Just a few days ago one young man said to me, “I am meditating and great love is arising in me for humanity.” I said, “For humanity? How are you going to love humanity? Where will you find humanity? Humanity you say? Human beings will be enough. Love a human being, not humanity. - Osho

Osho – Kabir is a declaration of the secret of this love. He says: This is my path. And the path of love is for many. It is easier to move from the path of love than through any other path — because love is so close to your heart.

The only problem that has arisen for the contemporary person, for contemporary man, is that he no longer beats in his heart. He is hung-up in the head. More and more, we are trained for the head, and the heart has been neglected, ignored.

There is no training for the heart, there is no discipline for the heart; no school, no university bothers about the heart. About feeling, we are savages, worse than savages. Our whole culture is of the head, so the head becomes to-heavy and the heart goes on shrinking. It should not be so. This is the greatest calamity that has happened to humanity in the whole history of the mind, of consciousness. We are too much in the head, there is too much investment in the head; heart is left far behind. In fact, we have bypassed it, we have not even gone through it.

We don’t allow feelings. A man of feeling seems to be weak, the man of no-feeling seems to be very strong. We teach people not to be emotional. We teach people not to cry, not to laugh too loudly. We teach people to remain always in control; and if YOU are in control, then love is not going to happen to you — because love happens only when you are in a state of un-control.

Love is something bigger than you; you cannot control it. If you want to control, you can remain in hate. Hate can be controlled; hate is smaller than you. Love cannot be controlled; love is bigger than you. If you try to control love you will miss all possibilities. You will become a love-less being — and that’s what a dead person is: a loveless being who exists in the head and who has forgotten his own heart.

Kabir says: BHAKTI KA MARAG JHINA RA — subtle is the path of love. Yes, it is not gross. The head is very gross. The head is nothing but logic, arithmetic, calculation, cunningness, cleverness; good to exploit people, good to torture people, good to collect money, have a big bank balance; good to become a politician, good to overpower people, good to destroy. The head is very gross.

Heart is very subtle, and absolutely useless as far as the world is concerned. Through the heart is poetry, not calculation. Through the heart is emotion. Through the heart is sensitivity, not cleverness. Through the heart is compassion, not exploitation. the heart is not needed at all in the market; the heart cannot purchase any commodity. And the heart will not make you a great politician or a great general; it will not make you a great warrior, it will not make you a bloody Adolf Hitler or somebody else.

With heart, by-and-by, you will move away from the paths of competition, that cut-throat competition, that violent struggle where everybody is against everybody. This hostile world, this ugly world… you will, by-and-by, move to the side. You will no more be on the superhighway of ugliness; you will no more be a part of this ugly society; you will not play these games of nationalism, fascism, socialism, communism; you will not be in any way concerned with ideologies. You will love, and you will enjoy, and you will delight.

Let the difference be very clear to you. Just a few days ago one young man said to me, “I am meditating and great love is arising in me for humanity.”

I said, “For humanity? How are you going to love humanity? Where will you find humanity? Humanity you say? Human beings will be enough. Love a human being, not humanity. ‘Humanity’ is a trick of the head. Humanity? How will you love humanity? Where will you hug humanity? Where will you hold hands with humanity? You will always find a human being wherever you go; nowhere any humanity. Humanity is an ideology, a concept, an abstraction in the head. Life is always particular, the head is always conceptual. You will always find a certain human being, a man, a woman….”

And when I said to the young man, “Love a human being,” he was shocked. In fact, he was trying to escape into the “love humanity” to avoid human beings. No, he was not very happy when I said that. I could see in his eyes that he was not very happy — as if I had brought him down; he was flying very high. He was not flying at all; he was simply playing a verbal game.

If you love humanity, you can kill human beings to save humanity. If you love peace, you can go to war. Never love peace and never love democracy and never love communism — all ideologies. Love concrete human beings, love concrete trees, love concrete rocks, particulars… and only then will you know what love is. Forget great abstractions; they are dangerous. Men have been fighting because of them, destroying each other. A Mohammedan is ready to fight for Islam, and he will kill human beings for the love of Islam. Now this is foolish. The Christian is ready even to kill Christians if it is to save Christianity. what is this Christianity? Love the concrete, love the immediate. Enjoy this moment, don’t prepare for tomorrow. Today is beautiful: delight in it, let it be a celebration.

Source: Osho Book “The Path of Love”