But love has no ingredient of compassion in it. Vice versa is true – compassion certainly has love in it – but because of compassion, that love has a totally different quality, a different flavor.

The word compassion has to be understood: when passion is transformed it is called compassion, when passion goes through an absolute transformation it is compassion. Love is a stage on the way but not the end.

Buddha has defined compassion as “love plus meditation.” When your love is not just a desire for the other, when your love is not only a need, when your love is a sharing, when your love is not that of a beggar but that of an emperor, when your love is not asking for something in return but is ready only to give – to give for the sheer joy of giving – then add meditation to it and the pure fragrance is released, the imprisoned splendor is released. That is compassion; compassion is the highest phenomenon.

Sex is animal, love is human, compassion is divine. Sex is physical, love is psychological, compassion is spiritual.

And let me remind you again that it is not “having compassion,” it is being compassion. You can have sex, you can “have” love – but less than sex – but you cannot have compassion. You become compassion, your very being is compassion. Walking, you are compassionate; sitting, you are compassionate; sleeping, you are compassionate. Whether anybody is there or not does not matter: your compassion is just like a flame – it goes on burning in absolute aloneness, radiating. If somebody passes by he can have it, with no strings attached, with no conditions. Compassion is the experience of the buddhas, of the awakened.

You cannot reflect on these matters. Stop reflecting, don’t waste your energy in reflecting. Put all the energy into meditation. Become silent, aware, watchful, and in that watchfulness miracles happen. And everybody is entitled to this miracle of becoming compassion. It is our birthright.

The second question:

Osho,
The other day you were talking about hugging and kissing as an expression of freedom. Afterwards an Indian sannyasin was swaying and hugging a western woman sannyasin and it looked so ugly to see. It did not feel at all like love. It seemed that he was trying to utilize the word freedom as a result of your discourse.