Where to Find the Love that You Need.

The article is inspired from a beautiful analogy between love and ego that the Indian philosopher Osho had made from the story of a tree and a boy.

There is a famous old story about an old tree. Once upon a time there was this beautiful tree that enjoyed the company of birds, insects and humans. A small boy would often come and play under the tree and the tree fell in love with the small boy. The tree lovingly took care of the boy as he would eat its fruits and sleep under its shade. As the boy grew up, he visited the tree less and less, and the tree missed him. When the boy became a man, he came to the tree only when he had demands to make. After the boy received everything that he had to receive from a tree, including it’s fruits , branches and trunk, the boy went on his way and never looked back at the tree that had given itself to him in love.

The tree was a great one, given its ability to serve birds, insects and humans. But the tree itself was not concerned about its greatness. The tree did not think of itself as anything big because considering itself as bigger than others would mean to look down at others and consider them as small. Such concerns are more important to humans to whom being bigger or greater holds great value. The tree, unaware of its greatness, could serve day and night and enjoyed in giving. When the tree fell in love with the boy, the tree enjoyed in loving simply and held no ego. Love can give without a question, it is only ego that holds back.

The boy in his childhood innocence was devoid of any idea of ego. Enjoying the company of the tree, he was not bothered about gaining anything from it. But as he grew up, as his society made demands from him, as he learnt about the give-and-take mechanism, about profit and loss, he could no longer hold any value to any relationship that would not come to his gain. The boy was in constant need and constantly worried about his constant needs. To him, concrete objects that he could gain from the tree became more valuable than the unconditional love that the tree had to offer. Each time the boy received something from the tree he felt joy. As soon as he had finished receiving from the tree, that joy disappeared but the need remained, for which he went on with his life searching for more ways to meet his needs.

The boy is in a true state of a needy being. In a way, the boy is all of us to whom the idea of love or happiness in life is so self-centered that we think it is only in gaining something that would define our love, our happiness. This idea of gaining is the same loop we are falling into repeatedly, making attempts to gain something in order to achieve love or happiness, and ending up with neither eventually.

We want our loved ones to give us something, our families to give us something, our children to give us something and the list is endless. We are so obsessed with the idea of other people giving us something so that we could get some more things that we forget the reasons why are we even doing it. We forget that if we could love  in the first place, nobody could give or take away that love. We forget that our obsession in getting love from somewhere else is a form of ego, and that love is not something to give or take, but a state which living beings can attain.

Love exists within. Happiness exists within. It is only digging into our own selves can we find the love that we need, the happiness that we need.

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