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Chapter 8: Let There Be Spaces

Don’t reduce the other in any way.


The strings of the lute are alone, but they quiver with the same music. The separation, the space, is in the individuality of the strings. And the meeting and melting and merging is in the music. That music is love.

Give your hearts. But not into each other’s keeping.

Giving is great. Love gives unconditionally, but it does not give its heart into each other’s keeping.

For only the hand of Life can contain your hearts.
And stand together yet not too near together.

One has to be very, very alert. Stand together but without destroying the other. Not too much together - leave spaces.

For the pillars of the temple stand apart.

Just look at these pillars. They stand apart but still they support the same roof. There is space, individuality, and yet there is a merger and meeting because they are supporting the same roof.


This much space is needed - that the other is not under your shadow. Otherwise, it will not grow.

Why are people who are in love constantly angry, sad? - because their own growth is not happening. One of the two has covered the whole sky and has not left even a little space for the sun, for the wind, for the rain to reach the other. It is not love, it is ownership, possessiveness.

Love would like you to grow at the same rate, to the same height, so that you dance together in the sun, in the wind, in the rain.

Your togetherness should be an art.

Love is the greatest art in existence.