Greatest Bond

WE ALL KNOW THAT LOVE IS A NEED. WHY IS THIS ESSENTIAL NEED ALWAYS SO HARD TO FULFILL FOR MOST PEOPLE?

Many things are involved. One thing: society is against love because love is a greatest bond, and love separates you from society. Two lovers become a world in themselves; they don’t bother about anybody. Hence, society is against; society doesn’t want you to love. Marriage – granted; but not love, because once you love a person you become a world in yourself, separate. You don’t bother what is happening in the world to others; you simply forget them. You create a private world of your own.

Love is such a creative force, it becomes a universe. Then you start moving around your own center – and this society cannot tolerate. Your parents cannot tolerate your love because if you are in love you forget them completely, as if they never existed. Then they exist on the margin, somewhere very distant. How can they allow you to love? They will make arrangements for your marriage. That will be their arrangement. You will exist… as part of the family.

Mulla Nasrudin fell in love with a woman. He came very happy home and when they were taking their supper he told the family that “I have decided.” The father immediately said, “This is not possible. Impossible – I cannot allow it because the family of the girl has not left a single paisa for her. She is bankrupt. Better girls are available with better dowries. Don’t be foolish.”

The mother said, “That girl? We never could imagine that you can be such a stupid. Because she never does anything except reading silly novels. She is of no use. She cannot cook; she cannot clean the house. Look at the dirty house she lives in.”

And so on, so forth. Every member rejected according to his own conception. The younger brother says, “I am not agreeing because of her nose. The nose is so ugly.” And everybody had his opinion.

Then Nasrudin said, “But one thing that girl has which we don’t have.” They all asked in a chorus, “What is that?” He said, “The family: she doesn’t have the family. That is one thing beautiful about her.”

Parents will be against love. They will train you from the very beginning – train you in such a way that you don’t fall in love, because love will go against family, and the society is nothing but a greater family. Love goes against society, civilization, religion, priests. Love is such an involvement, such a total commitment, it goes against everybody. And everybody has an investment in you.

No, it cannot be allowed. You have been trained not to love – that’s the difficulty. This difficulty comes from the society, culture, civilization, all that is around you but this is not the greatest difficulty. There is still one that comes from you and which is even greater, and that is: love needs a surrender; love needs that you should drop the ego.

And you are also against love. You would like love to become a celebration of your ego; you would like love to become an ornament for your ego. You would like love to follow you like a dog, but love never follows anybody like a dog. Love needs you in a total surrender. It is not that the woman surrenders to the man or that the man surrenders to the woman – no! Both surrender to love. Love is a god; love is really the only god, and it requires you, both the lovers, to be completely surrendered to it.

And lovers – what they are doing? The husband tries that the wife should surrender to him and the wife tries the husband should surrender to her. How can love be possible? Love is something else – both should surrender to it, and both should disappear into it.

This becomes the greatest barrier: you cannot love because of you. These two things together and love becomes impossible: and if love becomes impossible, life becomes impossible. If love becomes impossible, prayer becomes impossible. If love becomes impossible, God becomes impossible. All that is beautiful grows out of love. The soil of love is a must; otherwise you will remain crippled. And then you try to complement and supplement it in other ways, but nothing can supplement it. No substitute exists.

You can go on doing prayer, but your prayer will lack the grace that comes when one has loved. How can you do prayer? Your prayer will be just rubbish – a verbal phenomenon. You will say something to God and talk to him and go to sleep, but it will lack the essential quality. How can you pray when you have not loved? Prayer comes through the heart – and your heart has remained closed, so prayer comes from the head, and the head cannot become the heart.

So all over the world, people go on praying. They are just gestures; the essential is not there. The prayer is without roots. Love prepares the soil. It prepares the ground for the prayer to come. Prayer is nothing but a higher love – a love which transcends individuals, a love which goes to the whole, not to the part. But you need learning with the part.

You cannot just jump into the ocean. Learn swimming in a swimming pool. Love is a swimming pool where you are protected and you can learn; then you can go to the seas, to the wild seas.

You cannot take the jump into the wild seas directly – if you take, you will be in danger – that’s not possible. Love is a small swimming pool – two, persons only: the whole world is very small… possible to enter into each other.

Even there you are afraid. In a swimming pool you are afraid that “I may be gone, drowned.” Then what to say about the ocean? Love is the first grounding, the first readiness to take a greater jump. Patangali teaches you love, and he tells you that whatsoever is at stake, don’t bother: sacrifice it, whatsoever – prestige, wealth, family, society, culture – whatsoever is at stake, don’t bother. Be a gambler because there is nothing like love. If you lose everything, you lose nothing if you gain love. If you lose love, whatsoever you gain you gain nothing. And be aware: these two things.

