Osho – Prem Lili. Prem means love, lili has many meanings; it is a very pregnant word. The most ancient meaning, the original meaning, is paradise. The lily represents paradise; it represents something of the beyond. It is of the earth and yet not of the earth. It is so divine, its beauty is so transcendental; its grace is God’s grace.
In Christianity the lily represents innocence chastity, purity. And in Greek mythology lily represents life and resurrection. Life is eternal, you cannot destroy it. It resurrects itself. That’s exactly the meaning of Jesus’ crucifixion and resurrection: life cannot be killed. On one hand you crucify it, on the other hand it resurrects again. Eternity is its intrinsic core. The flower, lily, simply represents the coming of life again and again and again.
Just meditating on the flower you will feel an innocence arising in you, a purity, because whatsoever we meditate upon we become like. Meditation means getting utterly involved with something, so much so that the observer becomes the observed. Then something like a lily flower opens in your heart. Then not only on the outside, but in your inner being a fragrance arises.
But all these meanings can be contained in the original meaning: paradise. And only love can create paradise; paradise is nothing but a creation of love. Without love there is only hell. Because love exists it is enough proof that heaven exists. Heaven is not something geographical, neither is hell geographical. They are psychological states: nothing in the objective world but something in the subjective. When you are in love you are in heaven; when you are not in love you are in hell. And it all depends on you – to live in hell or to live in heaven.
Becoming a sannyasin simply means that now you are choosing heaven, that now you will remain constantly aware not to choose hell. Of course many times you will fall and falter; that is not to be worried about. The moment you remember, again drop choosing hell. The moment you catch yourself red-handed choosing hell, immediately withdraw.
Don’t choose anger, don’t choose greed, don’t choose jealousy, don’t choose possessiveness; they are all parts of hell. Choose love and all the companions of love: sympathy, compassion, service, prayer, meditation. Create a paradise inside yourself.
Man’s creativity is fulfilled only when paradise is created inside. One can paint beautiful pictures and yet may live in hell. Van Gogh painted beautiful pictures and committed suicide; he lived constantly in hell. Many poets, like Mayakovsky and others, have written beautiful poems but committed suicide. Life must have been horrible. Their poetry was only superficial; their being could not become poetry. Great philosophers have gone mad, committed suicide, like Friedrich Nietzsche. Their philosophical understanding did not help. Only one thing is helpful: that I call love.
Love infinitely. Love without any miserliness, because it is not a treasure that is exhaustible. In fact the more you give it, the more you have it. It is one of the most fundamental paradoxes of life: keep it, and you lose it; give it, and you have it.
Source – Osho Book “The Rainbow Bridge”