Osho Shivo is an enlightened mystic who lives his life in totality as a channel of divine love. He has coached and conducted workshops for couples which leads the lovers through creativity, intelligence, and sensuousness to the celebration of love. He is also an Osho Sanyasin going through an intense spiritual journey through Oshodhara. You can add him in your facebook profile by name Osho Shivo. You can also email him at thirdeyeastrology@gmail.com
Mansi Bhagdeo has realized that while she enjoys her adventures in chemistry, education, tarot, yoga, and mindful cooking, the true essence of her life is to give and receive love. Shivo and Mansi have co written a mystical tale “Dancing with the Timeless Beast” which is based on the transformational power of unconditional love.
In this current series “Man woman Relationships: From Conflict to Celebration”, they attempt to articulate the essential conflict between man and woman and highlight the polarity between them to ultimately synthesize those polarities into a divine union. This article “Man Woman Relationship: Synthesis of Love and Adventure” is the second interaction in this series. Do check out first interaction “Man Woman Relationships: From Agony to Ecstasy“.
Interview
Mansi: Shivo, in the last interaction, you mentioned that the essence of a man is adventure and the essence of a woman is love and they both need to relate in a way that includes adventure as well as love. So let us talk more about this synthesis. How can this synthesis be achieved?
Osho Shivo: First point to understand is that soul has both the qualities, the love and adventure. Soul is neither male nor female. Hence when lovers go beyond the physicality, thoughts and feelings, they enter a magical world, which includes love and adventure both. Hence only a soul relationship can satisfy both of them. When you feel as one soul, it is so adventurous and loving and yet, it is eternal and connects the lovers to the cosmic vastness. It is deep as well as all pervasive and hence can fulfill both- the man and woman. However, to begin with, at the level of understanding, we can say that woman should drop resisting the adventures a man wants to go on by way of new experiences and relating with life in many different ways. On the other hand, man should understand that a woman just wants to stop in this moment, as she is feeling wonderful right now and hence there is no desire to change.
Mansi: The love and adventure conflict seems more natural to me than synthesis. Just the mention of a man going on an adventure makes a woman question everything she thought she knew about her relationship. If a man decides that he wants to take part in a car rally, it opens a Pandora’s box for a woman. The woman is worried about so many things from his safety, to whether she would lose him to whether he is bored in the relationship. This suffering might be a bit of drama but it also might be real. What is she to do? To express her fears and be a spoilsport or to suffer in silence and repress her emotions?
Osho Shivo: Yes, when we look at love and adventure, in the present state in the world, there seems to be conflict. If it was not so, then men women would be living in deep harmony. If a man is looking for adventure, does it mean that he is bored in the relationship?? Not exactly, but at the same time, he needs to rejuvenate his spirit and feel that throb within himself. If he is not in adventure, he feels like a prisoner and it is very difficult for him to love his woman in that state. What should a woman do about this? First, she should understand that the reason she had loved him was, because of his spirit. If he loses that touch with his spirit, he is no more going to be the one with whom she was in love with. So finally this will not work for her.
Second, she should realize that he must be in love with himself to love her authentically. If that is not so, love becomes mechanical and loses its throb. Third, she should not expect what he should and should not do. However, at the same time, she should be fully expressive of what she feels, of her fears about his safety etc, but leave the final choice to him. If you do not posses and order a man, he is likely to take much better care of your emotions.
Mansi: Shivo, that would indeed be a deeply satisfying solution since it allows a woman to express herself honestly but without that nagging and accusatory tone which makes a man want to run away or shut down his own emotions. But coming back to what you said earlier, what is a soul relationship? Can you give us any example of a couple from the pages of mythology or history that were in this kind of soul relationship?
Osho Shivo: In a soul relationship, lovers feel as extensions of each other. The best example is Shiva and Parvati. Shiva is the ultimate husband, even though he has no possessions. But they are so much in love that they have become one, as shown in Ardhnarishwara form of Shiva. In deep love, all the lovers become a synthesis of man and woman, a synthesis of love and adventure. When a man is just an adventure, he attracts woman, but he is not able to relate with woman. When he also knows love, he can also relate with woman. Same way, when woman knows adventure, she not only attracts the man but also relate with him.
