Introduction
I would like to know whether you are satisfied with material things or whether you want to develop your consciousness. One who is satisfied with the outside world will always be basically unhappy. This kind of life is simply one of convenience. Convenience is only the absence of trouble, whereas real satisfaction is the attainment of happiness.
What does your heart say? What is the greatest desire of your life? Have you ever asked yourself these questions? If not, then let me ask you now. If you were to ask me, I would reply that I wish to attain that state where nothing further remains to be attained. Is this not the answer that pulsates in your innermost soul as well? I do not ask this question of you alone; I have also asked it of thousands and thousands of others.
It is my observation that all human hearts are the same and that their ultimate desire is also the same. This soul wants happiness, perfect and pure happiness, because only then will all desires end. As long as desire exists, misery exists, because with desire there can be no peace.
The total absence of desire brings happiness. It also brings freedom and liberation, because whenever something is lacking, there are both limits and dependency. Only when nothing at all is lacking is there the possibility of total freedom. Freedom brings happiness. And happiness is salvation.
The desire for total happiness and for ultimate freedom lies dormant in everyone. It is in the form of a seed. It is like a seed that contains a tree within it. In the same way, the fulfillment of man’s ultimate desire is hidden in his very nature. In its perfectly developed state, it is our nature to be happy, to be free. Our real nature is the only thing that is true, and only perfecting it can bring complete satisfaction.
The one who does not seek to fulfill his own nature mistakenly thinks prosperity will alleviate his misery. But material wealth can never fill his inner emptiness. And so, even when a person attains everything possible in the world, he still feels that he has missed out on something. His innermost being remains empty. As Buddha once said, “Desire is difficult to fulfill.”
It is strange that no matter what a person may attain, he is never satisfied—that even after he has accomplished his goal, he yearns for still greater achievements. And so the poverty of beggars and emperors is the same. At this level, there is no difference between them at all.
No matter what gains a person makes in the outer world, they are unstable. They can be lost, destroyed at any time, and in the end death claims them. So it is not surprising that one’s inner heart is never fulfilled by these sorts of things, by things that can so easily be taken away. This kind of prosperity will never give a person a sense of security, no matter how strenuously he pursues it. What really happens is that now he has to provide security for the things he has acquired.
It must be clearly understood that outward power and prosperity can never eradicate one’s sense of want, one’s insecurity, or one’s fear. Self-deception is the only way to camouflage these feelings. Prosperity is an intoxicant; it hides the reality of life. And this type of forgetfulness is far worse than poverty itself because it prevents you from doing anything to rid yourself of your real poverty. Real poverty is not caused by the absence of any material object nor by the lack of power or prosperity, because even if one becomes rich and powerful, it is still there. Do you not see the poverty of those who seem to have everything? Have your burdens ever been lightened by your material possessions?
My friends, there is a great difference between prosperity and the illusion of prosperity. All external wealth, power, and security are but shadows of the real riches that exist within you. The basic reason for this feeling of poverty is not the non-attainment of anything external; it comes from having turned away from the self. And so this feeling cannot be eradicated by anything outer; it can only be erased from within.
The nature of the self is bliss. It is not a quality of the self, it is its very essence. Happiness is not a relationship with the self; the self is bliss itself. They are just two names for the same truth. What we call the self is bliss from the experiential point of view, so be careful not to confuse what you know as happiness with real happiness. Real happiness is the self itself. When this has been attained, the search for all else ceases. Achieving a false kind of happiness only intensifies the search, and the fear of losing this so-called happiness disturbs one’s peace of mind. Water that increases one’s thirst is not really water at all. Christ said, “Come, let me lead you to the well whose water will quench your thirst forever.”
We continuously mistake pleasure for happiness. Pleasure is only a shadow, only the reflection of happiness. But most people exist in the illusion that this phantom of happiness is what life is all about. And naturally, they are ultimately disillusioned. It is like mistaking the reflection of the moon for the moon itself and trying to grab hold of it. The deeper you dive into a lake to find the moon, the farther and farther away you go from the real moon.
