People are not destroyed by hate, people are destroyed by their so-called love. And because they call it love, they can’t look into it. Because they call it love they think it has to be good and all right. It is not. Humanity is suffering from this disease of so-called love. if you look deep down into it, you will find just naked lust. Lust is not love. Lust wants to get, love wants to give. the whole emphasis of lust is: Get as much as you can, and give as little as you can. Give less, get more. If you have to give, give it only as a bait.

Lust is absolutely a bargain. yes, you have to give something, because you want to get – but get more and give less. That is what the business mind is. If you can get without giving, good. If you cannot get without giving, then give a little bit, pretend that you are giving very much, and snatch the whole from the other.

Exploitation is what lust is. Love is not exploitation. So compassion is not love in the ordinary sense, and yet it is love in its real sense. Compassion only gives, it knows no idea of getting back. Not that it does not get back, no – never think that for a single moment. When you give without any idea of getting, you get a thousandfold. But that is another thing; that has nothing to do with you. And when you want to get too much, in fact you are only deceived; you don’t get anything. Finally, you are only disillusioned.

Each love affair ends in a disillusionment. Have you not observed it, that each love affair finally leaves you in a ditch of sadness, depression, of being cheated? Compassion knows no disillusionment, because compassion does not start with an illusion. Compassion never asks for any return, there is no need. First, “Because it is not my energy that I am giving, it is god’s energy. who am I to ask anything for it?” Even to ask for a thank-you is meaningless.

That’s what happened when a man came to Jesus and Jesus touched him and he was cured. And the man thanked Jesus – naturally, he was in tremendous gratitude. He had been suffering from that disease for years and there was no cure and the physicians had told him that “Now nothing can be done, you have to accept it.” And he is cured.

And Jesus says, “No sir, don’t be thankful towards me, be thankful towards God. It is something that has happened between you and God! I am nobody in it. It is your faith that has healed you, and it is God’s energy that has become available because of your faith. I am, at the most, a bridge – a bridge through which God’s energy and your faith have joined hands. You need not be worried about me, you need not be thankful to me. Thank God. Thank your own faith. Something has transpired between you and God. I come nowhere.”

This is what compassion is. Compassion goes on giving, but knows no feeling of giving, knows no feeling that “I am the giver.” And then existence goes on responding in thousands of ways. You give a little love and from everywhere love starts flowing. The man of compassion is not trying to snatch away, he is not greedy. He does not wait for the return, he goes on giving. He goes on getting – but that is not in his mind.

So, the second thing: compassion is not the so-called love, and yet it is the real love.