Jealousy by Osho

Sex creates jealousy but it is a secondary thing. It is not a question of how to drop jealousy; because sex cannot be dropped. The question is how to transform sex into love, then jealousy disappears.

"I make more mention of anger, sex, and less of jealousy, because jealousy is not a primary thing. It is secondary, it is a secondary part of sex.

Whenever you have a sexual urge in your mind, a sexual happening in your being, whenever you feel sexually attracted and related to somebody, jealousy enters because you are not in love. If you are in love, jealousy never enters.

Try to understand the whole thing. Whenever you are sexually related you are afraid, because sex is really not a relationship, it is an exploitation. If you are attached to a woman or man sexually, you are always afraid that this woman may go to somebody else, this man may move to somebody else. There is no relationship really, it is just mutual exploitation. You are exploiting each other, but you don't love and you know it, so you are afraid.

This fear becomes jealousy so you may not allow things, you will guard; you will make every security arrangement so this man cannot look at another woman. Even looking will be a danger signal. This man should not talk to another woman because talking.... and you feel afraid he may leave. So you will close all the paths, all the ways of this man going to another woman, of this woman going to another man; you will close all the ways, all the doors.

But then a problem arises. When all the doors are closed, the man becomes dead, the woman becomes dead, a prisoner, a slave, and you cannot love a dead thing. You cannot love one who is not free because love is beautiful only when it is given freely, when it is not taken and demanded and forced.

First you make security arrangements, then the person becomes dead, becomes like an object. A beloved may be a person, a wife becomes an object; a beloved may be a person, a husband becomes an object to be guarded, possessed, controlled. But the more you control, the more you are killing, because freedom is lost. And the other person may be there for other reasons, but not for love, because how can you love a person who possesses you? He looks like an enemy.

Sex creates jealousy but it is a secondary thing. So it is not a question of how to drop jealousy; you cannot drop it because you cannot drop sex. The question is how to transform sex into love, then jealousy disappears.

If you love a person, the very love is enough guarantee, the very love is enough security. If you love a person, you know he cannot go to anybody else. And if he goes, he goes; nothing can be done. What can you do? You can kill the person, but a dead person will not be of much use.

When you love a person you trust that he cannot go to anybody. If he goes, there is no love and nothing can be done. Love brings this understanding. There is no jealousy.

So if jealousy is there, know well there is no love. You are playing a game, you are hiding sex behind love. Love is just a painted word, the reality is sex.

In India, because love is not allowed much, not allowed at all -- marriage is arranged -- tremendous jealousy exists. A husband is always afraid. He has never loved so he knows -- and the wife is always afraid because she has never loved, so she knows -- that this has been an arrangement. The parents arranged, astrologers arranged, society arranged; the wife and husband were never asked. In many cases they never knew each other, they had never seen each other. So fear exists. The wife is afraid, the husband is afraid, and both are spying on each other. The very possibility is lost.

How can love grow in fear? They can live together, but that living together is also not living together; they only tolerate together, they somehow carry on together. It is just utilitarian, and out of utility you may manage, but ecstasy is not possible. You cannot celebrate it, it cannot become festive; it will be a burdensome affair.

So a husband is dead before death, and a wife is dead before death. It is two dead persons taking revenge on each other, because each thinks that one has killed the other. Taking revenge, angry, jealous -- the whole thing becomes so ugly.

But in the West a different type of phenomenon is happening which is the same on the other extreme. They dropped arranged marriage and it is good, that institution is not worth keeping, but by dropping it, love has not arisen, only sex has become free. And when sex is free you are always afraid, because it is always a temporary arrangement. You are with this girl tonight, tomorrow she will be with somebody else, and yesterday she was with somebody else. Yesterday the girl was with somebody else, tomorrow she will again be with somebody else; only tonight she is with you.

How can this be very intimate and deep? It can only be a meeting of the surfaces. You cannot penetrate each other because penetration needs seasoning, it needs time, it needs depth, intimacy, living together, being together. A long time is needed then depth opens -- depths talking to each other....

This is just acquaintance. It may not even be acquaintance -- in the West you can meet a woman on the train and make love, and at midnight you drop her at some station. She never bothers that she may never know you again; she may not even have asked your name.

If sex becomes such a trivial thing -- just a bodily affair where surfaces meet and separate -- your depth remains untouched. You are again missing something -- something great, something very mysterious -- because you become aware of your own depth only when somebody else touches it. Only through the other do you become aware of your inner being; only in deep relationship does somebody's love resound in you and bring your depth into being. Only through somebody else do you discover yourself.

There are two ways of discovery. One is meditation -- without the other you search for the depth; another is love -- with the other you search for the depth. He becomes a root to reach to yourself. The other creates a circle, and both lovers help each other. The deeper love goes, the deeper they feel they are; their inner-beings are revealed. But then there is no jealousy. Love cannot be jealous, it is impossible. Love is always trusting, and if something happens that breaks your trust you have to accept it; nothing can be done about it because whatsoever you do will destroy the other.

Trust cannot be forced; jealousy tries to force it. Jealousy tries, makes you make every effort so that trust can be maintained, but trust is not something to be maintained. It is there, or it is not there, and I say that nothing can be done about it. If it is there, you go through it; if it is not there, better separate.

Conclusion - Wah...very cheem, and I took awhile in silent reading to slowly understand what the above is trying to put across. It is a profound thought. I put it to my situation...and it is even more cheem. Yes! only if one is to accept that love cannot be forced...and life moves on with/without your acceptence of it, then only jealousy can be controlled. To love...is to give but one must not expect any thing in return. Hahaha it is easy to talk....but it is not easy not to feel jealous if one is to love another being.