It is unfortunate that we have to ask this
question. In the natural course of things everybody would know what love
is. But I understand that nobody knows - or only very rarely - what love
is. Love has become one of the rarest experiences. Yes, it is talked about,
filmed, stories are written about it, songs are composed about it. Films
are made, on the TV you will see it, on the radio, in the magazines -
a great industry continuously goes on supplying you with the idea of what
love is. Many people are continuously involved in it, helping people understand
what love is. Poets, authors, novelists - they all go on.
Still, love remains an unknown phenomenon - and it should be one of the
most known. It is almost as if somebody comes and asks, "What is food?"
Would you not be surprised if somebody came and asked, "What is food?"
If somebody has been starved from the very beginning and he has never
tasted what food is, the question will be relevant. So is this question.You
ask, "What is love?" Love is the food of the soul. But you have been starved,
your soul has not received love at all, so you don’t know the taste.
Your question is relevant, but it is unfortunate. The body has received
food so the body continues; but the soul has not received food so the
soul is dead, or is not born yet, or is always on its death-bed.
When a child is born he is fully born; he is fully equipped with the capacity
to love and to be loved. Each child is born full of love and knows perfectly
what it is. There is no need to tell the child what love is. But the problem
arises because the mother and the father don’t know what love is.
No child receives the parents that he deserves - no child ever receives
the parents that he deserves. Those parents simply don’t exist on
the earth. And by the time this child becomes a parent he will have lost
the capacity to love.
It is almost like.... In Mexico there was a small valley where children
were born and within three months they would all become blind. It was
a small, primitive society. A fly existed there which was poisonous to
the eyes, so the whole community was blind. Every child was born with
eyes - perfectly functioning eyes - but within three months there would
be an attack of the fly and the poison would enter the system and the
eyes would go blind. Now, somewhere later in his life the child would
ask, "What are eyes? What do you mean when you use the word ’eye’?
What is vision? What is seeing? What do you mean?" And the question was
relevant. The child was born with eyes but they were lost somewhere on
the way of so-called growth.
That’s what has happened to love. Every child is born with as much
love as one can contain, with more love than one can contain, with overflowing
love. A child is born as love; a child is made of the stuff called love.
But the parents cannot give love. They have their own hangovers - their
parents never loved them. The parents can only pretend. They can talk
about love. They can say, "We love you very much" but whatsoever they
do is very unloving. The way they behave, the way they treat the child
is very insulting; there is no respect. No parent respects the child.
Who ever thinks of respecting a child? A child is not thought to be a
person at all. A child is thought to be like a problem. If he keeps quiet,
he is good; if he is not a screamer, a primal therapist, good. If he simply
keeps out of the way of the parents, perfectly good - that’s what
a child should be.
But there is no respect and there is no love. The parents have not known
what love is. The mother has not loved the husband, the husband has not
loved the wife. Love does not exist there. Domination, possessiveness,
jealousy, and all kinds of poisons are there which destroy love. Just
as a certain poison can destroy your vision, so the poison of possessiveness
and jealousy destroys love.
Love is a very fragile flower. It has to be protected, it has to be strengthened,
it has to be watered; only then does it become strong. And the child’s
love is very fragile - naturally, because the child is fragile, his body
is fragile. Do you think a child left on his own will be able to survive?
Just think how helpless man is. If a child is left on his own, it is next
to impossible that he will survive. He will die. And that is what is happening
to love.
Love is left alone. The parents can’t love, they don’t know
what love is, they have never flowed in love. Remember your own parents...and
remember, I am not saying that they are responsible. They are victims
just as you are victims - their own parents were the same. And so on...
you can go back to Adam and Eve and God the Father.
It seems that even God the Father was not very respectful towards Adam
and Eve, was not respectful enough. That’s why from the very beginning
he started commanding them, "Do this," and "Don’t do that," and
he started doing all the rubbish that all parents do. "Don’t eat
the fruit of this tree." And when Adam had eaten the fruit, the Father,
God, was so angry in reaction that he threw Adam and Eve out of heaven.