Now, the real question is what is that oneness of spirit which can cause the synthesis of love and adventure? Such a merger happens when man and woman surrender to each other and their energies get united. This is a state where the man’s aggressive ego and woman’s possessive ego get dissolved completely and both taste the divine which includes the man and woman both. It has the depth of love and vastness of adventure and hence gives deep satisfaction to both. Our ancient spiritual practices of tantra is about the taste of this state. In such a state man becomes the manifestation of shiva (the all pervasive consciousness) and woman becomes the manifestation of Shakti ( the throbbing energy). Such a union of lovers is the utmost blissful one.
Mansi: This oneness of spirit that you talk about is surely the holy grail for every couple. Yet man and woman think very differently on many issues that they need to tackle jointly for example parenting, socializing, planning a trip. Dealing with all these issues with the spirit of oneness will elevate all these tasks. Can you pick any or all of these issues to demonstrate how the oneness of love and adventure can be achieved?
Osho Shivo: When a man and woman do not have soul based relationship, they will tend to differ on everything you mentioned. For example, in parenting, they have a very different approach. It is true that the way woman can take care of the child, a man simply cant. Simply because, since woman lives in the moment, a mother can enjoy every little chore and hence can excel in nurturing the child and the child can feel the deep connection. However, her vision for her child is very limited. Man on other hand, can get bored with the routine of bringing up the child, but can provide the understanding of how to relate with the whole world and can help the child discover his own sense of existence within the context of the society.
That is why, you would see that children who have gotten the deep affection of mother but not of father, turn out to be very good in building emotional relationships, but they could not relate with society at large and success is difficult to come, as the understanding of how society and life works, remains limited. You must have also noticed that though a woman can love her own children very much, she finds it very difficult to love other children and in some cases she can even act in a manner to jeopardize the prospects of other children for sake of her own. Beauty of man is that he can love many children equally, apart from his own children and hence he plays an important role in teaching lessons of relating with others.
In case of socializing and traveling, while the man may prefer meeting new people, exploring some new subject, traveling to new destinations and participating in new experiences, a woman prefers to meet the people who are intimately related with her and would like to go to the familiar places. A woman is also a very good planner of known situations but a man is more adept at handling unknown situations.
Now, both these approaches are beautiful and if they are able to appreciate each other, every experience will turn out to be beautiful. However, because of their own ego and gender tussle, very often they tend to become stubborn about the superiority of their approaches, leading to serious conflicts.
Mansi : Shivo, you have quite wonderfully illustrated how love and adventure can be expressed in various tasks and emphasized the need to appreciate and live both these approaches in order to deepen the experience. What causes love and adventure, which is the potential for a woman and man, to disintegrate into possessive ego and aggressive ego?
Osho Shivo: Insecurity is the shadow of love and aggression is the shadow of adventure. What I mean by shadow is, that when there is no love and adventure, insecurity and aggression appear. When woman is disconnected from her inner source of love, she falls into the trap of insecurity and similarly, when man cant feel the exhilaration of adventure, he tries to get it by way of aggression. Hence their mental games of survival, manipulation and domination begins. Once that begins, in spite of their best efforts, they cannot get the joy they are seeking.
True joy can come only by way of spiritual relationship. Because of the development of mind in present era, man woman relationship is full of mental games and the ecstasy has evaporated. It is high time we understand the basic cause of trouble between genders and nurture our spirits. This is the only way.
Mansi: Thank you, Shivo for this enlightening sharing of your insights. I invite readers to deepen this interaction by sharing their experiences and/ or insights. Blessings and love to you, Shivo.
Thanks to Mansi and Shivo once again to bring up this beautiful topic in such a matured fashion..
Whatever Shivo has said in this interview rings with absolute truth. But having said that, its also clear that this level of man-woman relationship can never be experienced in real life. And the biggest hurdle to that is the concept called ‘marriage’.
The society gave birth to this concept mainly for satisfying two selfish needs of men and women. First, to provide women with a sense of security. And to satisfy a man’s desire to own, possess and ‘rule’ women. The highest emotion of ‘love’ is nowhere into picture. What is ‘marriage’ after all? Its a pure LEGAL agreement. Its a kind of warning, especially for the men, that they should suppress their true nature of being a wanderer and compulsorily STICK to one woman and then do whatever you want to do with her. Its his personal property now. Thats why after marriage, woman is known by her husband’s name and not vice versa.
