Compassion - Loneliness - Relationships



--Compassion and the Enlightened Person--

The word 'compassion" is beautiful. It is made out of the same word as "passion". When passion is transformed, when the desire to seek and search for the other is no more there, when you are enough unto yourself, when you don't need anybody, when the very desire for the other has evaporated, when you are utterly happy blissful, just being alone, then passion becomes compassion. Now you don’t seek the other because you feel empty and lonely; now you seek the other because you are too full and you would like to share.

The enlightened person also seeks the other just as the unenlightened person seeks, but there is a qualitative difference. The unenlightened person seeks the other because he feels a negative nothingness in him. Left alone he does not feel aloneness, he feels loneliness. The enlightened also seeks the other for the simple reason that somebody had to be found with whom he could share. But now it is not a need, hence he will not compromise. It is not a need, hence he will not possess. It is not a need, in fact it is just the opposite of it; it is abundance. It is not a need, it is overflowing joy. When there is overflowing love it is compassion. Passion arises out of negative nothingness and compassion arises out of positive nothingness.


--Loneliness and Aloneness--

Loneliness is a state of mind when you are constantly missing the other, aloneness is the state of mind when you are constantly delighted in yourself. Loneliness is miserable, aloneness is blissful. Loneliness is always worried, missing something, hankering for something, desiring for something; aloneness is a deep fulfillment, not going out, tremendously content, happy, celebrating. In loneliness you are off center, in aloneness you are centered and rooted.


--Moving into a Relationship--

First become alone. First start enjoying yourself. First become so authentically happy that if nobody comes it doesn't matter; you are full, overflowing. If nobody knocks at your door it is perfectly fine - you are not missing. You are not waiting for somebody to come and knock at the door. You are at home. If somebody comes, good, beautiful. If nobody comes, that too is beautiful and good.

Then move into a relationship. Now you move like a master, not like a beggar. And the person who has lived in his aloneness will always be attracted to another person who is also living his aloneness beautifully, because the same attracts the same. When two masters meet --masters of their being, of their aloneness -- happiness is not just added, it is multiplied. It becomes a tremendous phenomenon of celebration. And they don't exploit, they share. They don't use each other. Rather, on the contrary, they both become one and enjoy the existence that surrounds them.



~ Complied from various talks of Osho ~
Posted by: LINELLA BRECKENRIDGE