Osho on Possessiveness and Love

This quote spoke fiercely to me - it resonates somewhere deep inside. Love is a gift to be received moment to moment. 

"Osho: There is nothing worse than this that you can do, that you are capable of: reducing a being to a thing. And that's what possession is. 

Only things can be possessed; beings cannot be possessed. 
You 

can have a communion with a being.
You can share your love, your poetry, your beauty, your body, your mind.
You can share but you cannot do business.
You cannot bargain.
You cannot possess a man or a woman.
But everybody is trying to do that all over the earth.

The result is this madhouse we call the planet earth. You try to possess -- it is naturally impossible, it cannot happen in the very nature of things. Then there is misery. The more you try to possess a person, the more that person tries to become independent of you, because every person has a birthright to be free, to be himself or herself. You are trespassing on the privacy of the person, which is the only sacred place in the whole world. Neither Israel is sacred, nor is Kashi sacred, nor is Mecca sacred.

The only sacred space in the true sense is the privacy of a person -- his or her independence, the beinghood. If you love a person you will never trespass. You will never try to be a detective, to be a Peeping Tom, peeping into the privacy of the other person. You will respect the privacy of the other person. But just look at the so called lovers -- husbands and wives, boyfriends and girlfriends. All they are doing, around the clock, is finding ways to trespass, to enter into the private world of the other person.

They don't want the other person to have any privacy. Why? If the person has independence, privacy, individuality, they are afraid. The person tomorrow may not love them -- because love is not something stagnant. It is a moment, it is nothing to do with permanency. It may continue for eternity, but basically love is a phenomenon of the moment. If it happens again in the next moment you are blessed. If it does not happen you should be thankful that at least it did happen before.

Remain open: perhaps it may happen again -- if not with this person, then with another person. The question is not persons, the question is of love. Love should remain flowing, it should not be stopped. But in their stupidity people start thinking, "If this person goes out of my hands then I am going to starve my whole life without love." And he does not know that by trying to hold this person permanently in his captivity, he will starve. He will not get love. You cannot get love from a slave.

You cannot get love from your possessions; from your chair, table, house, your furniture, you cannot get love. You can get love only from a free agent whose uniqueness is respected by you, whose freedom is respected by you. It is out of the freedom of the other that this moment of love has happened. Don't destroy it by trying to possess, by trying to hold, by creating a legal bondage, a marriage. Let the other be free, and remain free yourself. Don't let anybody else possess you either. To possess or to be possessed, both are ugly.

If you are possessed you lose your very soul. Lovers love only while they are not yet in a fixed relationship. As the relationship settles, love disappears. Once the relationship is fixed, instead of love, something else takes place: possessiveness. They still go on calling it love, but you cannot deceive existence. Just by calling it love you cannot change anything. It is now hate, not love. It is fear, not love. It is adjustment, not love. It is compromise, not love. It can be anything -- but not love.

The deeper you try to understand, the more it will become clear to you that love and hate are not two things. It is just a linguistic mistake to call them love and hate. In the future, at least in psychological treatises and books, they will not be using "and" between the two. In fact it is better to make one word, "lovehate." They are two sides of the same coin."

Grateful for Relationships

I am physically and mentally exhausted right now; emotionally... not so much :)

If you have heard me tell my stories, you have probably heard me mention that I have/ still work for Starbucks. You have probably also heard me mention that I do not enjoy it. I am here today to tell of a different perspective.

Although I may not see working at Starbucks as a life 'goal' or dream, I am uber Grateful for my experiences there.

Why? Because of the people.

For some reason, I have been blessed during my years at Starbucks to have worked alongside individuals in front of whom I feel totally OK with being myself. The goofy, cooky, silly, sing-y, ecstatic, happy, beautiful, helpful, caring, mothering, healthy, loving, optimistic, inspiring and grateful part of myself. AS WELL AS the frustrated, exhausted, tired, ugly, pessimistic, run-down, judgmental, angry, whiney, out of shape, preachy, egotistical, snappy, and i-dont-give-a-hoot part of myself. For that I am so grateful.

To have people in my life that accept me for what I am going through at any given moment, and to help me accept my self better in that moment as well.

I have learned SO much about relationships with people in the past 4 years working there, especially about how you (and I) can make a positive impact on the world around us NO MATTER what we are doing. (Even if it is working for a corporation that some consider 'evil' 'wasteful' and 'unnecessary' - terms I have used in the past to describe Starbucks.)

It brings me back to a piece of wisdom that a very gifted massage therapist (and loving being) left with me - describing exactly what my experience at Starbucks has been. She told me that she believed people can have a positive impact on others no matter WHAT (almost) their career path.

I took it as being kind, helpful, empathetic, knowing when to listen and when to give advice, being non-judgmental, and smiling genuinely whenever possible. Seeing the brighter side of things and being aware of the human-ness of each and every person.

No matter what we are 'doing' - we are all alike. We either struggle with or take gratitude in the daily 'grind' of living - we ask questions about existence that no one seems to know the answers to - and most importantly, we are there for each other when times are tough and uncertain .. when there are croissant crumbs littering the floor that we have swept 3 times already, and it seems like we are being tested by customer after customer trying to uncover our wit's end.

Between scraping out chocolate syrup crust from espresso machine crevasses and witnessing extremely sore muscles from slinging milk pitchers around all day, we explore and express our gratitude for one another , the fun, the frustrating, the happy, annoying, and loving parts of every single one of us.

Relationships have the power to help us learn and grow as individuals and as communities, so for the utterly genuine and REAL relationships that Starbucks has served as a catalyst for, I am eternally grateful.