“Love, the real thing, is not a relationship but a state; one is not in love but one is love.
I am talking about the state of love. Yes, relationship is perfectly good, but the relationship is going to be false if you have not attained the state of love. Then the relationship is not only a pretension, it is a dangerous pretension because it can go on befooling you; it can go on giving you the sense that you know what love is – and you don’t know. Love basically is a state of being; one is not in love, one is love.
And that love arises not by falling in love with somebody. That love arises by going in – not by falling but by rising, soaring upwards, higher than you. It is a kind of surpassing.
A man is love when his being is silent; it is the song of silence. A Buddha is love, a Jesus is love – not in love with a particular person, but simply love. Their very climate is love. It is not addressed to anybody in particular, it is spreading in all directions.
Whosoever comes close to a buddha will feel it, will be showered by it, will be bathed in it. And it is unconditionally so.
Love makes no conditions, no ifs, no buts. Love never says, ‘Fulfill these requirements, then I will love you.’ Love is like breathing: when it happens you are simply love. It does not matter who
comes close to you, the sinner or the saint. Whosoever comes close to you starts feeling the vibe of love, is rejoiced. Love is unconditional giving — but only those who have attained the state of love as a part of themselves are capable of giving.
Love first has to happen in the deepest core of your being. It is the quality of being alone, happily alone, joyously alone. It is the quality of being a no-mind, of being silent.
True love is a spontaneous welling up of joy in you, and the sharing of it, and the showering of it – for
no other reason, for no other motive, than just the joy of sharing it.
It asks nothing in return, it expects nothing; hence how can you feel hurt? Then whatsoever comes is good; if nothing comes, that too is good.
Your joy was to give, not to get.”
Osho, The Dhammapada: The Way of the Buddha, Vol. 2, Talk #4
