liefde -2

I watch mankind...

moving from one perversion to another.

It is as if some fiber essential to life has been destroyed within him, and within his civilization as well. Not only the individual, all the society is living within a framework that has become perverted and twisted.

Its discordant notes echo throughout the world. and the harmony that a sound culture creates is nowhere to be heard. No instrument is as out of tune as man.

And just as a stone causes ripples across the surface of a lake, the perversity of one man can agitate the whole of humanity. A man may be an individual, but his roots are in the corporate body of mankind. Each man's infection is tremendously contagious.

-

What is the disease that afflicts our century?

Many diseases have been isolated, but I wish to point to one in particular, that in my opinion is at the root of all other afflictions. Whenever a man is overcome by this fundamental illness, he turns to suicidal destruction.

What name shall I give this disease?

It is not easy to name it.

The best I can do, is to call it...

the drying up of the well of love...

in the human heart.

-

Everyone is afflicted with this absence of love.

Our hearts are not functioning at all.

There can be no greater misfortune in a man's life than the absence of love. Because without love, his relationship with life is severed.

It is love that connects us to the whole.

-

Without love...

a man stands alone.

Separated from the core of existence.

Without love...

everyone is a lone entity.

Lacking any connection...

with others of his kind.

-

Today, man finds himself totally alone.

We are all shot off from each other.

Trapped within ourselves.

This is like being in the grave.

Even though he is alive...

man is a corpse.


~osho~
the long the short...
(1967?) - ch.6