Beloved Osho,
Mirdad says, "love is the only freedom from attachment. When you love everything you are attached to nothing." And later on: "man made prisoner by the love of a woman and woman made prisoner by the love of a man are equally unfit for freedom's precious crown. But man and woman made as one by love, inseparable, indistinguishable, are verily entitled to the prize."
Would you like to talk about this?
And also about sex and relationships, and if they matter in the spiritual growth? I ask this question, because I have never experienced this except once three years ago, and everybody is even going beyond it. This is what bothers me the most. I don't want to get stuck here. Does experiencing sex deeply make it easier to meditate?
Beloved Osho, I am a bit embarrassed to ask this question, but it wouldn't go away.

Devapria, the BOOK OF MIRDAD is my most loved book. Mirdad is a fictitious figure, but each statement and act of Mirdad is tremendously important. It should not be read as a novel, it should be read as a holy scripture -- perhaps the only holy scripture.
And you can see in this statement just a glimpse of Mirdad's insight, awareness, understanding. He is saying, LOVE IS THE ONLY FREEDOM FROM ATTACHMENT... and you have always heard that love is the only attachment. All the religions agree on that point, that love is the only attachment.

I agree with Mirdad:
LOVE IS THE ONLY FREEDOM FROM ATTACHMENT. WHEN YOU LOVE EVERYTHING YOU ARE ATTACHED TO NOTHING.
In fact one has to understand the very phenomenon of attachment. Why do you cling to something? Because you are afraid you will lose it. Perhaps somebody may steal it. Your fear is that what is available to you today may not be available to you tomorrow.

Who knows about what is going to happen tomorrow? The woman you love or the man you love -- either movement is possible: you may come closer, you may become distant. You may become again strangers or you may become so one with each other that even to say that you are two will not be right; of course there are two bodies but the heart is one, and the song of the heart is one, and the ecstasy surrounds you both like a cloud. You disappear in that ecstasy: you are not you, I am not I. Love becomes so total, love is so great and overwhelming, that you cannot remain yourself; you have to drown yourself and disappear.

In that disappearance who is going to be attached, and with whom? Everything is. When love blossoms in its totality, everything simply is. The fear of tomorrow does not arise; hence there is no question of attachment, clinging, marriage, of any kind of contract, bondage.

What are your marriages except business contracts? "We commit to each other before a magistrate" -- you are insulting love! You are following law, which is the lowest thing in existence and the ugliest. When you bring love to the court you are committing a crime that cannot be forgiven. You make a commitment before a magistrate in a court that "We want to be married and we will remain married. It is our promise, given to the law: we will not separate and we will not deceive each other." Do you think this is not a great insult of love? Are not you putting law above love?

I am a lawless man; that's why two dozen countries are against me, although I have never committed any crime. But I don't believe in any law either.
I love -- there is no need for any law.
Law is for those who do not know how to love.
Law is for the blind, not for those who have eyes. Law is for those who have forgotten the language of the heart and only know the language of the mind.

Mirdad's statement is of such great value that it should be deeply understood -- not only intellectually, not only emotionally, but in your totality. Your whole being should drink it:
LOVE IS THE ONLY FREEDOM FROM ATTACHMENT.

... Because when you love you cannot even think of anything else.
WHEN YOU LOVE EVERYTHING YOU ARE ATTACHED TO NOTHING. Each moment comes with new splendor, new glory, new songs; each moment brings new dances to dance. Perhaps partners may change, but love remains.
Attachment is the desire that the partner should never change. For that you have to commit to the court, to the society -- all stupid formalities. And if you go against those formalities you will lose all respect and honor in the eyes of the people amongst whom you have to live.

Love knows nothing of attachment because love knows no possibility of falling from dignity. It is the very honor itself, the very respectability itself; you cannot do anything against it. I am not saying that partners cannot change, but that it does not matter: if partners change but love remains like a river, flowing, then in fact the world will have much more love than it has today.

Today it is just like a tap -- drip, drip, drip. It is not able to quench anybody's thirst. Love needs to be oceanic, not the drip, drip of a public tap. And all marriages are public.
Love is universal. Love does not invite only a few people to celebrate, love invites the stars and the suns and the flowers and the birds; the whole existence is welcome to celebrate.
Love does not need anything else -- a night full of stars, what more can you ask for? Just a few friends... and the whole universe is friendly. I have never come across a tree who was against me. I have been to many mountains, but I have never found any mountain antagonistic. The whole existence is very friendly.
Once your own understanding of love blossoms there is no question of attachment at all. You can go on changing your partners, that does not mean you are deserting anybody. You may come back again to the same partner, there is no question of any prejudice.... And later on Mirdad says:
MAN MADE PRISONER BY THE LOVE OF A WOMAN AND WOMAN MADE PRISONER BY THE LOVE OF A MAN ARE EQUALLY UNFIT FOR FREEDOM'S PRECIOUS CROWN.

The moment love becomes attachment, love becomes a relationship... the moment love becomes demanding, it is a prison. It has destroyed the freedom; you cannot fly in the sky, you are encaged. And one wonders... particularly I wonder myself.
People wonder about me, what I go on doing alone in my room. And I wonder about them -- what do these two people go on doing together? Alone I am at least at ease. If somebody else is there, there is trouble; something is going to happen. If the other is there the silence cannot remain: the other is going to ask something, say something, do something, force you to do something. Moreover if the same person goes on continuously, day after day....