And in the same way, in their search for pleasure, people move farther and farther away from happiness. This path only leads to misery. Do you see the truth in what I am saying? Surely your own life must bear witness to the fact that the race after pleasure only leads to unhappiness. But this is quite natural. A reflection is outwardly identical to the original, but it is not the real thing at all.
All pleasures hold out the promise of happiness and give one the assurance that they are happiness itself—but pleasure is only the shadow of happiness. Accepting pleasure as happiness can only result in failure and in feelings of remorse. How can I catch you by trying to grab your shadow? And even if I did catch your shadow, what would I have in my hands?
Let me also remind you that a reflection is always opposite to what it is reflecting. If I stand in front of a mirror, my reflected image is exactly opposite to the way I am really standing. This is also true of pleasure. It is just the reflection of happiness. Happiness is an inner quality; pleasure is an outer manifestation, only existing in the material world.
Only happiness is bliss. Continue your pursuit of pleasure, and you will discover for yourselves the truth of what I am saying. All pleasure ends in misery.
But what something becomes at the end, it was at the beginning as well. Because your vision does not penetrate deeply enough, what you should be able to perceive at the beginning is only apparent to you at the end. It is just not possible that what is revealed at the end of some event was not also present at the outset. The end is but a development of the beginnings. What was hidden in the beginning is manifest at the end.
But you see things in reverse order—if indeed you see anything at all. Over and over again, you keep on following paths that lead you to misery, pain, and remorse. Why does man do the same things over and over again when he ends up in misery every time? Why? Perhaps it is because he sees no other path before him. That is why I say your sight is dim and distorted; that is why I question whether you have any sight at all.
There are very few people who actually use their eyes. Everyone has two eyes, but in spite of them, most people are blind. The person who does not see within himself has not yet used his eyes. Only the one who has seen the self can really say he has used his eyes. If a man is not able to see his self, will he ever really be able to see anything?
My friends, your ability to see only begins when you see the self. When a person has seen his self, he begins to move in the direction of happiness. He turns toward pleasure no longer. And others can feel this change in him. The direction of pleasure is from one’s self toward the world; the direction of happiness is from the world toward the self.
—Osho
The Forgotten Language of Ecstasy
Ecstasy is a language that man has completely forgotten. He has been forced to forget it; he has been compelled to forget it. The society is against it; the civilization is against it. The society has a tremendous investment in misery. It depends on misery; it feeds on misery; it survives on misery. The society is not for human beings. The society is using human beings as a means for itself. The society has become more important than humanity. The culture, the civilization, the church—they all have become more important. They were meant to be for man, but now they are not for man. They have almost reversed the whole process: now man exists for them.
Every child is born ecstatic. Ecstasy is natural. It is not something that happens only to great sages. It is something that everybody brings with him into the world; everybody comes with it. It is life’s innermost core. It is part of being alive. Life is ecstasy. Every child brings it into the world, but then the society jumps on the child, starts destroying the possibility of ecstasy, starts making the child miserable, starts conditioning the child.
The society is neurotic, and it cannot allow ecstatic people to be here. They are dangerous for it. Try to understand the mechanism; then things will be easier.
You cannot control an ecstatic man; it is impossible. You can only control a miserable man. An ecstatic man is bound to be free. Ecstasy is freedom. He cannot be reduced to being a slave. You cannot destroy him so easily; you cannot persuade him to live in a prison. He would like to dance under the stars and he would like to walk with the wind and he would like to talk with the sun and the moon. He will need the vast, the infinite, the huge, the enormous. He cannot be seduced into living in a dark cell. You cannot make a slave out of him. He will live his own life, and he will do his thing. This is very difficult for the society. If there are many ecstatic people, the society will feel it is falling apart, its structure will not hold anymore.
Ecstasy is rebellious. It is not revolutionary.