That expulsion is always there, and each parent threatens to expel the
child, to throw him out. "If you don’t listen, if you don’t
behave, you will be thrown out." And naturally a child is afraid. Thrown
out? Into the wilderness of this life? He starts compromising. The child
by and by becomes a twister, he starts manipulating. He does not want
to smile, but if the mother is coming and he wants milk, he smiles.
Now this is politics - the beginning, the ABC of politics. Deep down he
starts hating because he is not respected; deep down he starts feeling
frustrated because he is not loved as he is. He is expected to do certain
things and only then will he be loved. Love has some conditions; he is
not worthy as he is. First he has to become worthy, then the parents’
love will be possible.
So he starts becoming worthy and starts becoming false; he loses his intrinsic
value. His respect for himself is lost by and by, he starts feeling that
he is guilty.
And many times the idea comes to the mind of the child, "Are these my
real parents? Is it possible they have adopted me? Maybe they are deceiving,
because there seems to be no love." And a thousand and one times he sees
the anger in their eyes, the ugly anger on the faces of the parents, and
for such small things that he cannot see the proportion of it. Just for
very small things he sees the parents’ rage. He cannot believe it,
it is so unjust and unfair! But he has to surrender, he has to bow down,
he has to accept it as a necessity. By and by his love capacity is killed.
Love grows only in love. Love needs a milieu of love - that is the most
fundamental thing to be remembered. Only in a milieu of love does love
grow; it needs the same kind of pulsation around. If the mother is loving,
if the father is loving - not only to the child, if they are loving to
each other too, if the home has a love atmosphere where love flows - the
child will start functioning as a love-being, and he will never ask the
question, "What is love?" He will know it from the very beginning, it
will become his foundation.
But that doesn’t happen. It is unfortunate, but it has not happened
up to now. And you learn the ways of your parents...their nagging, their
conflict. Just go on watching yourself. If you are a woman, watch: you
may be repeating, almost repeating, the ways your mother used to behave.
Watch yourself when you are with your boyfriend or your husband - what
are you doing? Are you not repeating? If you are a man, watch: what are
you doing? Are you not being your daddy? Are you not doing the same nonsense
that he used to do? Once you were surprised - "How can daddy do this?"
- and now you are doing the same. People go on repeating. People are imitators,
man is a monkey. You are repeating your daddy or your mummy. That has
to be dropped. Only then will you know what love is; otherwise you will
remain corrupted.
I cannot define what love is because there is no definition of love. It
is one of those indefinables like birth, like death, like God, like meditation.
It is one of those indefinables - I cannot define it.
I cannot say, "This is love." I cannot show it to you, it is not a visible
phenomenon. It cannot be dissected, it cannot be analyzed; it can only
be experienced. And only through experience do you know what it is. But
I can show you the way to experience it.
The first step is: get rid of your parents. And by that I don’t
mean any disrespect towards your parents, no. I will be the last person
to say that. And I don’t mean get rid of your physical parents,
I mean get rid of your parental voices inside, your program inside, your
tapes inside. Erase them... and you will be simply surprised that if you
get rid of your parents from your inner being, you become free. For the
first time you will be able to feel compassion for your parents - otherwise
not; you will remain resentful. Every person is resentful towards his
parents.
How can you not be resentful when they have done so much harm to you -
although not knowingly? They wished all good for you, they wanted to do
everything for your well being. But what can they do? Just by wanting,
nothing happens; just by good wishes, nothing happens. They were well-wishers,
that is true. There is no doubt about it. Every parent wants the child
to have all the joys of life. But what can he do? He has not known any
joy himself. He is a robot, and knowingly or unknowingly, deliberately
or undeliberately, he will create an atmosphere in which the child will
sooner or later be turned into a robot.
If you want to become a man and not a machine, get rid of your parents.
And you will have to watch. It is hard work, arduous work; you cannot
do it instantly. You will have to be very careful in your behavior. Watch
when your mother is there, functioning through you - stop that, move away
from it. Do something absolutely new that your mother could not even have
conceived of
For example, your boyfriend is looking at some other woman with great
appreciation in his eyes. Now watch what you are doing: are you doing
the same as your mother would have done in the case of your father looking
at another woman appreciatively? If you do that, you will never know what
love is, you will simply be repeating a story. It will be the same act
being played by different actors, that’s all; the same rotten act
being repeated again and again and again. Don’t be an imitator,
get out of it. Do something new. Do something that your mother could not
have conceived of. Do something new that your father could not have conceived
of.
