The Joy of Living Dangerously

THE COURAGE OF LOVE

This Cake is Delicious!

Love is very rare. To meet a person at his center is to pass
through a revolution, because if you want to meet a person at
his center you will have to allow that person to reach to your
center also. You will have to become vulnerable, absolutely
vulnerable, open.

It is risky. To allow somebody to reach your center is risky,
dangerous, because you never know what that person will do to
you. And once all your secrets are known, once your hiddenness
has become unhidden, once you are exposed completely, what that
other person will do, you never know. The fear is there. That’s
why we never open.

Just acquaintance, and we think love has happened. Peripheries
meet, and we think we have met. You are not your periphery.
Really, the periphery is the boundary where you end, just the
fencing around you. It is not you! The periphery is the place
where you end and the world begins.

Even husbands and wives who might have lived together for many
years, may be just acquaintances. They may not have known each
other. And the more you live with someone the more you forget
completely that the centers have remained unknown.

So the first thing to be understood is, don’t take acquaintance
as love. You may be making love, you may be sexually related,
but sex is also peripheral. Unless centers meet, sex is just a
meeting of two bodies. And a meeting of two bodies is not your
meeting. Sex also remains acquaintance – physical, bodily, but
still just an acquaintance. You can allow somebody to enter to
your center only when you are not afraid, when you are not
fearful.

There are two types of living: one fear-oriented, one love-oriented.
Fear-oriented living can never lead you into deep relationship.
You remain afraid, and the other cannot be allowed, cannot be
allowed to penetrate you to your very core. To an extent you
allow the other and then the wall comes and everything stops.

The love-oriented person means one who is not afraid of the
future, one who is not afraid of the result and the consequence,
who lives here and now. Don’t be bothered about the result;
that is the fear-oriented mind. Don’t think about what will
happen out of it. Just be here, and act totally. Don’t calculate.
A fear-oriented man is always calculating, planning, arranging,
safeguarding. His whole life is lost in this way.

I have heard about an old Zen monk: He was on his deathbed. The
last day had come, and he declared that on that evening he
would be no more. So followers, disciples, friends started
coming. He had many lovers, they all started coming; from far
and wide people gathered. One of his old disciples, when he
heard that the master was going to die, ran to the market.
Somebody asked, "The Master is dying in his hut, why are you
going to the market?" The old disciple said, "I know that my
master loves a particular type of cake, so I am going to
purchase the cake." It was difficult to find the cake, but by
the evening somehow he managed. He came running with the cake.

And everybody was worried – it was as if the Master was waiting
for someone. He would open his eyes and look, and close his
eyes again. When this disciple came, he said, "Okay, so you have
come. Where is the cake?" The disciple produced the cake – and
he was very happy that the Master asked about it. Dying, the
Master took the cake in his hand… but his hand was not trembling.
He was very old, but his hand was not trembling. So somebody
asked, "You are so old and just on the verge of dying. The last
breath is soon to leave you, but your hand is not trembling."


The Master said, "I never tremble, because there is no fear. My
body has become old but I am still young, and I will remain
young even when the body is gone." Then he took a bite, started
munching the cake. And then somebody asked, "What is your last
message, Master? You will be leaving us soon. What do you want
us to remember?" The Master smiled and said, "Ah, this cake is
delicious." This is a man who lives in the here and now: This
cake is delicious. Even death is irrelevant. The next moment is
meaningless. This moment, this cake is delicious. If you can be
in this moment, this present moment, this presentness, the
plenitude, then only can you love.

Love is a rare flowering. It happens only sometimes. Millions
and millions of people live in the false attitude that they are
lovers. They believe that they love, but that is their belief
only.

Love is a rare flowering. Sometimes it happens. It is rare
because it can happen only when there is no fear, never before.
That means love can happen only to a very deeply spiritual,
religious person. Sex is possible for all. Acquaintance is
possible for all. Not love.