The man who invented the double bed was one of the greatest enemies of humanity. Even in the bed, no freedom! You cannot move; the other is by the side. And mostly the other takes most of the space. If you can manage a small space you are fortunate -- and remember, the other goes on growing.
It is a very strange world, where women go on growing and men go on shrinking. And the whole fault is of the man: he makes those women grow fatter, pregnant; more trouble is ahead. Once you put two persons together, a male and a female, soon the third will arrive. If it does not arrive the neighbors become anxious: "What is the matter? why is the child not coming?"

I have lived with many people, in many places. I was surprised -- why are people so much anxious to create trouble for other people? If somebody is unmarried they are worried: "Why don't you get married?" -- as if marriage is some universal law that has to be followed.
Tortured by everybody, one thinks it is better to get married -- at least these people will stop torturing. But you are wrong: once you get married they start asking, "When is the child coming?"
Now, this is a very difficult problem. It is not in your hands: the child may come, may not come -- and will come in its own time. But the people will harass you that a childless life... a home is not a home without a child. It is true -- because a home seems to be a silent temple without a child; with a child, the home seems to be a madhouse! And with many children, troubles go on multiplying.

I am sitting, silent in my room my whole life. I am not bothering anybody, I have never asked anybody, "Why are you not married, why have you not produced a child?" Because I don't think that it is civilized to ask such questions, such queries; it is interfering in somebody's freedom.
... People go on living with their wives, with their children, and because the presence of every new member that enters your family is going to disturb many things, you automatically become less and less sensitive. You hear less, you see less, you smell less, you taste less.
You will be surprised that you are not using all your senses in their intensity. That's why when somebody falls in love for the first time you can see, his face glows; you can see, his walk has a new freshness, a dance in it; you can see, his tie is rightly tied, his clothes are well pressed. Something has happened.

But it does not last long. Within a week or two the same boredom settles; you see the dust has started gathering again. The light is gone; again he is dragging, not dancing. Flowers are still flowering, but he does not see any beauty. Stars go on provoking him, but he does not look at the sky.

There are millions of people who have never looked upwards; their eyes are glued on the earth as if they are afraid that some star will fall on them. There are very few people who would like to sleep under the sky with all the stars -- the fear of vastness, aloneness, darkness. It is good in the bamboo hut with a girl-enemy and if God is willing the girl-enemy will go on changing. But mostly God is not interested and you become rusted. He is not interested and you become rusted, the same girl and the same boy...

Love should not be a prison if you want man and woman to be in love in the future. Love should give more freedom than aloneness can give. Love should create for you better possibilities of growth, of inquiries into your spirituality; love should help in creating more meditative states.
... BUT MAN AND WOMAN MADE AS ONE BY LOVE... if this is not going to happen, life in the future will become darker. Even if it survives the world war, it will not be worth living. It will become more and more sad, more and more meaningless.
Except love there is no survival, no savior. But love has to be of the quality that gives freedom, not new chains for you; a love that gives you wings and supports you to fly as high as possible.

...But remember, love knows no boundaries. Love cannot be jealous, because love cannot possess. It is ugly, the very idea that you possess somebody because you love. You possess somebody -- it means you have killed somebody and turned him into a commodity.
Only things can be possessed. Love gives freedom. Love is freedom.

Devapria, now it is time to go beyond it.

Gloria Lovejoy, an ageing Hollywood starlet who has been married eight times, eventually dies. She is buried next to her first husband, Reginald. Two of her old friends are putting flowers on her grave when they notice the inscription, which reads: "Together at last."
One of the old ladies says,
"I did not realize Gloria was so fond of Reginald."
"Don't be silly," replies the other, "it is referring to her legs."

When Leo the lion tamer gets mauled by one of his lions, the circus owner advertises for a replacement. Eliza, an attractive young woman, applies for the job and goes with the circus owner and Leo to look at the lions.
The circus owner is reluctant, but finally lets her into the cage with the lions.
Eliza closes the door behind her and proceeds to undress and lie down naked on the floor of the cage.
Immediately two lions race over to her, stop dead, and then start to lick her body all over.
The circus owner turns to Leo, who is still nursing his injured arm.
"Hey, Leo, why can't you do that?" he asks.
"I can, I can!" cries Leo. "Just get those two crazy lions out of there!"

Old man Finkelstein, the ancient millionaire, marries a sixteen-year-old girl but is unable to perform sexually. He is so desperate that he goes to see his doctor, who gives him a massive injection of hormones.
"Now look," says the doctor, "every time you want an erection, you have to say `Beep.' And then to make it lie down, you have to say `Beep-beep.' "
"How marvelous!" says Fink.
"Yes, but I must warn you," continues the doctor, "it is only going to work three times before you die."
On his way home, old Fink decides to try it out just once.
"Beep," he says, and immediately he gets an erection.
Thrilled, he says, "Beep-beep" and it lies down again.
At that moment, a little Toyota overtakes his limousine and goes, "Beep" and the car in the opposite lane goes, "Beep-beep." Aware that he has only one time left, the old man tells his chauffeur to go faster. He runs into the house as fast as he can and shouts, "Honey, don't ask any questions. Just take off your clothes and jump into bed!"
The girl does as she is told and old man Finkelstein hurries after her. Just as he climbs into bed, he says, "Beep."
His young wife rolls over and says,
"What is all this `Beep-beep'?"

Now we can do our prayer. Two minutes of absolute silence, and no movement. And when I say, "Let go," then simply allow your body to fall, without any effort on your part. So, begin. Relax...

... Okay, come back.

excerpt from: Osho, Yaa Hoo! The Mystic Rose
and as video discourse: Love is Freedom from Attachment