Osho explained what love is, and if it’s true, why are there conditions? There’s a huge difference between love and true love, because love can manifest on many levels. When love manifests in its purest form—reasonless, unconditional—it becomes a temple. And when love manifests in its impure form—as lust, exploitation, violence, jealousy, hatred, domination, and possession—it becomes a prison.
Prison means something from which you long to be free but cannot. Prison means something that weighs on your personality like a bond from all sides, that prevents you from growing, hangs like a stone on your chest and drowns you. Prison means something within which you yearn to be free but cannot; the doors are closed, your hands and feet are chained, your wings are clipped. Prison means something over which you cannot find a way to cross.
A temple means a place where the doors are open; there are no restrictions on your exit, no one holding you back; you have the same freedom to exit as you did when you entered. You may not want to leave the temple, but the freedom to leave is always there. From a prison, you will always want to leave, but the doors are closed! There is no way out!
The meaning of a temple is: that which takes you beyond yourself; from where transcendence is possible; that which always facilitates taking you higher and higher. Even if you are in love with someone and the beginning was impure; but as the love deepens, the purity increases. Even if love was a physical attraction; but as soon as the journey of love begins, love should no longer remain an attraction of the body but should become a pull between two minds, and by the end of the journey even the pull of the mind should disappear, and there should be a union of two souls.
The love in which you can finally see God is a temple, and the love in which you cannot perceive anyone other than your animal self is a prison. And love can be both, because you are both. You are both animal and God. You are a ladder, one end of which rests with the animal, the other with God. And it depends on you whether you ascend or descend the ladder. The ladder is the same, that ladder is called love; only the direction will change. The same stairs you climbed to come to me, you will descend the same stairs and go away from me. The stairs will be the same, you will be the same, the feet will be the same, the power of your feet will be used to go down as it was to come. Everything will be the same; only your direction will change. One direction was when your eyes were fixed upwards, towards the sky, and your feet followed your eyes; the other direction will be when your eyes were fixed on the ground, towards the lows, and your feet will follow them.
Generally, love reduces you to an animal. That’s why people have become so afraid of love. They’re not as afraid of hatred as they are of love; they’re not as afraid of an enemy as they are of a friend. Because what harm can an enemy do? There’s a huge distance between you and an enemy. But a friend can do a lot. And a lover can destroy you completely, because you’ve given them the opportunity to come so close. A lover can drag you right down to hell. That’s why people get their first glimpse of hell in love. That’s why people flee from the world of love, become fugitives. Religions all over the world have taught: Avoid love. What could be the reason? The reason is that ninety-nine out of a hundred people simply drown in love and are destroyed.
There is no mistake in love; it is the mistake of those who drown. And I tell you, those who descended into hell through love will descend into hell through prayer as well, because prayer is a form of love. And those who descended the ladder of love at home will descend the ladder of prayer in the ashram as well. The real question is not about changing the ladder, nor about running away from it; the real question is about changing one’s own direction.
So I’m not telling you to abandon the world and run away, because those who run away gain nothing. One thing is certain: one who abandons the ladder and runs away will not be able to descend into hell; but another thing is also certain: how will one ascend to heaven? You live in danger, the sannyasi lives in safety; he has blocked his path to hell. But at the same time, he has also blocked his path to heaven. Because they are two names for the same ladder. The sannyasi, who has fled the world, will not live in misery like you, that is certain; but he has lost the possibility of the happiness you could have attained. Granted, you are in hell, but you can be in heaven—and by the same ladder by which you descended into hell. Ninety-nine out of a hundred people descend downward, but this is not the ladder’s fault; it is your own mistake.
And blaming the ladder instead of changing yourself, condemning the ladder instead of self-revolution, is profound foolishness. If the ladder is taking you down to hell, then be sure that the same ladder can lift you to heaven. You have to change direction, not run away. What will change direction mean?
When you love someone—whoever it is: a mother, a father, a wife, a lover, a friend, a son, a daughter, anyone—the quality of love is the same; who you love is not the big question. Whenever you love, there are two possibilities. One is that you want to dominate, to possess, the one you love. You begin your descent into hell. Where love becomes possession, where love becomes attachment, where love brings domination, it ceases to be love; the journey has gone wrong. You want to become the master of the one you love; that’s the mistake. Because whoever you become the master of, you enslave them. And when you enslave someone, remember that they enslave you too. Because slavery cannot be one-sided; it is a double-edged sword. Whenever you enslave someone, you also become their slave. It may be that you are perched high on their chest, and they are lying beneath them; but neither can they leave you, nor can you leave them. Slavery is mutual. You too are bound to the one you have bound. Bondage is never one-sided. If you seek domination, the direction begins downward. Liberate the one you love; let your love become their liberation. The more you liberate them, you will find yourself becoming freer, for liberation is a double-edged sword. When you liberate those close to you, you liberate yourself as well; by liberating them, you destroy the means by which they could enslave you. What you give is what you receive in return. When you abuse, you receive a shower of abuse. When you give flowers, flowers return. The world resonates. The world is a mirror in which you see your own face reflected in thousands of forms.