LIVE IN JOY, IN LOVE…. And one who lives in joy naturally lives in love. Love is the fragrance of the flower of joy. Inside there is joy; you cannot contain it. It is so much, it is unbearable. If you try to be miserly about it, you will feel pain. Joy can be so much that if you don't share it, it can become suffering, it can become pain.
Joy has to be shared; by sharing it you are unburdened, by sharing it new sources open up within you, new streams, new springs. That sharing of your joy is love. Hence one thing has to be remembered: you cannot love unless you have attained to joy.
And millions of people go on doing that: they want to love and they don't know anything about what joy is. Then their love is hollow, empty, meaningless. Then their love brings despair, misery, anguish; it creates hell. Unless you have joy you can't be in love. You have nothing to give, you are a beggar yourself. First you need to be a king — and your joy will make you a king.
When you are radiating joy…. When you have become the shining one, when your hidden secrets are no longer secrets but are flowering in the wind, in the rain, in the sun; when your imprisoned splendor is released, when your mystery has become an open phenomenon, when it is vibrating around you, pulsating around you, when it is in your breath, in your heartbeat — then you can love.
Then you touch dust and the dust is transformed into the divine. Then whatsoever you touch becomes gold. Ordinary pebbles in your hand will be transmuted into diamonds, emeralds. Ordinary pebbles… people touched by you will not be ordinary anymore.
A man who has attained to joy becomes a source of great transformation for many people. His flame has been lit, now he can help others. The unlit flames coming closer to the one who has become afire with joy, can also become lit.
That's what SATSANG is, that's what communion with a master is: coming closer to his fire, coming closer to his splendor, coming closer to his glory, coming closer to what has happened to him. And just by coming closer the flame jumps into you and you are never the same again.
Love is possible only when your flame is lit. Otherwise you are a dark continent — and you are pretending to give light to others? Love is light, hate is darkness. You are dark within and trying to give light to others?
You will only succeed in giving them more darkness — and they are already in darkness. You will multiply their darkness, you will make them more miserable. Don't try to do that, because it is impossible, it is not according to the nature of things. It can't happen. You can hope, but all your hope is in vain. First be filled with joy.
OSHO