Possessiveness

 

 

In all the languages of the world we have this expression "falling in love"; it is significant. Why "falling in love"? -- because for ninety-nine percent people it is really a fall. They are going downwards to the world of instincts, biology, physiology. They are being dominated by the hormones, by the glands, by their body chemistry. It is happening in animals, it is happening in the trees -- it is nothing special, it is nothing human.

 

I will not say, "When your biology beckons to you, follow it." I will say, "Watch, be aware, be alert," because if you are not aware you are bound to be taken over, dominated by the lowest element in you, by the most peripheral in you. You will be dominated and guided by unconscious natural forces. That's what is happening: in the name of love people are simply behaving like animals. It is a fall! But there are higher dimensions of love too...

 

The first kind of love appears as if it is coming from the outside. It really comes from the outside because it comes from the circumference and the center has to follow the circumference. The circumference is the outermost thing in you; it is outside you. You are far away from the circumference at the deepest shrine of your being. When love calls you forth that means it is coming from the periphery, somewhere from the outside.

 

A man falls in love with a woman or a woman falls in love with a man, but it is nothing special to man, it is not part of the dignity of man. It is a fall and it will bring misery to you. And remember, it will be possessive.

 

And also, if you carefully watch, you will see it will not only be possessive; deep down there will be a desire to be possessed too. You are already possessed by nature, now it will have other implications. The man will be possessed by the woman, the woman will be possessed by the man... and the whole conflict of the so-called love.

 

Whenever you are possessed by somebody there is a dichotomy in you: you want to be possessed and yet you want to be free. There is a conflict within you: you want to be possessed because that makes you feel valuable, possessible. Somebody is paying respect to you, somebody is thinking of you as a treasure, so you feel good that you are possessed. But on the other hand, simultaneously you feel that you are being reduced into a commodity. It may be a treasure, but a treasure has no consciousness. You are becoming a thing, you are being reduced into the world of objects, you are becoming an object of possession. You are losing your subjectivity and the freedom of your subjectivity, hence the conflict.

 

And you will be in misery because whatsoever you do will only fulfill half the desire and the other half will remain frustrated. If you allow yourself to be possessed, your desire to be free remains unfulfilled, it fights; if you don't allow yourself to be possessed you are free, but something in you goes on insisting that nobody possesses you. Does it mean nobody values you? Does it mean nobody is bothered by you, nobody takes any note, that you are worthless?

 

At this level of love, misery is a natural consequence. Watch it, because through watchfulness you can rise above it. You can start rising in love rather than falling in love. Watchfulness becomes like a ladder from the lowest to the highest.

 

-Osho, "The Wild Geese and the Water, #3, Q1"