Without love there is no prayer, no grace, no mercy. On the tree of love all these flowers bloom. People can pray without love -- that's what they are doing all over the world, in all the churches, temples and synagogues: they don't know what love is trying to pray. That is very absurd, their prayer will be parrotlike; they will simply repeat words, their words will not have the support of their heart. And without the heart beating in those words they are dead. Only the heartbeat can make them alive, can give them wings, can make them reach to the ultimate.

 

All these prayers that are happening in the world are not heard. Unless love is there at the source prayer is a hypocrisy. It is a very dangerous dishonesty -- very dangerous because you are not being honest even with god. Somebody is repeating the words of Jesus, somebody is repeating the words of Mohammed, but when Jesus prayed it was out of love, when Mohammed prayed it was sheer joy! Those words don't mean much; what matters is the inner gesture -- and that inner gesture is missing if love is not there.

 

And if love is there you need not learn prayer -- it comes of its own accord. All these three qualities are consequences, by-products of love. Love and you will see that you are becoming more and more prayerful; love and you will see you are becoming more and more graceful; love and you are in for a great surprise, you are becoming more and more compassionate and merciful. And a thousand and one other things will follow too. Love opens the doors of the divine.

 

So learn the simple art of love. Love for the sheer sake of love, for no other reason, and don't miss a single opportunity to be loving. There are thousands of opportunities every day, but because we are unloving we don't even see them, we by pass them, we overlook them, we ignore them. Because we are unloving we immediately jump on anything that is going to support our unloving mind; we go on searching for negativities. We go on counting the thorns on a rosebush, forgetting all about the roses.

 

So love means to become attuned to the roses. Be positive, affirmative, look for the good and the beautiful and the true -- and they abound! And when you start looking for them your love will go on growing. And love is not something that becomes complete one day; it is an eternal pilgrimage. It goes on becoming more and more complete but it is never finished. No point comes where you can say 'Now I have arrived.'

 

Love is not a goal but a journey -- and that's the beauty of it -- because all goals are dead and a journey is alive. Love is life, love is god, love is sannyas!

 

-Osho, “Going All the Way, #24”