But being is the basic requirement. If you are, courage comes as a consequence. If you are, great desire for adventure, to explore, arises – and when you are ready to explore, you can relate. Relating is exploring – exploring the other’s consciousness, exploring the other’s territory. But when you explore the other’s territory, you have to allow and welcome the other to explore you; it cannot be a one-way traffic. And you can allow the other to explore you only when you have something, some treasure within you. Then there is no fear. In fact you invite the guest, you embrace the guest, you call him in, you want him in. You want him to see what you have discovered in yourself, you want to share it.

First be, then you can relate – and remember, to relate is beautiful. Relationship is a totally different phenomenon; relationship is something dead, fixed, a full stop has arrived. You get married to a woman; a full stop has arrived. Now things will only decline. You have reached the limit, nothing is growing any more. The river has stopped and it is becoming a reservoir. Relationship is already a thing, complete; relating is a process. Avoid relationships and go deeper and deeper into relating.

My emphasis is on verbs, not on nouns; avoid nouns as much as possible. In language you cannot avoid, that I know; but in life, avoid – because life is a verb. Life is not a noun, it is really living not life. It is not love, it is loving. It is not relationship, it is relating. It is not a song, it is singing. It is not a dance, it is dancing.

See the difference, savor the difference. A dance is something complete; the last touches have been made, now there is nothing else to do. Something complete is something dead. Life knows no full stop; commas are okay, but no full stops. Resting places are okay, but no destination.

Instead of thinking how to relate, fulfill the first requirement: meditate, be, and then relating will arise out of it on its own accord. One who becomes silent, blissful, one who starts having overflowing energies, becomes a flower, has to relate. It is not something that he has to learn how to do, it starts happening. He relates with people, he relates with animals, he relates with trees, he relates even with rocks.

In fact, twenty-four hours a day he relates. If he is walking on the earth, he is relating with the earth, his feet touching the earth, it is relating. If he is swimming in the river he is relating with the river, and if he is looking at the stars he is relating with the stars.

It is not a question of a relationship with somebody in particular. The basic fact is, if you are, your whole life becomes a relating. It is a constant song, a constant dance, it is a continuum, a riverlike flow.

Meditate, find out your own center first. Before you can relate with somebody else, relate with yourself. That is the basic requirement to be fulfilled. Without it, nothing is possible. With it, nothing is impossible.

The second question:

Osho,
As you drove away today I felt I am afraid of forgetting…. Is there anything I need to remember?