xx i have nothing to give you except my love...OSHO xx

This is the paradox of love. You possess your beloved and yet you don't possess. You are with your beloved and yet you are not with. This is the paradox of love.

You cannot possess your beloved like a thing; you cannot become a possessor -- yet in a certain sense you possess your beloved, and in a certain sense you don't possess. In fact, the more you love, the more you make your beloved free. In fact, the more freedom you give to your beloved, the more you possess. The more you possess, the less you possess. This is the paradox of love.

Here being with me is an act of love. I have nothing else to give to you -- except my love. I have nothing else to share with you except my love. While you are here with me you will be in this paradox continuously: you will feel you have been with me, and you will feel that you have not been with me. Both are true -- and both are true together! That's the paradox of love.

The more you have been with me, the more you will feel that you have not been with me. The less you have been with me, the more you will feel that you have been with me.

There are foolish people, unloving people, who come and listen once or twice and think they have known me. And they go with certainty, with decisions, conclusions. They don't know what love is. They don't know what truth is. They come with certain prejudices, and if they feel that I am agreeing with their prejudices, they think they have understood me and they say I am right. If I am not agreeing with their prejudices, they think they have understood me and 'this man is wrong'.

If you are here for a longer period... and the period is not as important as the depth of the relationship. That is the meaning of sannyas: it is a plunge into a deeper intimacy, into a deeper commitment.

Just the other night a woman was asking: "If I don't take sannyas, won't you accept me?" I told her: "Yes, I accept you -- whether you take sannyas or not is irrelevant -- but you will not be able to accept me if you don't take sannyas."

If you are able to accept me, then sannyas is just a gesture of your acceptance, nothing else. It is just a gesture that 'I am coming with you', that 'I am ready to be with you', that 'even if you are going to hell I would rather be with you in hell than be in heaven alone' -- that's all. I am not promising you that I will take you to heaven -- nothing of the sort. Nobody should be hoping that. I am not promising you anything of that sort. Maybe I am going to hell.

A sannyasin is one who has trusted me, who says, "Okay, so I am also coming -- but I am coming with you." Then something starts transpiring between me and you. It is not only changing your clothes, it is not only changing your name. It is simply dropping your whole past and starting from A-B-C. That's why I change your name -- mm? -- just to give you a new start, as if you are born again.

The day of your initiation into sannyas becomes your real birthday. You disown the past and you tell me: "I am ready for a new future -- I will not continue my past; I am ready to discontinue it. And I will not insist on my past -- I disclaim, I disown it. And I am absolutely open: wherever you lead, I am ready. I have no prejudices."

If you have been here with me in a deep intimate relationship, if you have loved me, and if you have tasted my love, this is bound to happen: "I have been with Bhagwan and I have not been with Bhagwan." Yes, you will feel that paradox. "I have seen him and yet something remains unknown, unseen." That will always remain -- unless you also become Bhagwan. Unless you also reclaim your divinity, unless you also become a God, something will remain unknown -- because we can know only that of which we have become capable.

Another woman last night came to me and she said, "I love you, but I cannot love you as a divine being -- I love you as a human being." That's okay! In fact, how can you see divineness if something of the divine has not already stirred in your heart? How can you see beyond yourself?

And the woman who said it is a dogmatic Christian. In fact she thinks -- maybe not very consciously, but unconsciously -- that Jesus is the only God there ever has been. But you must know that Jesus was crucified, and the people who crucified him, they were not crucifying a God -- they were crucifying a vagabond, they were crucifying a criminal; they were crucifying a man who was creating mischief.
The people who crucified Jesus were not able to see his godliness at all; they could only see the mischief in him. So whether Jesus was a God or not is not the question -- whether you can see or not is the question. And you can see only that which you are; you cannot see beyond yourself.

The moment you start seeing God in me, something of the God has been born in you. And then it is not going to remain confined to me. The moment you start seeing God in me, by and by you will see God in Jesus, in Buddha, in Krishna. And, by and by, you will see God in other people. By and by, you will be able to see God in birds, in trees, in rocks -- and one day you will see that only God exists and nothing else. In fact, only God exists and nothing else.

The more you hear me, the more you will feel something has been left unheard. The more you see me, the more you will feel something is missing, you have not seen me totally. The more close you are to me, the more intense your thirst will become. The more you love me, the more passionate you will become in your love; a burning desire will arise in you to become a God yourself.

Now there is a problem with Christians, Mohammedans, Jews, who think of God as a person -- there is a problem. They think God is the one who created the world. In the East we have a deeper understanding of God than that. Creation is not something separate from God: it is His play; it is He Himself hiding in many forms. Here He has become a rock, there He has become a flower. Here He is a sinner and there He is a saint. The whole play is His. And He is the only actor and He goes on dividing His roles. He is in Jesus and He is in Judas.

In the East, God is not a person -- God is the very stuff the universe is made of. God is not a creator -- God is creativity. And the creator and the creation are just two aspects of the same creative energy.
In the West, the idea is something like a painter making a picture, a painting. By the time the painting is complete, the painting is separate from the painter. Then the painter can die, but the painting will remain. In the East, we don't think of God and the world as a painter and a painting -- we think of God as a dancer, nataraj. You cannot separate the dancer from the dance; if the dancer goes, the dance goes. If the dance stops, then the person is no more a dancer. Dancer and dancing exist together; they cannot exist separately; you cannot separate them.

God is more like a dancer. I am one of His movements; you are also one of His movements -- you may recognize it, you may not recognize it. The only difference in the world is that a few people recognize that they are Gods and a few people don't recognize that they are Gods. The difference is not of your being, it is only of recognition.

The more and more you love, the more and more you become understanding and aware, the more and more you will feel something is missing.

"I have heard him and yet still I am deaf to his teaching" -- you have really heard me. Only then can this feeling arise. If hearing me you think you have understood me, you are really deaf -- not only deaf, you are stupid also.

I am saying something about the ineffable. I am saying something about the ultimate mystery. You can understand it, yet you can never understand it totally. It is elusive, it escapes. It is within reach, but it is not within grasp. You are always coming closer and closer to it, but you never arrive. And the day you arrive, then you are no more there; the distinction between the seeker and the sought disappears. Then you are it. That art thou -- then you are it! That is the moment of culmination.

I would like to tell : Go happily. go in insecurity, go in freedom; go independent -- there is no need to lean on anything or anybody. Don't use me as a crutch. Allow me to help you to become independent, to be free of me and to be free of everything. You have not missed me. I have fallen like a seed into your heart. Just watch prayerfully, wait with deep gratitude, and in the right time the seed will sprout.

OSHO