It is difficult to move into love & there are very hidden fears in it. Love creates as much fear as nothing else can because the moment you start approaching the other you have to go outside yourself. And who knows? The other may accept you or may reject you. The fear arises. You start feeling hesitant, whether to take the move or not, whether to approach the other or not.
Hence all over the world the coward ages of the past have decided for marriage instead of love, because if people were left open to love, very few people would be able to love. Most would die without love; they would live and drag out their lives without love.
Because love is dangerous. The moment you start moving towards somebody else you are coming close to colliding with another world. Who knows if your approach will be accepted or rejected? How can you be certain the other is going to say yes to your need and to your desire? That the other is going to be compassionate, loving? How do you know? He may reject you. He may say no. You may say, I love you but what is the guarantee that he will also feel love for you? He may not. There is no necessity for it. The fear of rejection is very shattering.
So cunning and clever people decide not to move at all. Keep to yourself, then at least you are not rejected. And you can go on enhancing your ego with the idea that nobody has ever rejected you, even though that ego is absolutely impotent and is not enough to fulfill you. You need to be needed; you need somebody to accept you; you need somebody to love you because only when somebody else loves you, will you be able to love yourself, not before it. When somebody accepts you, you will be able to accept yourself, not before it. When somebody else feels happy with you; you will start feeling happy with yourself, not before it. The other becomes a mirror.
Each relationship is a mirror. It reflects you. How can you know yourself without the mirror? There is no way. Others eyes become mirror-like, and when somebody loves you, that mirror is very, very sympathetic towards you; very, very happy with you; delighted with you. In those delighted eyes you are reflected and for the first time a certain acceptability arises.
If you don’t fall in love, if you don’t find lovers and friends who can accept you, you will remain with that rejection your whole life. Love is a must. You must move through it. You can come out of it one day, you can transcend it one day” it has to be transcended but how can you transcend it if you never enter into it?
So don’t be afraid. And drop all nonsense from the head. Yes, there is fear. You may be rejected but don’t be afraid of that fear. That risk has to be taken, only then somebody will come and accept you. If you knock at a hundred doors and ninety-nine remain closed, don’t be afraid, one will open. Somebody is waiting for you. Somebody will be fulfilled through you and you will be fulfilled through somebody. Somebody is waiting to become a mirror for you because somebody is waiting to make you a mirror for himself. And there is no other way to find out who that one is than to go on knocking, groping. It is risky, but life is risky.
So very clever people miss life, they never take the risk. Afraid of falling, they never walk; afraid of drowning, they never swim; afraid of rejection, they never move in love; afraid of failure, they never make any effort to succeed in anything, their life is not life at all. They are dead before their death. They die many times before they really die. Their whole life is nothing but a gradual death.
Live, and live intensely, and don’t take it as a personal offence if somebody cannot love you, there is no necessity. You were ready, you were available. If the other is not willing, that is for him to decide. Don’t make it a wound, it is not. It simply says that you two don’t fit; thats all; it doesn’t say anything about you or about the other. Don’t say that the other is wrong and don’t think that it is because you are wrong that you are not accepted. It is just you could not fit.
And it is good that the other did not deceive you, that he said, Sorry, I don’t feel any love for you. At least he was sincere and authentic. Because if he had said a formal yes, then your whole life would have been a mess. Be true. When you love, say it, and when you don’t, say that too. Be true and sincere.
– OSHO
Dang Dang Doko Dang
Chapter # 10: Lady You Need Love!
Leave a Reply