Falling in Love versus Rising in Love

Osho has spoken a lot about love, relating and friendliness. His unique vision dispelled many myths, which kept people captured and imprisoned in false beliefs and illusions, which of course can only end in frustration. His Osho International commune Poona 1 (1974-81) in India has been a great human laboratory, where in many groups, sessions, meditations and practice a lot of insights were possible. Osho made a clear distinction between falling in love (you become more unconsciousness, the hormones take it over) and rising in love (becoming more consciousness).

In one of my favorite Osho books: The beloved (Bauls) #7 Osho tells us:

Man is unconscious. You go on doing things, not knowing why. You go on doing things you could not do if you were even a little conscious.

What we are doing with our life is just sleeping through it. Consciousness has to be evolved. The more consciousness you have, the more energy starts flowing upwards on its own accord. Consciousness is the clue, the key, the master key. Lust becomes love through consciousness, so love cannot be an unconscious thing.

When Bauls say that love is the door, they don't mean the love that you call love. Your love is as unconscious as anything else. It is unconscious, that's why we use the expression 'falling in love'. Yes, it is a 'falling in'. The love Bauls are talking about is a rising in love, not falling in love. It is not a fall, it is a rise. So don’t misunderstand that your love is what Bauls are talking about. Your love is just a name for lust --a good name, a beautiful, nice name. And beware of nice words because they can be very deceptive. If you label lust as love, you will be deceived by your own labeling.

LUST is when you are unconscious. You see a woman or a man and you fall in love, and you don't know why; sometimes even against yourself, in spite of yourself.

People come and say to me, "What can we do? We are helpless; love has happened." This love is not the love of the Baul; this is lust. What a Baul calls lust is this: unconscious love is lust. Then it flows downwards. Then it moves through the sex center into the world again. Upwards lust is love, but then it is conscious. Consciousness is the staircase: step by step you become more and more conscious. Whatsoever you do, you do it with full consciousness --even  walking, eating, going to bed, talking, listening --small things of life, but you  do them with consciousness. And when you are in love, you are in love with full consciousness. It is not against yourself. It is not that you are possessed, it is not that you are a victim, it is not that you are being pulled by somebody like a magnet. No, you are moving on your own.

The Bauls' love is very cool. It has the coolness of awareness. Your love is very hot; it has the fever of unconsciousness.

Osho also said: if you have to choose between (the so called) love and freedom, the unconscious person will choose love, the conscious freedom.

Yamuna expresses in her own unique way the temptation of falling in love and the possibility to rise in love:

"LOVE"

His eyes twinkled, his mouth creased into a grin

Handsome, talented, clever but alas too deep to fall in

The seductive compliments opening my heart once again

Soft touch now of pleasure but surely later of pain

Singing to my soul connecting, relating heart to heart

Bodies close skin alive tingling as it does at the start

Talking for hours, laughing in the zone of no-time

Before it sours and laughing begins to feel like a crime

Gentle kisses sexy in their newness, red juicy lips

Savor the beginning, inevitably the scale always tips

Bitter sweet innocent love of the most intimate kind

So easy to devour, digest, destroy almost impossible to find

Forgive me if I sound cynical as if I've been burned

It's just that finally a lesson lived is a lesson learned

May the illusion of prince, lover, savior "real man"

be permanently deleted from my mind,

to free me up to truly love myself.

The  illusion of romantic love

If you want to read more about this illusion of romantic love, showed in many movies and novels a recent publication (and many other sources) tell more about the problems arising from this unconscious state of mind. According to psychologist Susan Quilliam, romantic novels are to blame for a host of modern ills, including unprotected sex, unplanned pregnancies, unrealistic sexual expectations and relationship breakdowns.

An example of conscious love

The multiversity of this movie astounds me every day

Being in this body, using the mind to enjoy the play

Watching the karma drama's unfold and manifest

Realizing the roles, scenes and backdrops are part of the test

Can you transcend your life-long reoccurring theme?

Are there moments when your fully aware of the dream?

Being here and now, with the truth, there's no-thing out there

To be present without an agenda is something quite rare

Everything so individually unique and yet the same

Feeling the love, the juiciness, the colors without a name

Needing no special rituals the mundane is more than enough

Going way beyond duality and all the spiritual stuff

Coming home to the nothingness to lay my head down

Loving, returning losing my-SELF to once again be the clown