aloneness.

                                         

                                                                  

Even if they are in the crowd they are alone. Even if they are in the marketplace they are not there. Even if they relate they remain separate. There is a kind of subtle distance that is always there.

And that distance is freedom, that distance is great joy, that distance is your own space. And you call yourself a loner? You must be comparing yourself with others: "They are having so many relationships, they are having love affairs. They belong to each other, they are insiders - and I am a loner. Why?" You must be creating anguish unnecessarily.

My approach always is: whatsoever God has given to you must be a subtle necessity of your soul, otherwise it would not have been given in the first place. Think more of aloneness. Celebrate aloneness, celebrate your pure space, and great song will arise in your heart. And it will be a song of awareness, it will be a song of meditation. It will be a song of an alone bird calling in the distance - not calling to somebody in particular, but just calling because the heart is full and wants to call, because the cloud is full and wants to rain, because the flower is full and the petals open and the fragrance is released... unaddressed. Let your aloneness become a dance.

And Madhura is a dancer. And I am utterly happy with you, Madhura. If you stop creating problems for yourself... I don't see that there are real problems. The only problem is, people go on creating problems! Problems are never solved, they are only dissolved.

I am giving you a perspective, a vision. Dissolve your problem! Accept it as a gift of God, with great gratitude, and live it. And you will be surprised: what a precious gift, and you have not even appreciated it yet. What a precious gift, and it is lying there in your heart, unappreciated.

Dance your aloneness, sing your aloneness, live your aloneness!

And I am not saying don't love. In fact, only a person who is capable of being alone is capable of love. Lonely persons cannot love. Their need is so much that they cling - how can they love? Lonely persons cannot love, they can only exploit. Lonely persons pretend to love; deep down they want to get love. They don't have it to give, they have nothing to give. Only a person who knows how to be alone AND joyous is so full of love that he can share it. He can share it with strangers.

And all are strangers, remember. Your husband, your wife, your children, all are strangers. Never forget it! You don't know your husband, you don't know your wife. You don't know even your child; the child that you have carried in your womb for nine months is a stranger.

This whole life is a strange land; we come from some unknown. source. Suddenly we are here, and one day suddenly we are gone, back to the original source. This is a few days' journey; make it as joyous as possible. But we do just the opposite - we make it as miserable as possible. We put our whole energies into making it more and more miserable.

Osho