But marriage has proved to be a boon to women (although now this too is proving to be wrong!). The concept of marriage is in perfect tune with the natural instinct of women..that is to settle down. But for men, its 180 degrees opposite to their true nature. But women foolishly expect men to love them at this ‘gun point’ called marriage. The law also is in favour of women. So the plot has been perfectly hatched. Men cannot escape the cage now. He HAS to love…otherwise the law says – pay the price!!! What a great irony.
Now there are some women who say that their husbands LOVE them! (May be the smiling photographs of couples on puclic occasions create this illusion ;)..
And what option do they have? Where else will they go? And, how can they LOVE? How can a bird who has been captured and put in a cage love the owner, even if the owner ‘loves’ it? It reminds me of a joke about a bachelor who brings potato bhaaji everday in his tiffin. His collegues asks him why potato everyday? He says..YMMM..I simply LOVEEE potato bhaaji… His collegeues ask – Which other bhaaji can you cook? He says — Umm…No, I can cook ONLY potato bhaaji!!!…
All these concepts like TANTRA, male female divine unity…how can they happen at gun point? How can they happen under a legal agreement? And if the couple realises that they are not the soul mates, what option is left, especially for the men? Pay the alimony and then search for other women with whom his chakraas are matchin?? :))…….
Enough for today… 🙂
I just don’t understand one very simple factor. If we believe in past life, we subsequently have to believe that at least few souls change the sex and come back to earth (considering many reasons behind changing the sex).
If this consideration is right, how come a ‘female’ starts acting like a ‘male’ and vice versa? How come they so quickly adopt the role highly suitable to their ‘sex’ in the new life?
Only one reason is there and its the social upbringing. Its all futile to discuss what men do to women and vice versa. And it’s more futile to ‘discuss’ how the society treats male and female differently.
One element can cover all the issues between men and women and that is – Understand the earth is no different than a ‘Disney Land’. Its the matter of INVOLVEMENT that brings all these issues discussed above. Even if we understand the issues Shivo and Sarvesh discussed, still nothing is going to change unless and until we understand the core issue of this topic. Let go the ‘Involvement’ in other sex and you will set yourself free from all the hassling issues. Love, agony, understanding, coercing, dominating, blackmailing, expecting, divorce, settlement, alimony, and bla bla.
You arrived alone. You are going alone. Just witness the whole drama. And when the show gets over, just get up and get out of the drama hall.
One who understands the difference between Being Alone and Loneliness will get out of this drama.
No matter what experience you are having, its completely personal. Even at the time of the Orgasm, everyone becomes ALONE. You never share the orgasm with your partner. Its the experience of the self. Why to discuss what women are expecting from men and what men are doing with women. Just watch the drama and when you will start watching it, you will start laughing like anything. Because this is what the whole world is all about.
Sab kar ke dekho….Haso aur chalte raho.
Thats was a very beautiful insight Ashwin! Thanks for that 🙂
Sarvesh,
Thanks for your honest sharing.
But it makes me think about where is your understanding of marriage coming from? Is it from the books, or your observation or your experience?
So now for some sharing on my side.
Love is not a function of marriage or non marriage. It can exist in marriage, open relationship, polygamy, any other titled or non titled relationship. And just because one says one is in love and not in marriage, does not imply true love. You can make any relationship to be what you want to be; you can elevate or reduce it.
I have been on both the sides of marriage and I have been in love in marriage and not in marriage. But what I have focussed on is a partner in life who has been with me during joyous and challenging times, during periods of growth and change and also duringperiods of nesting and rest. You will ask that why did I get married? Well, it is because for me every since I was four marriage and romantic love have meant the same thing. Marriage is not for everyone and for those for whom , it is not, I bless and wish them love on their journey. In face of experiences, words have to disappear and so it is with my experience of marriage.
Dear Ashwin,
I can see why you write that we have come alone and we will go alone and that we should just witness and laugh at the show. But to that I add, isn’t it great to share that laughter with someone else. Wouldn’t that create a symphony of laughter? And the laughter get louder and harder. the deep dimpled belly laughter of the man with the giggling screeching laughing of a woman. Sweetness.
