Rajneesh Quotes

We really have to understand the person we want to love. If our love is only a will to possess, it is not love. If we only think of ourselves, if we know only our own needs and ignore the needs of the other person, we cannot love.

Compassion is the key to living outside the confines of your lower self.

I don't think you can create art out of anger; it has to come out of some form of understanding. You have to feel good about who you are and that you could do something to change things.

I don't recognize hate, I don't recognize bitterness, I don't recognize jealousy, I don't recognize greed. I don't give them power. They don't exist to me.

A third reason why we should love our enemies is that love is the only force capable of transforming an enemy into a friend. We never get rid of an enemy by meeting hate with hate; we get rid of an enemy by getting rid of enmity. By its very nature, hate destroys and tears down; by its very nature, love creates and builds up. Love transforms with redemptive power.

When I understand myself, I understand you, and out of that understanding comes love. Love is the missing factor; there is a lack of affection, of warmth in relationship; and because we lack that love, that tenderness, that generosity, that mercy in relationship, we escape into mass action which produces further confusion, further misery. We fill our hearts with blueprints for world reform and do not look to that one resolving factor which is love.

Try to understand why it is happening, from where it is coming, where the roots are, how it happens, how it functions, how it overpowers you, how in anger you become mad. Anger has happened before, it is happening now, but now add a new element to it, the element of understanding -- and then the quality will change. Then, by and by, you will see that the more you understand anger, the less it happens. And when you understand it perfectly, it disappears. Understanding is like heat. When the heat comes to a particular point -- one hundred degrees -- the water disappears.

For a practitioner of love and compassion, an enemy is one of the most important teachers. Without an enemy you cannot practice tolerance, and without tolerance you cannot build a sound basis of compassion.

Developing love and compassion and reducing anger and spite is a universal activity which requires no faith in any religion whatsoever

Operate from a place of love, be kind, and be yourself.

Judging others makes us blind, whereas love is illuminating. By judging others we blind ourselves to our own evil and to the grace which others are just as entitled to as we are.

Listening is where love begins: listening to ourselves and then to our neighbors.

So, when you have that experienced knowledge you lose the ability to hurt people and you also lose the ability to be hurt by people. That's love.

It would be great if people never got angry at someone for doing something they've done themselves.

Use whatever has come to awaken patience, understanding, and love.

Understanding isn't learned from punishment and anger. An iron has no gentle touch, and love ain't learned from hate.

Judging others makes us blind, whereas love is illuminating.

Each aspect within us needs understanding and compassion. If we are unwilling to give it to ourselves how can we expect the world to give it to us?

When men hate or blame you, or say hurtful things about you, look deeply into their hearts and see what kind of men they are. You'll see how unnecessary it is to strain after their good opinion. Yet you must still think kindly of them. they are your neighbors. The gods help them as they do you, by dreams and oracles, to win their hearts' desires.

Love is so much bigger than our ignorance.

The more you look into and understand yourself, the less judgmental you become towards others.

The opposite of love is not hate, it's indifference.

When we can lay down our fear and anger and choose responses other than aggression, we create the conditions for bringing out the best in us humans.

I realized a while back that I have an innate ability to be compassionate, and I saw that the strength of compassion is something that healers have and healers use.'

I do understand how hate eats at the soul and how to purge yourself of hate.