Those ecstatic people will be the rebels. Remember, I don’t call an ecstatic person “revolutionary”; I call him a “rebel.” A revolutionary is one who wants to change the society, but he wants to replace it with another society. A rebel is one who wants to live as an individual and would like there to exist no rigid social structure in the world. A rebel is one who does not want to replace this society with another society—because all the societies have proved the same. The capitalist and the communist and the fascist and the socialist—they are all cousin-brothers; it doesn’t make much difference. The society is society. All the churches have proved the same—the Hindu, the Christian, the Mohammedan.
Once a structure becomes powerful, it does not want anybody to be ecstatic, because ecstasy is against structure. Listen to it and meditate over it: ecstasy is against structure. Ecstasy is rebellious. It is not revolutionary.
A revolutionary is a political man; a rebel is a religious man. A revolutionary wants another structure, of his own desire, of his own utopia, but a structure all the same. He wants to be in power. He wants to be the oppressor and not the oppressed; he wants to be the exploiter and not the exploited. He wants to rule and not be ruled. A rebel is one who neither wants to be ruled nor wants to rule. A rebel is one who wants no rule in the world. A rebel is anarchic. A rebel is one who trusts nature, not man-made structures, who trusts that if nature is left alone, everything will be beautiful. It is!
Man can live without rulers, but he has never been given any opportunity—the rulers won’t give you any opportunity.
Such a vast universe goes on without any government. Animals, birds, trees, everything goes on without any government. Why does man need government? Something must have gone wrong. Why is man so neurotic that he cannot live without rulers?
Now there is a vicious circle. Man can live without rulers, but he has never been given any opportunity—the rulers won’t give you any opportunity. Once you know you can live without the rulers, who would like them to be there? Who will support them? Right now you are supporting your own enemies. You go on voting for your own enemies. Two enemies stand in a presidential contest, and you choose. Both are the same. It is as if you are given freedom to choose the prison, which prison you want to go in. And you vote happily—that I would like to go to prison A or B, that I believe in the Republican prison, I believe in the Democratic prison. But both are prisons. And once you support a prison, the prison has its own investment. Then it will not allow you to have a taste of freedom.
So, from the very childhood, the child is not allowed to taste freedom, because once he knows what freedom is, then he will not concede, he will not compromise—then he will not be ready to live in any dark cell. He would like to die, but he will not allow anybody to reduce him to being a slave. He will be assertive. Of course he will not be interested in becoming powerful over other people. These are neurotic trends, when you are too interested in becoming powerful over people. That simply shows that deep down you are powerless, and you are afraid that if you don’t become powerful, others are going to overpower you.
Machiavelli says that the best way of defense is to attack. The best way to protect yourself is to attack first. These so-called politicians all over the world—in the East, in the West—are all deep down very weak people, suffering from inferiority, afraid that if they don’t become powerful politically, then somebody is going to exploit them, so why not exploit rather than be exploited? The exploited and the exploiter, both are sailing in the same boat—and both are helping the boat, protecting the boat.
Once the child knows the taste of freedom, he will never become part of any society, any church, any club, any political party.
Once the child knows the taste of freedom, he will never become part of any society, any church, any club, any political party. He will remain an individual, he will remain free, and he will create pulsations of freedom around him. His very being will become a door to freedom.
The child is not allowed to taste freedom. If the child asks the mother, “Mom, can I go outside? The sun is beautiful and the air is very crisp and I would like to run around the block,” immediately—obsessively, compulsively—the mother says, “No!” The child has not asked much. He just wanted to go out into the morning sun, into the brisk air, he wanted to enjoy the sunlight and the air and the company of the trees—he has not asked for anything!—but compulsively, out of some deep compulsion, the mother says no. It is very difficult to hear a mother saying yes, very difficult to hear a father saying yes. Even if they say yes, they say so very reluctantly. Even if they say yes, they make the child feel that he is guilty, that he is forcing them, that he is doing something wrong.
Whenever the child feels happy, doing whatsoever, somebody or other is bound to come and stop him—“Don’t do this!” By and by the child understands, “Whatsoever I feel happy in is wrong.” And, of course, he never feels happy doing what others tell him to do, because it is not a spontaneous urge in him. So he comes to know that to be miserable is right, to be happy is wrong. That becomes the deep association.
