Osho’s books are the product of what he spoke in conversations with his sannyasins—discourses on particular themes or responses to questions.
In one of these encounters, a person addresses him, sharing that he often finds himself completely filled with a feeling he cannot explain:
“There is a deep love there—but the very same feeling often comes as fear, anguish, pain, helplessness, and frustration.”
Below is Osho’s response:
There is certainly something very similar in very different emotions: the overwhelmingness. It may be love, it may be hate, it may be anger – it can be anything.
If it’s too much, then it gives you a sense you’ve been overwhelmed by something.
Even pain and suffering can create the same experience, but overwhelmingness has no value in itself. It simply shows you are an emotional being.
When it is anger, it is all anger. And when it is love, it is all love. It almost becomes drunk with the emotion, blind. And whatever action comes out of it is wrong. Even if it is overwhelming love, the action that will come out of it is not going to be right.
Reduced to its base, whenever you are overwhelmed by any emotion you lose all reason, you lose all sensitivity, you lose your heart in it. It becomes almost like a dark cloud in which you are lost. Then whatever you do is going to be wrong.
Love is not to be part of your emotions.
Ordinarily that’s what people think and experience, but anything overwhelming is very unstable. It comes like a wind and passes by, leaving you behind, empty, shattered, in sadness and in sorrow.
According to those who know the man’s whole being-his mind, his heart, and his being-love should be an expression of your being, not an emotion.
Emotion is very fragile, very changing. One moment it seems that that is all. Another moment you are simply empty.
So the first thing to do is to take love out of this crowd of overwhelming emotions. Love is not overwhelming.
On the contrary, love is a tremendous insight, clarity, sensitivity, awareness.
But this kind of love rarely exists, because very few people ever come to their being…
You have to take love out of the emotional grip where it has been since your birth, and you have to find route to your being. Until love becomes a part of your being, it is not much different from pain, suffering, sorrow.
Osho, Om Shantih Shantih Shantih: The Soundless Sound, Peace Peace Peace, Talk #17
One of the fundamental lessons of love is that “love is not a feeling.” In fact, this is the most important lesson of all. The great irony is that despite our lived experience with the pendulum of constantly changing emotions, we continue to seek proof of love in them. And yet, as Osho says, love has nothing to do with emotions. True love is “immense insight, clarity, sensitivity, and awareness.”
I decided to include this quote in the category “Lessons of Love” as a reminder to look for love in its true place—within yourself. And to take care of your emotions in exactly the same way a parent takes care of a small child. If you manage to give yourself what you truly need—understanding and care for your own needs—your emotions will settle. Your inner child will grow quiet. From that point on, communication with others will arise from a very calm inner space and will have an entirely different quality.
In short, this lesson about love is a lesson in emotional intelligence. And although emotional intelligence encompasses many things, at its core lies the ability to view our emotions as an “inner child” whose well-being is our personal responsibility. Until we develop the role of the mature inner parent, our relationships with others will stem from the fluctuating moods, desires, emotions, fears, and vulnerability of that inner child. We will place responsibility for its happiness in the hands of another person—who, in turn, is responsible only for their own inner child, not for ours.
Thus, very strong emotions require an equally strong mind—one that can understand them, accept them, and take responsibility for caring for them. This strong mind is your inner parent.
Kameliya Hadzhiyska
If this topic is important to you and you would like to learn more about developing habits of emotional intelligence and its relationship to spiritual intelligence, you may also explore the 29 Days Program, which I created with precisely this purpose—to teach mature forms of love and connection with others.