When you are not afraid, then there is nothing to hide; then
you can be open, then you can withdraw all boundaries. And
then you can invite the other to penetrate you to the very core.


And remember, if you allow somebody to penetrate you deeply,
the other will allow you to penetrate into himself or herself,
because when you allow somebody to penetrate you, trust is
created. When you are not afraid, the other becomes fearless.

In your love, fear is always there. The husband is afraid of
the wife, the wife is afraid of the husband. Lovers are always
afraid. Then it is not love. Then it is just an arrangement of
two fearful persons depending on each other, fighting,
exploiting, manipulating, controlling, dominating, possessing –
but it is not love.
If you can allow love to happen, there is no need for prayer,
there is no need for meditation, there is no need for any
church, any temple. You can completely forget God if you can
love – because through love, everything will have happened to
you: meditation, prayer, God, everything will have happened to
you. That’s what Jesus means when he says love is God.

But love is difficult. Fear has to be dropped. And this is the
strange thing, that you are so afraid and you have nothing to
lose.

The mystic Kabir has said somewhere, "I look into people… they
are so much afraid, but I can’t see why – because they have
nothing to lose." Says Kabir, "They are like a person who is
naked, but never goes to take a bath in the river because he is
afraid – where will he dry his clothes?" This is the situation
you are in – naked, with no clothes, but always worried about
the clothes.

What have you got to lose? Nothing. This body will be taken by
death; before it is taken by death, give it to love. Whatsoever
you have will be taken away; before it is taken away, why not
share it? That is the only way of possessing it. If you can
share and give, you are the master. It is going to be taken away
– there is nothing which you can retain forever. Death will
destroy everything.

So, if you follow me rightly, the struggle is between death and
love. If you can give, there will be no death. Before anything
can be taken away from you, you will have already given it, you
will have made it a gift. There can be no death.

For a lover there is no death. For a non-lover, every moment is
a death because every moment something is being snatched away
from him. The body is disappearing, he is losing every moment.
And then there will be death, and everything will be
annihilated.

What is the fear? Why are you so afraid? Even if everything is
known about you and you are an open book, why fear? How can it
harm you? Just false conceptions, just conditionings given by
the society – that you have to hide, that you have to protect
yourself, that you have to be constantly in a fighting mood,
that everybody is an enemy, that everybody is against you.

Nobody is against you! Even if you feel somebody is against you,
he too is not against you – because everybody is concerned with
himself, not with you. There is nothing to fear. This has to
be realized before a real relationship can happen. There is
nothing to fear.

Meditate on it. And then allow the other to enter you, invite
the other to enter you. Don’t create any barrier anywhere;
become a passage always open, no locks, no doors on you, no
closed doors on you. Then love is possible.

When two centers meet, there is love. And love is an alchemical
phenomenon – just like hydrogen and oxygen meet and a new thing
, water, is created. You can have hydrogen, you can have oxygen,
but if you are thirsty they will be useless. You can have as
much oxygen as you want, as much hydrogen as you like, but the
thirst will not go.

When two centers meet a new thing is created. That new thing is
love. And it is just like water; the thirst of many, many lives
is satisfied. Suddenly you become content. That is the visible
sign of love; you become content, as if you have achieved
everything. There is nothing to achieve now; you have reached
the goal. There is no further goal, destiny is fulfilled. The
seed has become a flower, has come to its total flowering.

Deep contentment is the visible sign of love. Whenever a person
is in love, he is in deep contentment. Love cannot be seen but
contentment, the deep satisfaction around him...his every
breath, his every movement, his very being, content.

You may be surprised when I say to you that love makes you
desireless, but desire comes with discontent. You desire because
you don’t have. You desire because you think that if you have
something it will give you contentment. Desire comes out of
discontent.

When there is love and two centers have met and dissolved and
merged, and a new alchemical quality is born, contentment is
there. It is as if the whole existence has stopped – no movement
. Then the present moment is the only moment. And then you can
say, "Ah, this cake is delicious." Even death doesn’t mean
anything to a man who is in love.