This newness has to be brought to your being, then your love will start
flowing.
So the first essential is getting rid of your parents.
The second essential is: people think that they can love only when they
find a worthy man - nonsense! You will never find one. People think they
will love only when they find a perfect man or a perfect woman. Nonsense!
You will never find them because perfect women and perfect men don’t
exist. And if they exist, they won’t bother about your love. They
will not be interested.
I have heard about a man who remained a bachelor his whole life because
he was in search of a perfect woman. When he was seventy, somebody asked,
"You have been traveling and traveling from Kabal to Kathmandu, from Kathmandu
to Goa, from Goa to Poona; you have been searching. Could you not find
a perfect woman? Not even one?"
The old man became very sad. He said, "Yes, once I came across one: once
I came across a perfect woman."
The inquirer said, "Then what happened? Why didn’t you get married?"
He became very, very sad. He said, "What to do? She was looking for a
perfect man."
And remember, when two beings are perfect, their love need is not the
same as your love need. It has a totally different quality. You don’t
understand even the love that is possible for you so you will not be able
to understand the love that happens to a Buddha or the love that is flowing
from me towards you - you will not be able to understand it.
First you have to understand the love that is a natural phenomenon. Even
that has not happened. First you have to understand the natural, and then
the transcendental.
So the second thing to remember is: never be in search of a perfect man
or a perfect woman. That too has been put into your mind - that unless
you find a perfect man or a perfect woman you will not be happy. So you
go on looking for the perfect, and you don’t find the perfect, so
you are unhappy. And you have a reason to be unhappy.
To flow and grow in love needs no perfection. Love has nothing to do with
the other. A loving person simply loves, just as an alive person breathes
and drinks and eats and sleeps. Exactly like that a really alive person,
a loving person, loves. You don’t say, "Unless there is perfect
air, unpolluted, I am not going to breathe." You go on breathing even
in Los Angeles; you go on breathing in Bombay. You go on breathing everywhere
where air is polluted, poisoned. You go on breathing. You cannot afford
not to breathe just because the air is not as it should be. If you are
hungry you eat something - whatsoever it is.
In a desert, if you are dying of thirst, you will drink anything. You
will not ask for Coca-Cola, anything will do - any drink, just water,
even dirty water. People are known to have drunk their own urine. When
one is dying one does not bother what it is... anything to quench the
thirst. People have killed their camels in the desert to drink water -
because camels store water inside them. Now this is dangerous because
they will have to walk for miles. But they are so thirsty...first things
first. First the water, otherwise they will die. Even if the camel is
there - what are they going to do? The camel will take the corpse to the
town, they will not be alive.
An alive man simply loves. Love is a natural functioning.
So the second thing to remember is: don’t ask for perfection, otherwise
you will not find any love flowing in you. On the contrary, you will become
very unloving. People who demand perfection are very unloving people,
neurotic people. Even if they can find a beloved or a lover, they demand
perfection - and the love is destroyed because of that demand.
Once a man loves a woman or a woman loves a man, demands immediately enter.
The woman starts demanding that the man should be perfect, just because
he loves her. As if he has committed a sin! Now he has to be perfect,
now he has to drop all his limitations suddenly - just because of this
woman. Now he cannot be human. Either he has to become superhuman or he
has to become pseudo, false, a cheat. Naturally, to become superhuman
is very difficult, so people become cheats. They start pretending and
acting and playing games. In the name of love people are just playing
games.
So the second thing to remember is: never demand perfection. You have
no right to demand anything from anybody. If somebody loves you, be thankful,
but don’t demand anything - because he has no obligation to love
you. If somebody loves, it is a miracle. Be thrilled by the miracle.
But people are not thrilled. For small things they will destroy all possibilities
of love. They are not interested much in love and the joy of it. They
are more interested in other ego trips. Be concerned with your joy. Be
utterly concerned with your joy, be only concerned with your joy. Everything
else is non-essential.
