“Desireless Devotion”

Please explain the difference between sex-centered love and love-centered sex?

Sex-centered love is stepping down on the ladder, love-centered sex is stepping up on the ladder. The ladder is the same but the difference is of the direction. When you love somebody because you want to satisfy some desire, some lust through him, then love is only an excuse, a deception; it is not real. You are focused on the desire.

Ramakrishna has said that a kite flies in the sky but his eyes are focused on the garbage dump; his eyes are searching for the dead rat in the garbage dump. Don’t think that by seeing a kite flying that it is flying very high. Howsoever high it may fly; its attention is on the mundane. Sex-centered love is like the kite flying in the sky - its eyes are looking for a dead rat. It is making preparations so that whenever it gets a chance it will grab the rat.

Ramakrishna has said: One day I saw a kite that had caught a rat. Many other kites attacked it. The kite tried to escape in every way, but there was no escape. It was hurt and wounded; in the struggle the rat dropped from its mouth. As soon as the rat had dropped, the other kites flew away and left it alone. They were after the rat, now they had no interest in the kite. So now the kite could rest on a tree.

Ramakrishna has said that this is the situation of one who has dropped passion and is resting in love. Then nobody is chasing him, then there is no competition, then there is no struggle. There is competition in desires; there is no competition in love. As you start rising in love then your attention is not on the mundane. The steps are the same, you are rising up on the same rungs of the ladder; you are going upwards. On the same rungs others are going downwards, and the rungs are the same. This is also possible.

Suppose you are standing on the third step of the ladder and another person is also standing on this third step, but your directions are not the same because the other man is going down and you are going up. You are standing on the same step, there is no difference, but the directions are different. And there is a great difference between the two, because one is looking upwards. For him sex will transform into love, love will grow into compassion. You have no idea about your compassion at all. Your love also is just for the name’s sake, it is also trying to become sex. It is moving downwards.

Sex drowns love and love saves sex.

And remember, love should be the first priority in your life. Even if sex enters, it should be a part of your love. In your life, even if there is a physical relationship with someone it should only be a reflection of the relationship of your souls, not less than that.

If there is a relationship of the souls then even the physical relations become sacred - this follows like a shadow. If the physical relations are everything in your life and a relationship of the soul is only a shadow of these physical relations, then the relation of the soul also becomes pseudo. It also becomes dirty and non-sacred.

Remember, the direction is important. In the company of the excellent, excellence comes even to the lowly. In the company of the lowly, even the excellent begins to change. Always remember that your lowliness is to be absorbed into the circle of your excellence, and not that your higher qualities should be absorbed into your lower qualities. The scope of your higher qualities should be vast enough to include your lower qualities.

Have you ever noticed that if you give a diamond ring to a beggar nobody will look at his ring; people will think that it must be a piece of glass. And if you give a rich person, an emperor, a ring studded with pieces of glass, then thousands of people will look at his ring because they will think it must be a great diamond, a Kohinoor. With an emperor a piece of glass also becomes a Kohinoor, with a beggar even a Kohinoor becomes a piece of glass. It is so. With love, sex also becomes a Kohinoor; with sex, love also becomes a piece of glass.

You have to become aware of the emphasis, the direction. What you do is not important, but the whole context of it is important. The quality of your every act is the result of the main quality of your life. What you do is not important, what you are is important.

There is an old Sufi story. An emperor was passing through a forest and had lost his way. When he saw a man sleeping under a tree, he became happy that perhaps now he would be guided on the way. But when he went up to him he saw that the man’s mouth was open - some people sleep with their mouths open - and a snake was entering into his mouth. The emperor just saw the tail of the snake.

He lifted his whip and started beating that man. The man suddenly woke up - he could not understand! He started shouting and crying, “What are you doing? Why are you beating me? What wrong have I done to anyone? Oh God! What an evil person this man is. He is strong, he is sitting on a horse, he is so powerful that I cannot even fight with him.”

The emperor forced him to eat the rotten fruits that were lying on the ground. He didn’t stop, he went on whipping the man terribly. The man was crying and eating, and the fruits were rotten and stinking. The emperor whipped him so much and forced him to eat so much rotten fruit that he vomited and passed out. When he vomited, the snake came out with the vomit.

When the man saw the snake he could not understand what had happened. Then bowing to the feet of the emperor he said, it is out of your great compassion that you whipped me, that you forced me to eat this rotten fruit, that you made my body shed blood. It is my great fortune. God has sent you at the right time or I would have died. But I want to say one thing: if you had said that I had eaten a snake, that I had swallowed a snake or that a snake had entered in me, then I would not have abused you and cursed you.

