BELOVED MASTER
I AM A STRONG MAN, BUT I CANNOT FIND A WOMAN WHO TRULY LOVES ME. WHAT IS MISSING IN ME? I HAVE COME HERE TO FIND A SOULMATE. CAN YOU HELP ME?
Maybe… but before I can help you to find a soulmate I will have to create a soul in you, which is far more difficult! You may be physically strong; that does not mean that you have a soul.
Soul is only a seed; you don't have actual souls within you, just possibilities. And without a soul, people start searching for a soulmate! Only a SOUL can attract another soul. If you have a soul, then some soul is bound to be attracted towards you; you will find the soulmate.
But one never thinks that way. And the idea that you are a strong man may become an obstruction, because a strong man ordinarily is one who is more animalistic. That's our idea of strength: a man who looks more like an animal.
Whenever I see the pictures of Mr. Universe I am simply puzzled — I can't see any beauty, they look utterly ugly; all muscles and nothing else! They look more like animals than men.
And this is not health either, because they all die early and they all die with dangerous diseases, for the simple reason that they force their bodies in a certain mold. They don't love their bodies; their bodies are tense. By the time these Mr. Universes are forty they are on the verge of dying and they succumb to great illnesses, incurable, because they themselves have created those illnesses. They have been forcing their bodies, manipulating their bodies. They have succeeded, but at a great cost.
Strength, in the ordinary mind, means aggressiveness. And a woman needs a little more tenderness, not aggressiveness. And who knows, You may just be carrying this idea that you are a strong man and you may not even be that. It may be just an ego idea, a fantasy.
I don't know how strong you are. Maybe you are able to break doors — that won't help. You will have to learn the other art! And I don't know, how old you are — because you must have been searching long; otherwise you would not have reached here. And if you have been failing for your whole life you must have become crystallized into certain patterns. You may be aggressive, you may be a pretender, you may be less interested in love and more in conquering a woman.
There are many people who go on doing that: they go on counting how many women they have conquered. There are women also — now only in the West but soon they will be in the East too — who go on counting, as if love is a question of quantity!
There are people who keep count: how many women they have conquered, how many men they have conquered. If you are interested in conquest you are not interested in love.
And when slowly slowly, life starts slipping out of your hands, when death starts knocking on your doors, you become frightened. Suddenly you become alert that you have missed something beautiful.
Love is one of the greatest experiences in life — and many miss it. They may reproduce children, they may have married many times, but love is a totally different phenomenon. It needs a great sensitivity, it needs a soul. And when time passes and energies starts waning and death comes closer, you are in a panic.
That's exactly my feeling reading your question, that you are in a panic.
Something is always possible. One thing that you need is: rather than searching for a soulmate, become a soul, become more conscious.
When love is unconscious it is only lust and nothing else — a beautiful name for an ugly thing. When love is conscious, only then it is love. But how many people are conscious?
When love is meditative, only then it is love.
And a meditative love will attract a meditative love energy. You get only what you deserve, remember, neither less nor more. You always get exactly that which you deserve.
Existence is very just and very fair. So if you are not getting a soulmate, it is not going to help to frantically search for one. Rather look in. You are missing something in you — you are missing love qualities. You are not tender, you are not sensitive, you are not conscious. And you don't know how to give without asking anything in return. Your love is a demand, there is a condition to it. It is a kind of exploitation. You want to use the other's body, and no woman is ever happy if she is used — she hates it.
Millions of women hate their husbands for the simple reason that they feel used, as if they are just machines for your sexual lust to be relieved so that you can have a good night's sleep. No woman can ever respect you if she feels she is being used. Each being is an end unto himself.
Never use a woman, never use a man, never use anybody. Nobody is a means for your purposes. Respect — love is a sharing, it is not using the other, it is not trying to snatch something from the other. On the contrary, it is giving wholeheartedly for no reason at all, just for the sheer joy of giving.
And then suddenly you will find one day you have found someone with whom your energies are in harmony, in accord. And it is a beautiful experience even to find a single person with whom you are in accord. And here you can find many persons with whom you are in accord.
You can't imagine my ecstasy, because I am in accord with all of my sannyasins, in deep accord, a tremendous harmony. Then love reaches its highest peak. It is no more sexual, it is pure prayer. And when love is prayer, you have found the soulmate.
But if your love is lust you can't find a soulmate, you can only find some woman's body. And the body is not going to help fulfill your longing. You need attunement with the soul, with the inner being, with the interiority of the woman or of the man. At least with one person if it happens, great joy arises. And then when you know the art, it can happen with many more people. And that's what friendship is.
My effort here is to create a commune where thousands of souls are in such deep friendship, in such love, as if they are all soulmates. We can release such great light into the world through that energy field! We can start such a revolution in the world, we can ignite such fire, that it will go on burning in the future, down the centuries, helping people to be transformed, to be reborn.
OSHO