Massage is a Question of Love

“Massage is something that you can start learning but you never finish. It goes on and on, and the experience becomes continually deeper and deeper, and higher and higher. Massage is one of the most subtle arts – and it is not only a question of expertise. It is more a question of love.

Learn the technique – then forget it. Then just feel, and move by feeling. When you learn deeply, ninety percent of the work is done by love, ten percent by the technique. By just the very touch, a loving touch, something relaxes in the body.

If you love and feel compassion for the other person, and feel the ultimate value of him; if you don’t treat him as if he is a mechanism to be put right, but an energy of tremendous value; if you are grateful that he trusts you and allows you to play with his energy – then by and by you will feel as if you are playing on an organ. The whole body becomes the keys of the organ and you can feel that a harmony is created inside the body. Not only will the person be helped, but you also.

Massage is needed in the world because love has disappeared. Once the very touch of lovers was enough. A mother touched the child, played with his body, and it was massage. The husband played with the body of his woman and it was massage; it was enough, more than enough. It was deep relaxation and part of love.

But that has disappeared from the world. By and by we have forgotten where to touch, how to touch, how deep to touch. In fact, touch is one of the most forgotten languages. We have become almost awkward in touching…

Nowadays in the West the other extreme has come. Touch and massage have become sexual. Now massage is just a cover, a blanket, for sexuality. In fact, neither touch nor massage is sexual.

They are functions of love. When love falls from its height it becomes sex, and then it becomes ugly. So be prayerful. When you touch the body of a person, be prayerful – as if God himself is there, and you are just serving him. Flow with total energy… you will feel a delight that you have never felt before. You will fall into deep meditation.

While massaging, just massage. Don’t think of other things because those are distractions. Be in your fingers and your hands as if your whole being, your whole soul is there. Don’t let it be just a touch of the body. Your whole soul enters into the body of the other, penetrates it, and relaxes the deepest complexes.

And make it a play. Don’t do it as a job; make it a game and take it as fun. Laugh and let the other laugh too.”

Excerpted from Osho’s Daily Darshan – Hammer on the Rock 1976

Massage is a question of Love – Osho