then deep down within the body, someone has broken the barrier. The silence breaks the barrier - that is one thing.

Make your relationship a sacred phenomenon. When you are really in love, the object of love becomes divine. If it is not, then know well it is not a love relationship; it is impossible. A love relationship is not a profane relationship. But have you ever felt any reverence for your beloved?

You may have felt many other things, but never reverence.

It seems inconceivable, but India has tried many, many ways... That is why India has been insisting that this love relationship between man and woman should be a sacred phenomenon, not a worldly relationship. The lover, the beloved, they become divine. You cannot look at them in any other way.

I wonder, have you ever felt any reverence for your wife? The very thing seems irrelevant - reverence for a wife? There is no question. You can feel condemnation, you can feel everything, but never reverence. The relationship is just worldly; you are using each other. The wife may say that she respects her husband, but I have not seen a single wife who really respects. Traditionally, because it has been a convention to respect the husband, the wife goes on saying she respects, and so she will not even utter his name. Not because of respect, because she can utter anything, but she will not utter his name just traditionally.

Reverence is the second thing. In the presence of your beloved or lover, feel reverence. If you cannot see the divine in your beloved or lover, you cannot see him anywhere else. How can you see him in a tree, where no relationship exists? When no deep intimacy prevails, how can you see him in a rock or a tree? They are unrelated. If you cannot see him in the person you love, if God is not felt there, he cannot be felt anywhere else. And if he can be felt there, sooner or later you will feel him everywhere - because once the door is thrown open, once you have a glimpse of the divine in any person, then you cannot forget that glimpse. And because of that, then everything becomes a door. That is why I say love itself is a meditation.

So do not think in contrast - whether to love or to meditate. That was not my meaning. Do not try to choose whether to love or to meditate. Love meditatively, or meditate lovingly. Do not create any division. Love is a very natural phenomenon, and it can be used as a vehicle. And tantra has used it as a vehicle - not only love, even sex tantra has used as a vehicle.

Tantra says that in a deep sex act you can meditate more easily than in any other state of mind - because this is a natural, biological ecstasy. But whatsoever is known by the sex act is in a very perverted form. So whenever such things are said you feel uneasy, because whatsoever you have known in the name of sex is not sex. It is just a shadow, because the whole society has cultivated your mind against sex.

Everyone is a suppressed person, so natural sex is impossible. And whenever you are in a sex act, a deep guilt feeling is always present there. That guilt feeling becomes a barrier, and one of the greatest opportunities is lost. You could have used it to go deep down into yourself.

Tantra says, in the sex act be meditative. Feel the whole phenomenon as holy; do not feel guilty.

Rather, feel blessed that nature has given you one source through which you can go deep into ecstasy immediately. And then, be totally free in it. Do not repress; do not resist. Let the sexual communion take hold of you. Forget yourself; throw all your inhibitions. Be absolutely natural, and then you will feel a deep music in the body.

When both bodies become one harmony, then you will forget completely that you are - and still, you will be. Then you will forget the "I": there will be no "I", just existence playing with existence, one being with another. And the two will become one. There will be no thinking; future will cease and you will be in the present this very moment. Without any guilt, without any inhibition, make it a meditation, and then sex is transformed. Then sex itself becomes a door.

If sex becomes a door, by and by sex ceases to be sexual. And a moment comes when sex has gone - only the perfume has remained. That perfume is love. And later on, even that perfume disappears, and then that which remains is samadhi.

Tantra says nothing has to be taken as an enemy. Every energy is friendly; one has just to know how to use it. So do not make any choice. Transform your love into meditation and transform your meditation into love. Then soon you will forget the word and you will know the real thing, which is not the word. The word 'love' is not love, and the word 'meditation' is not meditation, and the word 'God' is not God. These are only words. And if you can penetrate in, then God, meditation, love; they all become one."

OSHO

(From the Book: Vigyan Bhairav Tantra, Vol 1, chapter 14)