The emperor said, “If I had told you, then getting the snake out would have been impossible. You would have died of fear. By my beating you did not die. If I had told you that you had swallowed a snake, then I would not have been able to make you eat the fruit; you would have become unconscious and it would have been impossible to save you. So I had to stop myself from telling you and beat you instead. To make you vomit became my main concern. I had to stop worrying about you because if I could make you somehow vomit, the snake would be thrown out.”

On the basis of this story, the Sufis have a saying. You may have heard this saying although you may never have heard the story before. The saying is: Better to have an intelligent foe than a foolish friend.

A sensible foe is better than a foolish friend. This emperor was sensible. He appeared to be an enemy because he was violent, he beat the man and made him bloody - but he was intelligent. Even his violence brought good results. If a foolish friend had been there the sleeping man’s life would have been lost. The real question is not of friendship or enmity, the real question is of intelligence.

I say to you that in the vaster context of intelligence, even enmity becomes significant, precious; valuable. If sex accompanies love, then sex too can become a device to reach super consciousness. And if love follows sex, then the love which always takes you upwards can also become a device for taking you downwards. It is necessary to understand the alchemy and the laws of life rightly, because it is a fragile affair. If you understand it rightly only then can it transform your life.

In whatever you are doing, always be alert about how it is going to fit into the vaster context. What you are doing is not important, but the significance of that act in the vaster context is - where will it finally end, where will it finally reach and what will be its ultimate consequence? That is important. Then many times you may do things that others will say are wrong, but you know that they are right because they are helping you along on a journey that will take you to the higher. Then a man can even use poison as nectar. Then it is of no importance whether others say it is right or wrong. There is an understanding; a perceptiveness. When you know that whatever you are doing is connected with higher consciousness, then there is no fear.

Always act keeping God in your view because; there is no vaster context than this. God is our word for the vastest context. Even if you steal, by keeping your awareness on God it will become virtuous. And even if you do a virtuous act to nourish your ego, then this virtuous act will become a sin. Don’t be tied to the smaller; don’t be tied to the lower. The smaller drowns you, the vaster saves you.

So I continually emphasize that even if you go into sex, remember that ‘samadhi’ is your goal. Naturally, there have been some very horrible results from this statement. People have not understood it. They thought that I was teaching sex to people. Jesus was running away from such people, people whose level of understanding was like this.

I am simply saying to bring the mundane to the higher - the boat is big enough to take your lower also to the other shore - and ultimately the mundane will also be transformed. And this should be the art of life - where the mundane can also become purified and sacred. In life, the bad can also become good and even sin can also be useful. Nothing needs to be thrown away. They say that a real sculptor does not even throw away a shapeless stone, he uses that too. It depends on the sculptor. And if you don’t know how to use what you have, then how can you move further on? You will have to begin from the point where you already are.

Sex is your state and ‘samadhi’ is your possibility. If you move step by step from sex towards ‘samadhi’, only then will you be able to attain. If you think that there can be no bridge between sex and ‘samadhi’, then how will you cross? Certainly, there has to be a bridge between ignorance and wisdom, there has to be a bridge between the mundane and the ultimate. Otherwise if the mundane always remains mundane, then how can it move towards the ultimate? Certainly there must be a bridge between you and the ultimate.

However far away the divine may be from you, it must still be connected with you. This is what I am saying. And if there is no connection, then life is futile. However far away you are from God, in some way or other you must be near him - otherwise there would be no end to your wandering. Then how will you return home? Even if a single thread is joining you, it is enough. All that I am saying is that there is a thread of ‘samadhi’ joined to your sexuality. Don’t focus your attention on your sexuality; give your attention to the thread. That same thread will lift you up. One day you will find that sex has disappeared and ‘samadhi’ has flowered.

Search for love even in sex. Even in sex give attention to love. Whatsoever you give attention to will be nourished. Attention is food. Attention is energy. Try to see the good even in the bad and that same goodness will help you towards transcendence.

There is a great difference between sex-centered love and love-centered sex. The words are the same. In sex-centered love there are three words: sex, centered, love. The same three words - love, centered, sex - but the difference is great. One creates the world, the other helps to liberate you. The ladder is the same: climb down and you are in the world, climb up and the ultimate is reached.    〰️Osho