Love & Freedom - Osho excerpts

from the Osho Times magazine (July06 issue): 

“So many times we avoid love because we do not want to be imprisioned by it.”

“The very acceptance that you are loved as you are – nothing is expected of you – gives you soul, makes you integrated, makes you confident, gives you trust.” 

“Love should come out of your silence, awareness, meditativeness.  It is soft, it is unbinding.  How can love create fetters for the one who is loved?  As love grows deeper, freedom becomes bigger.  As love grows deeper, you start accepting the person as he is.  You stop trying to change the person.” 

“To love without freedom is to be impoverished; to be free without love is to live in loneliness, sadness, darkness.  Freedom is needed for love to grow, love is needed so that freedom can be nourished.” 

“The very idea that you give freedom to your beloved is wrong.  Who are you to give freedom to your beloved?  You can love, and your love implies freedom.  It is not something that has to be given.” 

“Love without freedom brings more and more misery,  more and more bondage.  Love without freedom naturally tends to be possessive.  And the moment possessiveness enters in, you start creating bondage for others and bondage for yourself – because you cannot possess somebody without being possessed by him.  You cannot make somebody a slave without becoming a slave yourself.  Whatsoever you do to others is done to you.  This is the basic principle to be understood, that love without freedom never brings fulfillment.“ 

“Love is not passion, love is not an emotion.  Love is a very deep understanding that somebody somehow completes you.  Somebody makes you a full circle.  The presence of the other enhances your presence.  Love gives freedom to be yourself; it is not possessiveness.”

“Nobody loves anything more than freedom.  Even love is secondary to freedom; freedom is the highest value.  Love can be sacrificed for freedom, but freedom cannot be sacrificed for love.  And that's what we have been doing for centuries: sacrificing freedom for love.  Then there is antagonism, conflict, and every opportunity is used to hurt each other.”

“Love is absolute freedom.  Love knows no boundaries.  And unless you drop all boundaries, you will not be able to know love.”

Re: Love & Freedom - Osho excerpts

This was actually quite timely.  Had a long conversation about love and freedom the other night.  I think that there is a lot of truth in what is said here.  I also think, though, that love is so often twisted into something that holds a wounded ego and that is where wishing to change someone or needing the constant attendance chains someone' s soul.

I am finding that the more I do not attempt to modify or control or shut down or limit by definition what love is… the more I love and the greater the freedom I feel.  The attachments become so much less and, although I have my moments (and I do have those), I find that I feel more freedom and allow more love to simply settle in me and extend outward.

I feel a loss of freedom when someone else begins to place on me the obligation for their sense of self.  And those are the places where I am untying the strings that I can feel and cleaning up those relationships.

Book Recommendation

I highly higly recommend the book Perfect Love, Imperfect Relationships:  Healing The Wound of the Heart by John Welwood.  Can't say enough about this book and the tools it offers for really getting the freedom to move deeper towards and into the experience of Love with no conditions.  

Love,

Scott 

Re: Book Recommendation

Excellent-I will have to check that out. That should fit well with Leo's book that I have started reading too about love…

Hugs

Kati

Re: Book Recommendation

Hi Scott,

Ah! I didn’t know that John Welwood wrote a book! He has also written article after article in the Journal of Transpersonal Psychology which I have been reading a lot of in the last 5 weeks. One article in particular I remember was about specific types of pitfalls and ways that people become hung up in the spiritual disciplines. Since I hardly ever get to talk about it, if you are interested I will go back to the articles and share with you what they are about.

smiles,
Erin

Re: Book Recommendation

Hi Erin,

I just saw your post now, and I'd love to hear about the article you've mentioned!

cheers,
Orit

Re: Love & Freedom - Osho excerpts

Hi Orit and all,

Welwood has written a lot of articles.  The one I mentioned is called “Principles of Inner Work” by John Welwood (transpersonal Psych. 1984).  He talks about one possibly pitfall called spiritual materialism.  That is if you become a collector and you have books by this guru and that and you are always trying to aquire new wisdoms.  I guess in the end you only get to keep the process of finding them and you don't even get to take your “wisdoms” with you because they probably don't apply to the afterlife, only to this world.   The second is called spiritual bypassing and that has to do with trying to use spirituality to create your groundedness.  I think that would be if someone avoids daily living and aviods life in favor of spiritual development. 

