Title: Being In Love
How to love with awareness and relate without fear
Author: The Osho International Foundation
Publisher: Harmony Books (Crown Pubishing/Random House)
Copyright: 2008
Review Score: 3.75 
Summary:
Warning. This book contains wildly radical ideas about love, marriage and sex. If you prefer reading books that make you feel comfortable and safe, then don't bother yourself with Being In Love because it will shock your socks off! The ideas expressed by Osho were revolutionary when he first said them more than 20 years ago. And even now, the reader continues to be refreshed by Osho because his ideas still haven't reached mainstream thought. It's exciting to read something new that hasn't been rehashed a thousand times by others.
Osho was born in India in 1931 as Rajneesh Chandra Mohan Jain. In the 1960's he was known as Acarya Rajneesh. Throughout the 1970's and 1980's he became known as Bhagwan Shree Rajneesh. And finally in 1989 he took the name Osho. In 1981 Osho's followers established Rajneeshpuram, an "intentional community" located in Oregon. It attracted considerable media attention because of Osho's Rolls Royce collection. The community collapsed in 1985 due to a variety of pressures and problems, and Osho returned to India where he died in 1990. This book was compiled by The Osho International Foundation from various lectures given by Osho to a live audience,
As I was reading Being In Love it occurred to me that in the 1980's I attended a program featuring Osho (then known as Bhagwan Shree Rajneesh) in Boston, MA. It was a bit of a turn-off because Osho was almost three hours late for his own show. And when he finally arrived, instead of getting down to business, he chit-chatted and told jokes. I recall leaving before any of his knowledge-sharing action got started. Too bad for me that I didn't stick around a little longer, because I would have definitely enjoyed hearing someone so very outside the box.
Message of Love:
Love has nothing to do with rigid rules, roles and expectations
Score: 5.00
Osho says that "Love is the only religion, the only god, the only mystery that has to be lived, understood...It is not anything difficult." His basic direction is that there's nothing to learn. All that's needed is to unlearn the ways of "un-love."
The bottom line is that we are each responsible for the presence or absence of love in our own lives. All the buddha or guru can do is show you the way and lead you. Buddha or guru cannot destroy your ego, especially if you have made a huge investment in preserving it. Buddha or guru cannot force you to act in a more loving way. This is something you have to do by yourself for yourself. Buddha and guru can only light the path to love, but you must make the decision to walk it.
Inspiration:
Score: 3.00
Can you imagine what love would be like without our false, fixed and rigid beliefs that love has to be experienced in a specific way, with a specific person at a specific time in life? Osho invites us to take a peek at what this kind of freedom would look like. It's terrifying and exciting to think of love in this way. Consider some of his quotes:
"...never say that love is a duty. It is not. Duty is a false substitute for love."
"You have been given the idea of a permanent love with is going to destroy your whole life. Love becomes secondary, permanence becomes primary."
"Marriage is a sort of prostitution."
"In the new world there should be no marriage, only lovers...and the moment they feel that they have been together too long, a little change will be good."
Practicality/Relevance:
Score: 5.00
According to Osho, we're all stuck in a very angry place with the people we choose to spend our lives with, particularly spouses and significant others. Most of this anger is due to conditioning that's been handed down for generations. Even more startling, Osho believes we are conditioned through millions of past life experiences, which are remembered on another level. The purpose of conditioning is to repress pain and pleasure. To avoid pain, you avoid pleasure. To avoid death, you avoid life.
Lying is an important aspect of conditioning. Our societies prgram us to pretend rather than to be authentic. This constant false presentation of self turns us into spineless, docile slaves who willingly agree to play the expected role and live the expected program. This results in angriness. Another aspect of conditioning is the constant fight for domination, with each partner trying to boss the other around. More reasons to be angry. And there there is the fact that couples use love as a negotiation tool, with each one manipulating to get something from the other. Still more angriness. A vast reservoir of unhappiness accumulates just under the surface of our lives, and this destructive energy comes out in hundreds of little and not-so-little ways.
Osho reminds us that marriage is an institution, and most people aren't too thrilled about being institutionalized. Love is simply impossible in this kind of environment. What's needed is the basic goal of friendliness and the reminder that love is not a business transaction.
Organization/Readability:
Score: 2.00
Being In Love is one of those books that you have to read all the way through before you can really appreciate it. The slow start is because Osho's message is oriented to Indian culture, and most of his ongoing references revolve around examples of Indian married life. Who knew that Indian couples played the same games and had the same issues as American couples? Also, because the book was derived from lectures, the material is not well organized and does not flow in a tight, logical way. The persistent reader will, however, be rewarded with huge golden nuggets of wisdom along the way, and his or her mind will be opened. This is a priceless experience.
