Let’s Play The Game Of Love

 How can i know that a woman loves me in reality, and is not playing games?

    This is difficult! Nobody has ever been able to know it – because, love is a game. That is its reality! So if you are waiting, watching, thinking and analysing whether the woman is just playing a game, you will never be able to love any woman – because love is a game, the suprememost game.

    Why ask for it to be real? Play the game! That’s its reality. And if you are too much of a seeker for reality, then love is not for you. It is a dream! It is a fantasy. It is fiction, romance, it is poetry. If you are too much of a seeker for reality, obsessed with reality, then, love is not for you; then you meditate.

    There is no way to judge. We are such strangers and our meeting is just accidental. Suddenly we have come across each other, not knowing who we are, not knowing who the other is. Two strangers meeting on a road, feeling alone, hold each other’s hands and think they are in love. They are in need of the other, certainly, but is this love?

    People feel lonely; they need somebody to fill their loneliness. They call it love. They show love because that is the only way to hook the other. The other also calls it love because that is the only way to hook you. But who knows whether there is love or not? Real love happens only when you don’t need anybody; that’s the difficulty.

    That’s how banks function. If you go to a bank and you need money, they will not give you any. If you don’t need money, you have enough, they will come to you and they will always be ready to give you.

    When you don’t need a person at all, when you are totally sufficient unto yourself, when you can be alone and tremendously happy and ecstatic, then love is possible. But even then you cannot be certain whether the other’s love is real or not.

    You can be certain about only one thing: whether your love is real. How can you be certain about the other? But there is no need for this constant anxiety. If you agonise over whether the other’s love is real or not it shows that your love is not real. Why be worried about it? Enjoy it while it lasts! Be together while you can be together. You need fiction. Nietzsche said man is such that he cannot live without lies, he cannot live with truth. Lies, in a subtle way, lubricate your system. You both are trying to use each other as a means.

    Don’t create anxiety. And try to become more and more awake.

    One day when you are really awake you will be able to love – but then you will be certain about your love only. But that’s enough! Because right now you want to use others. When you are really blissful on your own, you don’t want to use anybody. You simply want to share. You have so much, you are overflowing, you would like somebody to share it. And you will feel thankful that somebody was ready to receive. Finished! That is the full point.

- OSHO, A Sudden Clash of Thunder