Book summary:　Love Letters to Life

Summary: This book is a rare and unique collection of letters personally written by Osho to participants from his early meditation events. Osho addresses essential issues and concerns that arise on the path of meditation and self-discovery.

On love

You have asked about love and marriage. Love is perfect in itself. It desires nothing more. Marriage is the desire for something more. But where will you find this perfect love?

Nothing on this earth is perfect. That is why love wants to become marriage. This is not unnatural, but it is certainly going to be troublesome, because love is the freedom of the sky and marriage is a bondage of the earth.

If one can be fulfilled by love, great! But who has ever been fulfilled by marriage? Never escape from life. Escaping is suicide.

Never ask for anything from existence because there is a contradiction between asking and loving. Love only gives. And a love which gives all – even one’s self – becomes prayerfulness.

On fear

Drop this fear, because the moment you hold on to fear it increases. To hold on to it is to nourish it. But dropping fear does not mean fighting with it. Fighting too is holding on to it. Fear?is?– just know this. Do not run away from it. Do not escape from it.

There is fear in life. There is insecurity. There is death. Just know this: that it is so. All this is a fact of life. Where will you run to? How will you escape? This is just the way life is. Its acceptance, its natural acceptance, is freedom from fear. Once fear is accepted, then where is it? Once death is accepted, then where is it? Once insecurity is accepted, then where is it?

Take the obstacles coming in the way of your resolve as gifts from existence, because without them there will be no way for that resolve to intensify.

In the end, everything depends on you. Nectar can turn into poison and poison can turn into nectar. Flowers are hidden among the thorns. The one who runs away from thorns unnecessarily misses the flowers.

Every moment is precious. Time never goes back, and opportunities lost become lifetimes missed. When the night is darkest, know that the dawn is near.

On anger

So, if anger is there, nothing will come from repenting it. If anger is there, live it, and know it. Go through it – drink its poison and burn in its fire. Experiencing the fire of anger totally will lead to jumping out of it. Repentance and the like are only devices to perpetuate anger. What is achieved after repentance except the very state that was there before the anger – only for anger to happen again?

Repentance is the ego re-establishing itself. Tears of repentance come from the workings of a cunning mind – otherwise, it would be impossible to be angry again, wouldn’t it? Open your eyes – do not deceive yourself. If anger is there, then know that “I am anger.” Do not run hither and thither. Stay with the fact. Stay in the fire. Then jump – out of the fire, out of this hell.

But man’s cunning mind says: “I am not bad, and if anger comes to me, it comes in spite of me. The evil is not in me. The evil is in the circumstances” or, “The evil is in the other.” Understand such cunning. Such cunning is very costly because hell is built on its foundations.

Watch the anger itself. Do not busy yourself with finding causes for it: that will mean you are avoiding seeing the anger. The only thing that can save you from anger is seeing it.

On thinking

Thinking has a hypnotic energy. That is why as you think, so you will become. Sow the seeds of thought very carefully, because as you sow, so will you reap. If you believe you are uncourageous, you will become so. But remember: you are thinking this not because you are so. On the contrary, you “are” this because you think you are.

Man is what he thinks he is. All forms that we are given are thought projections. That is why, where there is no thought there is no one. That is why, where there is no thought there is only the formless. That is why, where there is no thought there is only the attributeless.

Consciousness without thought is godliness. If you want to give something a form, give it intelligently, otherwise, don’t give anything. If you want to think, be careful. Otherwise, jump into no thought without a care. If you want to be something, do so thoughtfully. Yes – if you want not to be, then there is no room for thinking. But to be without thinking is dangerous because then forms will become distorted and ugly.

On life

Of course life is a challenge – a multi-dimensional one. That is why life is not static, but dynamic. Endlessly.

So those who do not take life as a challenge aren’t living at all, they are only dying a slow death. Their whole lives, from birth to death, are only progressing in one direction – toward death. Their destination is fixed, because their goal is death.

Life is uncertain, each moment is new: unplanned, unexpected. There can be no predictions about life. Life is a struggle, but death is only a rest for those who have gone through the struggle of life.

