Monday, October 4, 2010

Rethinking Love ... Part II

Sharing this is part of my own life's healing journey ... hopefully something here will be of use to someone else ... but in the name of being selfish, in the name of loving myself ... I am doing this for ME.

But ... I can't help but share ...! :)

More, from Osho:
Love is painful because it creates the way for bliss. Love is painful because it transforms; love is mutation. Each transformation is going to be painful because the old has to be left for the new. The old is familiar, secure, safe, the new is absolutely unknown. You will be moving in an uncharted ocean. You cannot use your mind with the new; with the old, the mind is skillful. The mind can function only with the old; with the new, the mind is utterly useless.

Hence, fear arises. And leaving the old, comfortable, safe world, the world of convenience, pain arises. It is the same pain that the child feels when he comes out of the womb of the mother ... the fear of the unknown, and the security of the known, the insecurity of the unknown, the unpredictability of the unknown makes one very much frightened.

Agony is very deep. But you cannot have ecstasy without going through agony. If the gold wants to be purified, it has to pass through fire.

Love is fire.

It is because of the pain of love that millions of people live a loveless life. They, too, suffer, and their suffering is futile. To suffer in love is not to suffer in vain. To suffer in love is creative; it takes you to higher levels of consciousness. To suffer without love is utterly a waste; it leads you nowhere, it keeps you moving in the same vicious circle.

The man who is without love is narcissistic, he is closed. He knows only himself. And how much can he know himself if he has not known the other? Because only the other can function as a mirror. You will never know yourself without knowing the other. Love is very fundamental for self-knowledge, too. The person who has not known the other in deep love, in intense passion, in utter ecstasy, will not be able to know who he is, because he will not have the mirror to see his own reflection.

Relationship is a mirror, and the purer the love is, the higher the love is, the better the mirror, the cleaner the mirror. But the higher love needs you to be open. The higher love needs you to be vulnerable. You have to drop your armor; that is painful. You have not to be constantly on guard. You have to drop the calculating mind. You have to risk. You have to live dangerously. The other can hurt you; that is the fear in being vulnerable. The other can reject you, that is the fear in being in love. But by avoiding the situation, you are not going to grow, either. The challenge has to be taken.

One has to go into love.

Love is an open sky. to be in love is to be on the wing. But certainly, the unbounded sky creates fear.

When love knocks on the door, all that is needed to fall in love is to put aside the ego.

Love gives you the first experience of being in tune with something that is not your ego. Love gives you the first lesson that you can fall into harmony with someone who has never been part of your ego. If you can be in harmony with a woman, if you ca be in harmony with a man, with a friend, then you can be in harmony with all other human beings.

Love is a ladder. It starts with one person, and ends with the totality. To be afraid of love, to be afraid of the growing pains of love, is to remain enclosed in a dark cell. There are problems that are creative because they lead you to a higher awareness. There are problems that lead you nowhere; they simply keep you tethered, they simply keep you in your old mess. Love creates problems. You can avoid these problems by avoiding love -- but those are very essential problems! They have to be faced, encountered; they have to be lived and gone through and gone beyond. And to go beyond, the way is through. Love is the only real thing worth doing. All else is secondary. If it helps love, it is good. All else is just a means, love is the end. So, whatsoever the pain, go into love.


I am in the very thick of this ... I am willing to learn all I need, to truly comprehend this, to truly be transformed by this ... to truly LIVE this...!

It's all I can do ... I can do nothing else, nothing less ... for I have been rendered undone.

Shalom & Namaste ~
Dena

3 comments:

Harry Riley said...

This is how I see things just now, Dena...

We, All That Is, are Love Expressed, Made Visible. But boy, have we - humanity - been telling ourselves something else. When we live as Love Expressed, we're simply Being What We Are. The pain lies in the ego and the skewed ideas it has of itself, 'cos it's scared of dying. But it's only when a grain of wheat falls to the ground and dies that it can reap an untold harvest. The ego will not die, but live, and be Itself, Truly, as the Ego, the One Self. All confusion ends then, and Love rises gloriously to take its rightful place.

There I be, anyway. I wish you well in your Living:)

Anonymous said...

harry, i don't understand the last part of your comment:

"The ego will not die, but live, and be Itself, Truly, as the Ego, the One Self. All confusion ends then, and Love rises gloriously to take its rightful place."

it seems to contradict everything else you say! do clarify! :)

Harry Riley said...

OK. I'll have a go:)

The ego isn't actually a 'bad thing', but only becomes 'bad' when it takes us over, rules us. Another way to look at it is, when we think our thoughts are who we are, rather than just thoughts we have, then we live in a dream world. When we can step back, even for a few seconds, and observe our thoughts, we come to see that we are the observer of our thoughts, not the thoughts themselves. That 'observer' is the One Self, God, whatever, expressing through, as us, the Little Self or ego. This is why there's no such thing as 'separation', as we are all 'God, Godding'.

The mind knows nothing; it just thinks. It doesn't even know truth from lies. It's the heart that knows all, and that's why it's the mind that always must listen to the - true - heart for direction.

We actually run out of words here, as so often happens. This is actually too simple for words, and that's why the heart 'gets it' while the mind just flounders. If you switch off from the mind, you 'get it'.

Clear as mud, huh?:)