Osho – Love is the path and love is also the goal, the beginning and the end, the first step and the last step. Love contains the whole of religion, but love has to be understood: it is not lust. It is not a desire to get something from anybody, on the contrary it is an overflowing joy, it is sharing.
Love is an art. It is the ultimate in aesthetics, it is creativity. When you love you want to enrich the world a little bit, you would like to leave it a little better than you found it. Only lovers can be creators. Those who don’t know how to love are bound to be destructive in some way or other. It is the same energy that becomes creation; if it does not become creative it becomes poisonous, turns to its opposite, becomes destructive.
Adolf Hitler wanted first to be a painter then an architect, but because ho was refused permission, he was not allowed in the art academy, his whole energy turned into destructiveness. My feeling is that he would have been a great artists he had the energy but the whole energy became insane, he became angry.
Love means that you are grateful to existence for giving birth to you and out of that gratefulness you would like to do something for existence. Love is prayer, it is thankfulness. And slowly slowly as you start moving higher into the world of love new dimensions start opening up in you. A moment comes when love is no more a relationship, you are simply loving. And ultimately the final, the last stage is when you are not even loving, you are simply love.
That is the state of Buddhahood or Christ consciousness — and that is where I am trying to lead my people, slowly, slowly. Of course they have to begin their journey in a dark valley, but if you can keep your eyes on the sunlit peak there is hope; there is no need to be in despair.
Source – Osho Book “Going All the Way”