If he wants to open the clock and see inside, the whole family jumps on him—“Stop! You will destroy the clock. This is not good.” He was just looking into the clock; it was a scientific curiosity. He wanted to see what makes it tick. It was perfectly okay. And the clock is not so valuable as his curiosity, as his inquiring mind. The clock is worthless—even if it is destroyed, nothing is destroyed—but once the inquiring mind is destroyed, much is destroyed; then he will never inquire for truth.
Or it is a beautiful night and the sky is full of stars and the child wants to sit outside, but it is time to go to sleep. He is not feeling sleepy at all; he is wide-awake, very, very much awake. The child is puzzled. In the morning, when he feels sleepy, everybody is after him—“Get up!” When he was enjoying, when it was so beautiful to be in the bed, when he wanted to take another turn and have a little more sleep and dream a little more, then everybody was against him: “Get up! It is time to get up.” Now he is wide-awake, and he wants to enjoy the stars. It is very poetic, this moment, very romantic. He feels thrilled. How can he go to sleep in such a thrill? He is so excited, he wants to sing and dance, and they are forcing him to go to sleep—“It is nine o’clock. It is time to go to sleep.”
Now, he was happy being awake, but he is forced to go to sleep. When he is playing, he is forced to come to the dining table. He is not hungry. When he is hungry, the mother says, “This is not the time.” This way we go on destroying all possibility of being ecstatic, all possibility of being happy, joyful, delighted. Whatsoever the child feels spontaneously happy with seems to be wrong, and whatsoever he does not feel at all seems to be right.
In the school, a bird suddenly starts singing outside the classroom, and the child is all attention toward the bird, of course—not toward the mathematics teacher, who is standing at the board with his ugly chalk. But the teacher is more powerful, politically more powerful, than the bird. Certainly, the bird has no power, but it has beauty. The bird attracts the child without hammering on his head, “Be attentive! Concentrate toward me!” No—simply, spontaneously, naturally, the consciousness of the child starts flowing out of the window. It goes to the bird. His heart is there, but he has to look at the blackboard. There is nothing to look at, but he has to pretend.
Happiness is wrong. Wherever there is happiness, the child starts becoming afraid something is going to be wrong. If the child is playing with his own body, it is wrong. If the child is playing with his own sexual organs, it is wrong. And that is one of the most ecstatic moments in the life of a child. He enjoys his body; it is thrilling. But all thrill has to be cut, all joy has to be destroyed. It is neurotic, but the society is neurotic.
The same was done to the parents by their parents; the same they are doing to their children. This way one generation goes on destroying another. This way we transfer our neurosis from one generation to another. The whole earth has become a madhouse. Nobody seems to know what ecstasy is. It is lost. Barriers upon barriers have been created.
It is a daily observation here that when people start meditating and they start feeling the upsurge of energy and when they start feeling happy, they immediately come to me and say, “A very strange thing is happening. I am feeling happy, and I am also feeling guilty, for no reason at all.” Guilty? They are also puzzled. Why should one feel guilty? They know that there is nothing—they have not done anything wrong. From where does this guilt arise? It is coming from that deep-rooted conditioning that joy is wrong. To be sad is okay, but to be happy is not allowed.
Once I used to live in a town. The police commissioner was my friend; we were friends from the university student days. He used to come to me, and he would say, “I am so miserable. Help me to come out of it.” I would say, “You talk about coming out of it, but I don’t see that you really want to come out of it. In the first place, why have you chosen to work in this police department? You must be miserable, and you want others also to be miserable.”
One day I asked three of my disciples to go around the town and dance in different parts of the town and be happy. They said, “For what?” I said, “You simply go.” Within one hour, of course, they were caught by the police. I called the police commissioner; I said, “Why have you caught these people of mine?”
He said, “These people seem to be mad.”
Copyright © by OSHO International Foundation, www.osho.com/copyrights
