It’s a strange world! Those who die for love become immortal and those who want to live for love are killed. St. Valentine was one of the victims of this type of the wrong perception of love. He was killed by the Roman emperor because he was helping the young lovers to marry each other in his church. But the emperor could not kill the fragrance of love inhabiting in everyone’s heart, on the contrary, it spread all over the world after Valentine’s death.And it feels like poetic justice that Valentine became the epitome of love.
Unfortunately, the fizz of love that bubbles on Valentine’s day celebrations is merely a flicker of true love. Roses and gifts and parties are like warming up for the real marathon. While real love is becoming more and more difficult for contemporary people. Otherwise, why would we create a terrible society that is afflicted with violence and cruelty? Mind you, it is only a symptom, the real ailment is the appalling dearth of love.
Osho diagnoses this situation as a real misery. And that this creates all sorts of complexes within human beings. Those wounds inside can surface in many ways: they can become physical illness; they can become mental illness – but deep-down man suffers from lack of love. Just as food is needed for the body, love is needed for the soul. Our second body – the etheric body – is a subtle energy layer around the physical body. This etheric body lives on love.
Osho has deeply penetrated human existence and classified the function of the subtle bodies which have their own needs. He says, “Sex is physiological; love is not. Love has nothing to do with the physical body; it is concerned with the etheric body. But if it is not fulfilled, then even your physical body may suffer. Not only does your physical body have needs that have to be fulfilled, but your etheric body also has needs. It has its hunger; it also needs food. Love is that food.
“If you are loving, you are loving to everybody – not only to persons but to things as well. Even when you are alone, when no one is there, you are loving. It is just like breathing. If I take an oath that I will breathe only when I am with you, only death can follow. Breathing is not tied to any relationship. And for the etheric body, love is just like breathing. So, either you are loving, or you are not loving. The type of love that humanity has created is very dangerous. Even disease has not created as much nonsense as this so-called love has created. The whole of humanity is diseased because of this wrong notion of love. If you can love and be loving, irrespective of whom, then your second body can have a sense of well-being, a positive at-easeness.”