Mansi
Dear Sarvesh & Mansi,
In my writing, i never ever used the word ‘Marriage’ even once so there is no way i can explain whether this understanding of ‘Marriage’ has come from books or self realization.. 😉
All i wrote was about a Man & a Woman…and actually my main topic wasn’t even about Man & woman…
Though i used words like divorce, settlement, alimony… Even in live-in relationships, one has to do the settlement and also pay the alimony (thanks to the Supreme Court) … Divorce was the only word which was ‘related’ to marriage but my focus was not on the issue of ‘Marriage’ but understanding the meaning of our existence.
Share the laughter… But in this interview, i haven’t seen any moment of ‘Laughter’… It was all about easing tense situations, worrying, insecurity, etc. etc. and how to create Harmony… But Harmony hasn’t taken place yet ;-)) .. (kidding)
One line of Shivo attracted my attention… “…..when woman is disconnected from her inner source of love, she falls into the trap of insecurity” … It means it starts from HER and ends with HER… And this is what i wrote about.
I am absolutely agree with what Mr.Shivo has explained here but let me share my person experience…
More you read such stuff, more u get confused… This writing has such intense meaning that it will create 100 more doubts or questions… What i have learnt from my life so far is all that i wrote in my first writing… More u get serious about such issues, more u will get lost… Just understand the meaning of your existence on this planet and the rest is all Drama… This one understanding will give u final direction…. This is what ‘I’ have understood so far.
I am definitely not expecting that you all would be agree with me.
At the end of my writing, i wrote … Sab kar ke dekho…. Haso aur chalte raho. U felt like taking this interview. I felt like writing about it. Lets laugh together and move on. :-))
Love and take care both of you.
Good Bye.
Dear Ashwin!
Well Said my friend! There is no question of me not agreeing with you. Thanks a lot
Mansiji, how are you ? 😉
Thanks for replying FINALLY!!!! I hope I didnt consume too much energy of yours 🙂
Dear Mansi, whatever you have said in the first part of the reply has been completely contradicted in the last part. Dhol Apni Pol Khud hi Khol Gayaa !!! (Just kidding to tease you ;))
In the last part, you have said and I quote “it is because for me every since I was four marriage and romantic love have meant the same thing.”
My dear! From where was this ‘understanding’ coming from? From books ? (we read twinkle twinkle little star at that time..what were u reading eh? 😉 ) From observation? (Hey, were you observing romance and marriage at four..strange girl! ;)) Or ….was it your experience ? (At four..experience??? 🙂 ).
If you can develop such a deep understanding at four, then I too can develop it at the age of 25 (Hum bhi kisise kum nahi ..kum nahi…;) )
In the latter part of your reply, you are just furthering and supporting what I have already said. Marriage IS a boon for women, since all their natural instincts are satisfied. Whatever you said about your OWN experience in your marriage is true. Almost every woman would say this. If you had not said it, I would have been surprised! And this is what I have been saying…..
Enough for today….. 🙂
After reading these highly enlightening interviews again, I am begining to feel exactly the same as Ashwin is feeling.
I think that a simple issue is unnecessarily getting complicated. And it is sounding very much intellectual. And to use Jafree Ozwald’s methaphor, these discussions become nothing more than a sort of intellectual ‘masturbation’.
Both, man and woman, need deep self-awareness. And meditation is much much much much………more than enough 🙂
Nothing more is required.
To quote my favourite human being who every lived – OSHO..and I quote it in Hindi
“Is jeevan me agyaan se jyaada gyaan logo ko bhatkaata hai. Agyaan to bhatkaata hi hai, gyaan manushya ko mahaandhkaar me bhatkaata hai. Tum keval ‘BUDDH’
ho jaao…SAARE gyaan ki samaj apne aap aa jaayegi”…..
(Nothing misdirects more than knowledge. Ignorance too misdirects. But knowledge makes you grope in darkness..Nothing is achieved. So forget knowledge and focus on ‘knowing’. Become a ‘BUDDH’…and all knowledge that is required will be bestowed upon you’)
Great Man!