Do you love yourself? You have not even asked the question. People hate themselves. People condemn themselves — they go on condemning; they go on thinking that they are rotten. How can the other love you? such a rotten person. No, nobody can love you really. The other must be befooling, cheating; there must be some other reason. She must be after something else; he must be after something else.
You know about yourself — love seems to be out of the question. You know your rottenness, worthlessness — love seems to be out of the question. And when some woman comes and says she adores you, you cannot trust. When you go to a woman and you say you adore her, and she hates herself, how can she believe you? It is self-hatred that is creating the anxiety.
There is no way to be certain about the other — first be certain about yourself. And a person who is certain about himself is certain about the whole world. A certainty achieved at your innermost core becomes a certainty about everything that you do and everything that happens to you. Settled, centered, grounded, in yourself, you never worry about such things. You accept.
If somebody loves you, you accept it because you love yourself. You are happy with yourself; somebody else is happy — good! It does not get in your head; it does not make you madly egoistic. You simply enjoy yourself; somebody else also finds you enjoyable — good! While it lasts, live the fiction as beautifully as possible — it will not last forever. That too creates a problem.
When a love is finished, you start thinking it was false — that's why it has come to an end. No, not necessarily — not necessarily. It may have had some glimmer of truth in it, but you were both unable to keep and hold that truth. You killed it It was there — you murdered it. You were not capable of love. You needed love, but you were not capable of it. So you meet a woman or a man; things go very well, very smoothly, fantastically beautifully — in the beginning. The moment you have settled, things start getting sour, bitter. The more you have settled, the more conflict arises. That kills love.
As I see it, every love has in the beginning a ray of light in it, but the lovers destroy that. They jump on that ray of light with all their darknesses within — dark continents, great Africas within. They jump on it and they destroy it. When it is destroyed they think it was false. They have killed it! It was not false — they are false. The ray was real, true.
So don't be worried about the other; don't be worried whether the love is real or not. While it is there, enjoy it. Even if it is a dream, good to dream about it. And become more and more alert and aware so sleep is dropped.
When you are aware, a totally different kind of love will arise in your heart — which is absolutely true, which is part of eternity. But that is not a need — it is a luxury. And you have so much of it that you hanker for somebody to share it with.
Just like clouds when they are so full of rainwater: they would like to shower anywhere, upon anybody. And they don't bother whether it is a hilly track they are showering on, whether it is rocky ground they are showering on, or whether it is fertile soil thirsty for them — they don't bother. They go on raining on rocks, on fertile soil, on everybody — good and bad, thirsty, non-thirsty; needed, not needed. Because it is not a question now of whether you need; it is a question now that they are so full they have to share.
I love you — not because I need. I love you simply because what else can I do now? It is there and I would like to shower it on you, and I go on showering — unconditionally. It is not that you deserve it — never think that. You know and I know that you don't deserve it, but that is not the point. What else can I do?
OSHO
