The Spiritual Life, Topic Twenty seven, Fall in love or rise in love?

The Spiritual Life, Topic Twenty seven

Fall in love or rise in love?

In fact a mature person does not fall in love, he rises in love. The word fall is not right. Only immature people fall; they stumble and fall down in love. Somehow they were managing and standing. Now they cannot manage and they cannot stand—they find a woman and they are gone, they find a man and they are gone. They were always ready to fall on the ground and to creep. They don’t have the backbone, the spine; they don’t have the integrity to stand alone. 

A mature person has the integrity to be alone. And when a mature person gives love, he gives without any strings attached to it—he simply gives. When a mature person gives love, he feels grateful that you have accepted his love, not vice versa. He does not expect you to be thankful for it—no, not at all, he does not even need your thanks. He thanks you for accepting his love. 

And when two mature persons are in love, one of the greatest paradoxes of life happens, one of the most beautiful phenomena: they are together and yet tremendously alone. They are together so much so that they are almost one, but their oneness does not destroy their individuality—in fact, it enhances it, they become more individual. Two mature persons in love help each other to become more free. There is no politics involved, no diplomacy, no effort to dominate.

Osho. Maturity: The Responsibility of Being Oneself (Osho Insights for a New Way of Living) . St. Martin's Press. Kindle Edition.

The key to mature romantic love is to be oneself and to maintain a connection. In mature romantic love partners are conscientiously conscious of each other's well being. They are alone and together, a witness to each other’s intimate life, a mirror that illuminates one’s blind spots that helps the unconscious become conscious.

The paradox is that in taking care of oneself, in facilitating one’s own growth and development, the person is able to become more loving, more generous, more compassionate, more available emotionally, psychologically, and spiritually to one’s partner..

This taking care of oneself is not egotistical but compassionate and nurturing, and merging with the Oneness of existence.

This taking care of oneself is based on forgiveness. Forgiveness is giving up making other people and circumstances responsible for one’s unhappiness. One realizes that they no longer wish to play the victim but take control over how one chooses to respond to the people and things in one's life.

In what does one put their faith, in the world of the ego with winners and losers, and victims and victimizers, or in the world of the Spirit with the Unconditional Love of the Universe permeating one’s consciousness?

As Osho teaches, a person does not “fall in love” but rises into love.