[Another visitor says: Can you love more than one person or is it just that love is a general feeling for many people? I think my confusion stems from something you said in the lecture about when you love someone, that person is… for me it would be all men. Is that possible?]
Osho – Love has many dimensions to it. The first dimension of love is that of passion, of great passion. Then you can love only one person at one time because the passion needs your totality. Passion is an intensity. If you love two, three persons or many persons, your passion will be dissipated, spread-over. It will be lukewarm – it will not be a fire.
So passionate love has to be directed to one person so that your whole energy moves like a flood in one direction. That is the meaning of passion. But there is a compassionate love that is another direction, another dimension. Then there is no question – you can love the whole humanity; you can love the trees and the animals, and all that exists… you can love the whole existence.
But then there is no passion – there is compassion. It is very cool, it is not hot. A buddha loves that way… Jesus loves that way. Your confusion is between two different dimensions of love. You have to be clear-cut about these two different things. Passion is passion – compassion is compassion. Compassion can be for the whole, because it is a cool phenomenon; there is no heat in it. It has its own beauty because it is cool, it is not feverish.
But the passionate love has its own beauty too. Because it is so hot you bum with intensity – you become a flame of desire. You are pouring yourself into one being, that one being is all and all. If you love a man, that man is the only man in the world, then all men have simply faded away.
They are there but they are no more in your focus. This one man represents all humanity – past, present, future. This man is an archetype. Personified in him is all humanity. And when you pour your love with tremendous intensity, not holding anything, you are also not a single woman – you are all women, past, present, future. You are also an archetype.
In a passionate love the man is not just man, the woman is not just woman: they are anima and animus. That is the beauty – a tremendous peak of energy. It is beautiful but it has troubles also, problems also. Jealousy will be there, possessiveness will be there, fight, quarrelling, nagging will be there, intolerance will be there, domination will be there. These problems will be there, they come in the same package.
Of course there will be great moments and there will be many moments of hell too – that is the price one has to pay. In the compassionate love there are no more such peaks of passion – it is very cool. You will never bum, you will never be afire and aflame. But then there are beauties of coolness: you will never be jealous, you will never be intolerant, never nagging, fighting, quarrelling. These things will disappear… they come with fire.
When the fire is there. there is much smoke. You cannot avoid the smoke if you love the fire. You have to learn to tolerate the smoke. If you want the smoke to go absolutely, the fire has to be cooled down – it goes only when the fire has gone. And I am not saying do this or that – I am simply explaining to you that these are the two possibilities of life.
Everyone has to pass from the first. One who has not passed from the first will never be able to reach the second – that much is certain. So never try to jump to the second before you have learned the first. The first is a necessary step to the second. It purifies you… that fire purifies your gold.
That love teaches you a thousand and one things. It makes you capable of compassion. The very understanding of love, the suffering of love, the joy and the suffering both, make you capable to understand compassion. Then one day love remains, passion has disappeared. The intensity, the feverishness is gone, it is a cool breeze. Then you can love the whole. Both are beautiful and both are not antagonistic – rather, both are two aspects of the same phenomenon.
The first has to be passed through, so there is no need to be confused. These are two different
dimensions. Through passion arises understanding that makes one compassionate.
Source: from Osho Book “What Is, Is, What Ain’t, Ain’t”