For those who did not live, death brings nothing but fear. For one who is alive, death simply does not exist. It is out of the struggles of life that a restful death is earned. It is earned through living.

Therefore, the one who dies a death that is earned attains deathlessness. Like a Jesus, like a Socrates. Earn death – that is the only essential challenge of life.

On perspectives

The world is neither misery nor happiness. What we are seeking becomes the world. Our outlook becomes our world. Each one of us is the creator of his own world. If each moment of life brings you misery, then somewhere or other there is a fault in your outlook. And if all that you can see is darkness all around, then you have certainly closed the same eyes that can see light.

Think about yourself again. Look at yourself afresh. If you blame others, you will not be able to seek out your own mistakes. If you blame the circumstances, you will not be able to fathom the roots of your own mental standpoint.

That is why, whatever circumstances you find yourself in, always start by looking for the causes within yourself. The causes are always found within oneself. But they always appear to be in others. If you avoid this misunderstanding it will be difficult to hold on to misery. Others simply function as mirrors. The face is always our own.

Life can be a big celebration, but we need to recreate ourselves anew. That work is not difficult, because the moment we see the folly of our own outlook, that folly begins to die and a new man starts to be born.

Today is enough for living. To worry about what will be coming tomorrow is enough to destroy today. If sects are going to form, then the people who are going to destroy them will also be born. Are destroyers like me to stop their work completely?

On failure

The source of failure does not lie within it. That is why, despite trying to kill it again and again, man has been unable to kill failure. And that is why you will not be able to do so either.

Failure is protected in the same way. Its life is not found within it. Its life is found within the longing for success. That is why whoever wants success cannot be freed from failure – because only those who become free from success itself become free from failure.

You have written that your inferiority complex is increasing because of your failures. No, my brother! Your analysis has harnessed the bullock behind the cart. Inferiority does not increase because of failures; on the contrary, because you feel inferior you want success. That becomes the failure

But why do you feel inferior? Everyone is as he is: unique, matchless, incomparable. Comparison is impossible, but comparison is what is being taught. Comparison is your conditioning. Understand this misguided, wrong, dangerous, and ignorant conditioning because to know the wrong as wrong is to become free from it.

On life

Life is a mystery. It can be lived, and it can be known by living but it cannot be solved like a mathematical problem.

It is not a problem – it is a challenge. It is not a question – it is an adventure. That is why those who only keep asking questions about life remain deprived of answers forever – and it is their own doing. Or they find answers that are not answers. Such answers can be found in the scriptures.

In fact, no answer received from another can be an answer, because the truth of life cannot be borrowed. Or the questioners make up their own answers. In this way, of course, they find consolation, but not solutions, because made-up answers are no answers at all.

Only answers that are known can be answers. That is why I say: Don’t ask – live and know. This alone is the difference between philosophy and religiousness: philosophy is asking, religiousness is living. And, the interesting thing is that philosophy certainly asks but never finds the answer, and religion doesn’t ask at all, and yet finds it.

One cannot raise one’s inner strength by oneself. It is like someone trying to lift himself up by his shoelaces. Inner strength grows through surrendering to existence. Except surrender, there is no other door to strength. Except disappearing, there is no other way of reaching.

On learning

Learn – learn something from every experience. Sweet or sour – all experiences make life richer. Eventually, the experiences don’t remain, only wisdom does. So keep your attention only on that which will eventually remain. The flowers of experience will disappear; that is why one who does not extract the fragrance of wisdom from them will eventually end up empty-handed.

In your heart, there is suppressed pain, suppressed tears. In meditation, the pain will burst and tears will flow. This is how you will be relieved of that weight which has frozen your being like a rock. So do not be miserly when crying. Do not hesitate. Do not contemplate. Weep – weep to your heart’s content. Weep with your whole being. Let the pain melt and flow. Having bathed in tears, you will become well. You are sick only because you stopped them.

Don’t fight any desire. The mantra of fighting will not work. The lamp: simply take in the lamp of meditation – nothing but that will help. Desire is life-energy seen in darkness. Desire is looking in darkness, in ignorance. In the light of meditation, the snake of desire is simply not found. In the light of meditation you find that which is.