Just as love is the art of enjoying togetherness. These two things — love and meditation — are the most important in life. But meditation is far more important than love, because love is possible only if meditation becomes possible. A person who cannot enjoy his aloneness will not be able to enjoy his togetherness with anybody.
That’s why lovers are always in such conflict. They meet out of a desire, out of a need, because they cannot be alone, they are unable to be alone — it feels so empty. They have only a negative experience of aloneness; the negative experience is loneliness. When one experiences the positive side of it, It is aloneness.
People know only loneliness and of course, loneliness is like a wound; it hurts and one starts feeling as if one is drowning (his hands rolled in towards his chest like waves), and one needs some support, somebody to look to, somebody to cling to. That’s how lovers meet; but are desiring that the other will be the support. Sooner or later frustration is bound to happen because both are lonely and they meet out of the motive that the other will fill their loneliness. But the other is also lonely.
Maybe in the beginning, in the honeymoon days, one can dream about it and one can remain excited but soon the excitement disappears and the reality, that both are lonely, cannot be avoided. And when two lonelinesses meet there cannot be any joy. Even one loneliness is enough to create hell. Two lonelinesses are not only two, they multiply each other. Hence Jean Paul Sartre’s statement has significance; he says, “The other is hell.” That is the experience of all lovers because all love fails. So in a way he is right that the other brings hell. But in a way he is wrong.
The other does not bring hell, the other only becomes a mirror in which you can see your hell. You bring hell, the other brings hell. You become a mirror for the other, the other becomes a mirror for you; you start reflecting each other — and both are lonely and both are wounds and both are bored with themselves. How can it blossom into a beautiful relationship? It is impossible.
But if two meditator, are in love then there is great joy because both have known a positive aloneness. Both are capable of enjoying their aloneness; there is no need for the other. In fact now they relate because they have to share, they have so much to share. It is not out of need but out of abundance, overflowing joy.
Meditation is more fundamental. And only a meditator can be a lover because only out of meditation is it possible to enjoy yourself and to enjoy the other. But the first lesson has to be learned within oneself. In fact a person who can enjoy his aloneness can enjoy anything. You cannot throw a man like Buddha or Krishna or Jesus into hell. Even if you throw them into hell they will enjoy it, they will find ways to; they will transform hell into heaven. And your so-called saints who all look sad, empty, full, stupid — if they reach heaven, heaven is going to become hell. It depends on the person.
The blissful person creates his own space; he creates something around himself. It is a natural phenomenon, he moves with an energy field. Hence the ancients used to say that wherever a real meditator sits the place becomes sacred, wherever he moves he moves with his energy field.
Osho
