Love, Freedom and Aloneness…

“It is beautiful to be alone; it is also beautiful to be in love, to be with people, And they are complementary, not contradictory. When you are enjoying others, enjoy, and enjoy to the fullest; there is no need to bother about aloneness. And when you are fed up with others, then move into aloneness and enjoy it to the fullest.” Osho

A long time ago I was going through one of the hardest time of my life… I was very young going through my big first breakup with a man I really loved, unemployed with a college degree and I had no home (I wasn’t technically homeless, my parents gave me a roof until I found something for myself). However, it was a difficult time and life had crushed me…but I had two choices: 1) stay defeated on the floor or 2) stand up, rise, fight back and be strong. I choose the second (what a great choice!)

Everybody goes through hard experiences and my wasn’t that hard even when at that time felt like it. I started focusing on the positive things in life: my family and friends (who gave me all the love I can imagine), my good health and my youth!

I found a job, moved to a great apartment and I embarked my journey for the best years of my life. I discovered who I was and what I wanted. I travel, kiss, play, dance and enjoy my freedom! In this process I started reading this amazing book from my cousin (I think it’s mine now hehe) called, Love, freedom, aloneness..The Koan of Relationships by Osho, which help me cope with understanding what is love, what is freedom and what is aloneness. Took me almost 5 years to read the whole book (procrastination, much?) but I finish it last month and I want to share with you some of the things I learned.

Love

The love you know is nothing but a biological urge; it depends on your chemistry and your hormones.

Very few people in the world have known love. Those are the people who have become so silent, so peaceful…and out that silence and peace they come in contact with their innermost being, their soul.

Love is sharing; greed is hoarding. Greed only wants and never gives, and love knows only giving and never asks for anything in return; it is unconditional sharing.

Don’t feel that you are obliging the other, never, not even for a single moment. Love never obliges.

Love never waits to be rewarded, even to be thanked. If the thank-fulness comes from the other side, love is always surprise-it is pleasant surprise, because there was no expectation.

Serve love through the lover, so that you never become attached to the lover. And when one is not attached to the lover, love reaches its highest peaks. The moment one is attached, one starts falling low. Why do you cling to something? Because you are afraid you will lose it. The moment love becomes attachment, love becomes a relationship. The moment loves become demanding, it is a prison.

Unreal love shows so much concern it is always concern. Real love is considerate but has no concern.

Love is the greatest experiment in life, and those who live without experimenting with love energy will never know what life is. They will only remain on the surface without going into the depth of it.

Love has to be of the quality that gives you freedom, not new chains for you; a love that gives you wings and supports you to fly as high as possible.

Ego and love cannot exist together.

Love is never a relationship; love is relating. Getting to know each other every time, not taking the other person in granted. Go on searching and seeking each other, finding new ways of loving each other, finding new ways of being with each other. Then love is a constant adventure!

But remember..love knows no boundaries. Love cannot be jealous, because love cannot possess. It is ugly, the very idea that you possess somebody because you love. You posses somebody means you have killed somebody and turned him into commodity. Only things can be possessed. Love gives freedom. Love is freedom.

Freedom

Of course people are afraid to be free, because freedom is risky. One never knows what one is doing, where one is going, what the ultimate result of it all is going to be. Ultimately, you will be standing  before existence totally responsible for yourself.

I say to you, you are absolutely FREE! Don’t avoid the responsibility; avoiding is not going to help. The sooner you accept it the better, because immediately you can start creating yourself.

Freedom means you can choose the right or the wrong; if you are only free to choose the right, it is not freedom.

Man is not only free, man is freedom. That is his essential core, that’s his very soul. The moment you deny freedom to a man you have denied him his most precious treasure, his very kingdom. Then the man is really lost. Once this is understood, that man is born as freedom, then all the dimensions open up to grow. Then it is up to you what to become and what not to be become; it is going to be your own creation. The life becomes an adventure –  an exploration, a discovery.

Aloneness

The first thing to realize is that whenever you want or not, you are alone.

Every effort that has been directed toward avoiding loneliness has failed, and will fail, because it is against the fundamentals of life. What is needed is not something in which you can forget your loneliness. What is needed is that you become aware of your aloneness, which is a reality. And it is so beautiful to experience it, to feel it, because it is your freedom from the crowd, from other. It is your freedom from the fear of being lonely.

Loneliness is a misunderstood aloneness. Once you misunderstand your alone as loneliness, the whole context changes. Aloneness has a beauty and grandeur, a positivity; loneliness is poor, negative, dark, dismal.

After being in tune with your aloneness, you can relate; then your relationship will bring great joys to you, because it is not out of fear. Finding aloneness you can create, you can be involved in as many things as you want, because this involvement will not anymore be running away from yourself.

When you are absolutely happy in your aloneness- when you don’t need the other at all, when the other is not a need- then you are capable of love. If the other is your need you can only exploit, manipulate, dominate, but you cannot love.

Finding oneself, one finds the meaning of life, the significance of life, the joy of life, the splendor of life. Finding oneself is the greatest finding in man’s life, and this finding is possible only when you are alone.

Dance your aloneness, sing your aloneness, live your aloneness! And I am not saying don’t love. In fact, only a person who is capable of being alone is capable of love.

Loving yourself

Love yourself always… but you cannot go on loving yourself forever, because one thing will become absolutely clear to you: that if loving one person, yourself, is so tremendously ecstatic and beautiful, how much more ecstasy is waiting for you if you start sharing your love with many, many people!

People are continuously seeking company. They can’t be with themselves; they want to be with others. People are seeking any type of company; if they can avoid the company of themselves, anything will do. But this is one of the basic problems created by a wrong upbringing: you avoid yourself. The average American is watching TV for 5 hours per day, and this disease is going to spread all the world. And what are you getting? Burning your eyes!

Create loving energy around yourself. love your body, love your mind. Love your whole mechanism, your whole organism.  Don’t try to repress.

When you don’t need a person at all, when you are totally sufficient unto yourself, when you can be alone and tremendously happy and ecstatic, then love is possible. But then, too, you cannot be certain whether the other’s love is real or not- you can be certain about one thing: whether your love is real.

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This book it’s really intense. You have to open your mind to Osho’s idea and the way he sees life. Every sentence is like a quote…makes you think a LOT! If you like any of this topics I highly recommend you to buy the book.

“This is a few days’ journey; make it as joyous as possible. But we do just the opposite – we make it as miserable as possible. It has been one of the greatest problems down the ages: meditation and love, aloneness and relationship, sex and silence. Only the names are different; the problem is one”, Osho.

Let’s change this! We have the chance to start afresh with ourselves, our relationships to others, and to find fulfillment and success for the individual and for society as a whole.

Hope you enjoy this article!

xoxo,

Cristina