Society will not help you; it is against. Love is an anti-social force, and the society tries to suppress love – then you can be used in many ways. For example, if you are really in love, you cannot be made a soldier; you cannot be sent to the war. Impossible because you don’t bother… You say, “What is a country? What is this patriotism? Nonsense!” Love is such a beautiful flower; one who has known – patriotism, nationalism, country, the flag, all look nonsense. You have tasted the real thing.

The society tries to divert. The real thing should not be tasted. Then you are hankering for love, and your love can be diverted to any direction. It can become patriotism; then you can go and become a martyr. You are a fool, because you are wasting yourself! You can go and die; your love has been diverted. If you don’t love, your love can become love of money. Then you become an accumulator, hoarder. Then your family is happy – you are doing beautifully.

You are simply committing suicide. The family is happy because you are accumulating so much wealth. They missed their life; now they are forcing you to miss your life. And they do it in such a loving way that you cannot say no also. They make you feel guilty. If you hoard money they are happy. But how can a man who loves can hoard? Difficult; a lover is never a hoarder. A lover shares, distributes, goes on giving; a lover cannot hoard.

When love is not there, you become miserly because you are afraid. You don’t have the shelter of love, so you need some shelter. Wealth becomes the substitute. Society also wants you to hoard, because how wealth is to be created if everyone becomes a lover? The society will be very, very rich, but rich in a totally different way. It may be poor materially, but it will be rich spiritually.

But that richness is not visible. Society needs visible wealth, so in the whole world, religion, society, culture, they are in a conspiracy because you have only one energy: that is love energy. If it moves rightly into love, then it cannot be forced to move anywhere else. If you don’t love, your very missing of love may become a research into science.

Freud had many glimpses of truth. He was really a rare man; so many insights happened to him. He said whenever you penetrate anything, it is penetrating the woman, and if you are not allowed the woman, you will try to penetrate something else. You may penetrate toward being a prime minister of a country.

Politicians you will never find lovers: they will always sacrifice love for their power. Scientists will never be lovers, because if they become lovers they relax. They need a tension, a constant obsession. Love relaxes; constant obsession is not possible. They go madly to their laboratory. They are obsessed, possessed. Night and day they work.

History knows that whenever a country’s love-need is fulfilled, the country becomes weak. Then it can be defeated. So the love-need should not be fulfilled. Then the country is dangerous because everybody is a maniac and ready to fight. For slightest provocation, everybody is ready to fight. If love-need is fulfilled, then who bothers! Just think, if really the whole country has been in love, and somebody attacks… we will say to them, “Okay, you also come and be here. Why bother? We are so happy – you also come, and the country is vast; you also – be here and be happy. And if you want to be the rulers, be the rulers – nothing is wrong; so far so good. You take the responsibility – good!”

But when love-need is not fulfilled, you are always ready to fight. You just remember. Just try to watch your own mind. If you have not loved your woman for a few days, you are constantly irritated. You love and you relax. Irritation goes, and you feel so good – you can forgive. A lover can forgive everything. Love has been such a blessing, he can forgive all that is wrong.

No, leaders won’t allow you to love because then soldiers cannot be created. Then where you will find warmongers, maniacs, mad people who would like to destroy? Love is creativity. If love-need is fulfilled, you would like to create, not to destroy. Then the whole political structure will fall down. If you love, then the whole family structure will be totally different. If you love, then the economy and the economics will be different. In fact, if love is allowed, the whole world will take a totally different shape. It cannot be allowed because this structure has its investments. Every structure pushes itself onward, and if you are crushed it doesn’t bother.

Whole humanity is crushed, and the chariot of civilization goes on and on. Realize this, watch this, be aware of this – and then love is so simple; nothing is more simple than that. Drop all that society needs; remember your inner needs. That is not going against society. You are simply trying to enrich your own life. You are not here to fulfill anybody else’s expectations. You are here for your thing – for your own fulfillment.

Make that the primary, the base, and don’t bother about other things. Because mad people are all around you, they will push you toward madness. No need to go against society; just drop out of its investments, that’s all.

You need not become rebellious, a revolutionary, because that too again is coming to the same thing. If your love is not fulfilled, you will become a revolutionary, because that too is a destruction in garb. And then comes the real problem: drop your own ego. Love needs total surrender.