LOVE IS NOT A FETTER

Why should one be afraid of love? Perhaps because it may bind us? But love binds only when we are unable to radiate more and more love. The implication is that it is only the inadequacy of love that binds us and not love itself. insufficient love, love that is neither full nor frank, becomes a bondage. Only love shrivelled in size can bind the lover. Love that is brimful expanding and extensive breaks all barriers and begins to flow. It knows no frontiers when it develops, and assumes the unlimited immensity of the sky. Hence I say, increase and multiply your love, widen the sphere of its activity, place no restrictions on it, stipulate no conditions for its functioning. Let it expand steadily, let it go beyond the person on whom it has splashed itself. Let it not stop anywhere. Let it not halt in its course. The fear that love may linger on its way makes the so-called spiritualist suspicious of love. But if my love stops in the middle, it is my own fault, not that of love. There is therefore no valid excuse for my hostility towards it, Love's fault is really the lover's fault. If the lover is coarse and narrow-minded, love cannot but be immobile. If one is hostile to it for this reason alone, one becomes meaner still and more narrowminded. What little width and amplitude it possesses is lost due to the narrowmindedness of our so-called religious leaders. In my view, we have to increase our love and let ourselves be submerged into it. On the other hand, he who loses love can save only his ego. So T say, stretch and spread your love. When we throw a pebble into the  pond it sinks no doubt, but circular wavelets set in motion by it extend as far as the banks all round. Similarly, when love is generated, let it produce waves of throbbing vibrations like those in the ocean, till it reaches the ultimate shore of God's benign presence. Such a love is nothing less than a fervent prayer. I would not say that you should hate your parents, hate your wife and children, hate anyone at all. In fact, you must love them so much that they cannot contain it within themselves; they must have it in overflowing abundance. Let your love spread everywhere, over-flooding everything, so that nothing can hold it anywhere. Let it be your aim to generate so much love within that none except God is able to put up with it. Only the unlimited can sustain the unlimited. No finite receptacle can hold the infinite overflow. The unlimited love will flow over and beyond it. No doubt, it will have its share but far beyond its expectation, far more than it can hold. As far as you are concerned, it can never be a hindrance: love becomes a hindrance when it stops somewhere on the way. Lingering love is no true love; it is lust, sensuous attachment. Expanding, ever-widening love, on the other hand, is fervent prayer. Let it not be forgotten that the love that stops midway becomes a delusion, lust, and bondage, but the
love that marches ahead like the waves in the ocean is nothing less than a fervent prayer, nothing less than God Himself, nothing less than the beatitude of absolute salvation. If love does not stop but marches on, it sets us free. Let there be no cessation in its march ahead until the last man too is brought into its fold When the communion with the Soul Supreme takes place. Let me repeat for the sake of emphasis. I advocate love of self. I advocate love of others. Never consider love unholy or evil. Take care that it does not stop halfway. It is the stoppage that is unholy and not love. Those who consider love unholy and view it in a narrow sense never try to understand that this restricted love is but lingering love. The more it is restricted the shabbier it becomes. The person who withholds love from others becomes centred round egotism. He stops with his ego -- the "I-ness" and "My-ness" of life. In the whole universe of existence the two points that are
poles apart are those of the ego and the Supreme Soul. Cessation of progress or even intermission at the point of 'I' leads to hell. There is no end to the egotist's pain and misery because all the doors of bliss are closed to him. Only love can open them. Similarly, the 'I-centred' man finds all the doors of beauty and harmony closed. Our love can open them. Love is the mysterious secret key to the abode of Truth, Beauty and Goodness. Whatever is excellent and perfect in life can be opened up by means of this wonderful key. It is egotism that shuts it up. Egotism, however, opens up another door, the door opening on to hell, the only door it can open. Let it be remembered that there is no other Key except these two. No man can have both the keys simultaneously. It is divinely ordained that a man can have only one key in his possession at a time. He who is willing to lose one gets the other. The key of love opens up not only the hearts of men but also the heart of every object under the sun whether it be that of a rock, plant, animal, or the Supreme Soul Himself. Luther Burbank, the celebrated botanist, is remembered throughout the world for an incident wrought by
his profound love for the vegetable kingdom. He was able to make plants react favourably to his request, he who had spoken thus to the thorny shrubs, "Friends, you need not be afraid of anyone. These thorns are not necessary for self-protection. Isn't my  abundant love enough to protect you?" In the end those thorny shrubs of the desert did listen to him and as a token of their love yielded to him a new variety of plants entirely
devoid of thorns. Whenever anyone asked him, "How did you achieve this impossible task?" he would promptly say, "Out of love." I, too, would tell you that even the impossible becomes possible through love. A greater impossibility than God cannot be conceived but he too yields to love.

Source: Osho_Wings of Love and Random Thought