“The result is that many people wind up trying to use spiritual practice to meet their

personal needs or establish their identity, and this just doesn't

work. Many of the so-called “perils of the path”-such as

spiritual materialism, narcissism, inflation, groupthink-i-resuit

from trying to use spirituality to make up for developmental

deficiencies.

The basic purpose of spiritual practice is to help liberate us

from attachment to an imprisoning self-structure. In order to

reap the full benefits of such a practice, however, we have to

have a stable self-structure. This means being grounded in

earthly form. Yet all too often in an urban-technological

culture we don't learn about how to live a grounded life. 

Moreover, with the breakdown of extended families and tightknit

communities, the psychological influence of parents on

children in the nuclear family has greatly increased. The result

is that many people today spend a good part of their lives

freeing themselves from their parents' influence and establishing

their own independent sense of themselves. This is

psychological, not spiritual work. It means working with

needs, scripts, hunger for love, fear of love, fear of loss of love,

fear of receiving love, fear of giving love, and establishing a

sense of self-respect which is not overwhelmed or crushed by

other people's opinions.” -Welwood

So, I have been really enjoying these articles.  I especially enjoy when I read things that as I'm going along I'm thinking 'right on' (so to speak), 'right on, again'

Erin

Re: Love & Freedom - Osho excerpts

Hi friends,
I have to present one another article by Welwood that closely fits our topic.  This one is called: on love, conditional and unconditional. 

“The unconditional love that springs from the heart has both a

receptive side-appreciating others.Jetting them be as they are,

and feeling touched by them-and an active side-going out

to meet, touch, and make contact, what the existentialists call

“being-with. ”

It is the heart's nature to want to circulate love freely back and

forth, without putting limiting conditions on that exchange.

The heart looks right past things that may offend our personal

tastes, often rejoicing in another's being despite all our

reasonable intentions to maintain a safe distance, or break off

contact if a relationship has become too painful. Love in its

deepest essence knows nothing of conditions and is quite

unreasonable. Once the heart has opened and we have been

deeply touched by another person, we will likely feel affected by

that person for the rest of our lives, no matter what form the

relationship may take. Unconditional love has its reasons

which reason cannot know.

Yet, insofar as we are not just pure heart, but also have

conditioned likes and dislikes, certain conditions always

determine the extent of our involvement with another person.

This is -inevitable. As soon as we consider the form of

relationship we want with someone, we are in the realm of

conditions. Because we are of this earth, we exist within certain

forms and structures (body, temperament, personality characteristics,

emotional needs, likes and dislikes, sexual preferences,

styles of communication, life-styles, beliefs and values)

that fit more or less well with someone else's structures.

Conditional love is a feeling of pleasure and attraction based on

how fully someone matches our needs, desires, and personal

considerations. It is a response to a person's looks, style,

personal presence, emotional support-what he or she does for

us. It is not something bad, but it is a lesser form of love, in that

it can be negated by a reversal of the conditions under which it

formed. If someone we love starts acting in ways we don't like,

we may not like him as much anymore. Conditional liking

inevitably gives way to opposite feelings of fear, anger or

resistance when our structures rub up against another person's

structures. Yet beyond both conditional yes and conditional no

lies the larger unconditional yes of the heart.

Attraction to another person is often most intense when the

two orders of love are in accord: this person not only touches

our heart, but also fulfills certain conditions for what we want

from an intimate partner. On the other hand, it is quite

confusing when these two orders do not mesh. Perhaps this

person meets our conditions, yet somehow does not move us

very deeply. Or else he or she touches our heart, so that we want

to say yes, while our personal considerations and criteria lead

us to say no to a committed relationship.”

So one thing I hear from this article- We sometimes say 'No' conditionally when the heart wants to say 'yes' unconditionally and it is rejection and stoping the flow of life force.  Or, conversely we try to force ourself to love (unconditionally) what we in fact do not and probably never will (conditionally).   


Erin