Love as a natural function, as you breathe. And when you love a person,
don’t start demanding; otherwise from the very beginning you are
closing the doors. Don’t expect anything. If something comes your
way, feel grateful. If nothing comes, there is no need for it to come,
there is no necessity for it to come. You cannot expect it.
But watch people, see how they take each other for granted. If your woman
prepares food for you, you never thank her. I’m not saying that
you should verbalize your thank you, but it should be in your eyes. But
you don’t bother, you take it for granted - that is her work. Who
told you that? If your man goes and earns money for you, you never thank
him. You don’t feel any gratitude. "That’s what a man should
do" - that’s your mind. How can love grow? Love needs a climate
of love, love needs a climate of gratitude, thankfulness. Love needs a
non-demanding atmosphere, non-expecting atmosphere. This is the second
thing to remember.
And the third thing is: rather than thinking how to get love, start giving.
If you give, you get; there is no other way. People are more interested
in how to grab and get. Everybody is interested in getting and nobody
seems to enjoy giving. People give very reluctantly; if ever they give,
they give only to get, and they are almost businesslike. It is a bargain.
They always go on watching that they should get more than they give -
that it is a good bargain, good business. But the other is also doing
the same.
Love is not a business, so stop being businesslike. Otherwise you will
miss your life and love and all that is beautiful in it - because all
that is beautiful is not at all businesslike. Business is the ugliest
thing in the world - a necessary evil. But existence knows nothing of
business. Trees bloom, it is not a business; the stars shine, it is not
a business and you don’t have to pay for it and nobody demands anything
from you. A bird comes and sits at your door and sings a song, and he
will not ask you to give a certificate or something. He has sung the song
and then happily he flies away, leaves no traces behind. That’s
how love grows. Give, and don’t wait to see how much you can grab.
Yes, it comes, it comes a thousandfold. But it comes naturally, it comes
on its own. There is no need to demand it. When you demand, it never comes.
When you demand, you have killed it. So give. Start giving. In the beginning
it will be hard, because your whole life you have been trained not to
give but to get. In the beginning you will have to fight with your armor.
Your musculature has become hard, your heart has become frozen, you have
become cold. In the beginning it will be difficult, but each step will
lead to a further step, and by and by the river starts flowing.
First get rid of your parents. With getting rid of your parents you get
rid of society, with getting rid of your parents you get rid of civilization,
education, everything - because your parents represent all that. You become
individual; for the first time you are no longer part of the mass. You
have an authentic individuality, you are on your own - this is what growth
is, this is what a grown-up person should be. A grown-up person is one
who needs no parents. A grown-up person is one who needs nobody to cling
to or lean on. A grown-up person is one who is happy in his aloneness
- his aloneness is a song, a celebration. A grown-up person is one who
can be with himself happily. His aloneness is not loneliness, his solitariness
is solitude, it is meditative. One day you had to come out of your mother’s
womb. If you had remained there longer than nine months you would have
been dead - not only you, your mother would also have been dead. One day
you had to come out of your mother’s womb; then one day you had
to come out of your family atmosphere - another womb - to go to school.
Then one day you had to come out of your school atmosphere - another womb
- to go into the bigger world. But deep down you are still a child. You
are still in the womb - layers upon layers of womb are there. That womb
has to be broken.
This is what in the East we have called the second birth. In the East
a person who has become independent is called dwij, twice-born. He has
attained to a second birth; he is completely free of parental impression.
And the beauty is that only such a person feels grateful to the parents.
The paradox is that only such a person can forgive his parents. He feels
compassion and love for them, he feels tremendously for them because they
have also suffered in the same way. He is not angry, no, not at all. He
may have tears in his eyes but he is not angry, and he will do everything
to help his parents to move towards such a plenitude of aloneness, such
a height of aloneness.
Become individuals, the first thing. The second thing: don’t expect
perfection, and don’t ask and don’t demand. Love ordinary
people. Nothing is wrong with ordinary people. Ordinary people are extraordinary.
Each human being is so unique - have respect for that uniqueness.
Third: give, and give without any condition - and you will know what love
is. I cannot define it. I can show you the path to grow it. I can show
you how to put in a rose bush, how to water it, how to give fertilizers
to it, how to protect it. Then one day, out of the blue, comes the rose
flower, and your home is full of the fragrance. That’s how love
happens.
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