Interdependence 

 

 

Relationship is one thing, interdependence totally another. Relationship means you are separate; you are independent and so is the other, and you decide to relate. Relationship is not interdependence, it is a contract between two independent persons. Hence all relationships are false, because basically independence is false. Nobody is independent -- and if you are not independent how can you relate? With whom can you relate?

 

Life is interdependence. Nobody is independent, not for a single moment can you exist alone. You need the whole existence to support you; each moment you are breathing it in and out. It is not relationship, it is utter interdependence. Remember, I am not saying it is dependence, because the idea of dependence again presumes that we are independent. If we are independent then dependence is possible. But both are impossible; it is interdependence.

 

What do you say? Are waves independent from the ocean or are they dependent on the ocean? Neither is true. They are the ocean, neither independent nor dependent. The ocean cannot exist without the waves, the waves cannot exist without the ocean. They are utterly one, it is a unity.

 

And so is our whole life. We are waves of a cosmic ocean of consciousness. That means love can have three dimensions. One is that of dependence; that's what happens to the majority of people. The husband is dependent on the wife, the wife is dependent on the husband; they exploit each other, they dominate each other, they possess each other, they reduce each other to a commodity. In ninety-nine percent of cases, that's what is happening in the world. That's why love, which can open the gates of paradise, only opens the gates of hell.

 

-Osho, "The Book of Wisdom, #12, Q1“