:: OSHO SPEAKS ::

HAPPINESS : THE WAY OF LIFE

Happiness is natural. It needs no condition to be happy. If one’s happiness has a condition to it, he will always remain unhappy. If one cannot be happy just as he or she is, one is never going to be happy ever. 

Osho says, “Unless a man is happy, simply happy, for no reason at all, unless a man is mad enough to be happy without any reason, a man is not going to be happy ever. You will always find something destroying your happiness. You will always find something missing, something absent. And that missing will become your daydream again.”
The very desire for happiness brings about unhappiness. Osho says, ““The more you ask for happiness, the more you will be in suffering. The suffering is a shadow. The greater the desire for happiness, the greater will be the shadow. Ask for happiness and you will never get it. You will only suffer frustration. Why? Because there is only one way to be happy, and that is to be happy here, now.

Happiness is not a result. It is a way of life. It is an attitude, not a desire. “You can be happy here and now if you know how to be, but you will never be happy if you don't know how to be and you go on desiring it. Happiness is an art. It is a way of life.”

 Osho shares, Existence is happiness, it is an eternal celebration, a festivity. Look at existence! Every tree is in a festive mood, every bird is in a festive mood. Except man, everything is in a festive mood. The whole existence is a festival, a constant, continuous festival. No sadness, no death, no misery exists anywhere except in the human mind. Something is wrong with the human mind, not with existence. Something is wrong with you, not with the situation.

Why is man unhappy? No animal is so unhappy, no bird is so unhappy, no fish is so unhappy as man. Why is man so unhappy? Because man desires happiness, and the birds are happy right now; the trees are happy right now. Man desires happiness; he is never happy here and now. He always desires happiness and goes on missing it. Happiness is here. It is happening all around you. Allow it to enter within.

Be part of existence. Don't move into the future. Existence never moves into the future; only mind does.
This is what I call meditation: to be here, to not move into the future. Be nonambitious, kill all desire for life, don't desire happiness and then you will be happy and no one can destroy your happiness. Then it will be impossible for you to be unhappy.”

 WHAT IS HAPPINESS?

HAPPINESS IS THE OTHER SIDE OF UNHAPPINESS. If you want to be happy, you will have to remain unhappy. The statement will look very paradoxical, but it is not. That's how life is. Only an unhappy person can be happy. Unhappiness creates the situation in which happiness can be felt.

If you have been ill for many months, then suddenly when you become healthy again you feel tremendously happy. And you have been healthy before illness for years and years, and you were never so happy, not at all; you had not even taken any note of it. Now you are happy that you are healthy.

Why? From where does this happiness come? It comes from your illness. Your illness created unhappiness, the background. Now you are healthy again and you can feel -- and you can feel only when something happens in contrast.

When a poor man becomes rich he is happy, tremendously happy. But you don't see rich people happy. They ARE rich, so there is no point in being happy; they don't feel it at all. The richer you become, the less happy you are. If you become the richest man in the world you will forget all about happiness.

That's what is happening every day. Happiness is only part, like an island in the ocean of unhappiness.

I have heard:
Only the prisoner knows what freedom means. When he comes out of the prison and looks at the trees and the sun and the sky and looks at people and knows that there are no more chains on his feet, on his hands, he knows what freedom is. Soon he will forget.

You are not aware of your freedom -- or are you? Have you ever enjoyed your freedom? Have you ever danced because there are no chains on your hands? Have you ever danced because you are not in a prison? Have you ever danced because you can see the whole sky, you need not look through the keyhole? No, you have never felt any happiness. 

Happiness is part of unhappiness. That's why happiness should not be the goal of your life, because if you want happiness you will have to remain unhappy. The unhappier you are, then only a few moments, few and far between, will be those of happiness.

The goal is not happiness, the goal is bliss. Don't ask me, "What is happiness?" because that shows you are searching for happiness. If you have come here in search of happiness, you have come to the wrong place. Go to Mulla Nasruddin.

My effort here is to create bliss, not happiness. Happiness is worthless: it depends on unhappiness. Bliss is transcendence: one moves beyond the duality of being happy and unhappy. One watches both -- happiness comes, one watches and does not become identified with it. One does not say, "I am happy. Peace -- it is wonderful." One simply watches, one says, "Yes, a white cloud passing."

And then comes unhappiness, and one does not become unhappy either. One says, "A black cloud passing -- I am the witness, the watcher."

This is what meditation is all about -- just becoming a watcher. Failure comes, success comes, you are praised, you are condemned, you are respected, you are insulted -- all kinds of things come, they are all dualities. And you go on watching. Watching the duality, a third force arises in you, a third dimension arises in you. The duality means two dimensions -- one dimension is happiness, another is unhappiness. Watching both, a depth arises in you -- the third dimension, witnessing, SAKSHI.

And that third dimension brings bliss. Bliss is without any opposite to it. It is serene, tranquil, cool. It is ecstasy without any excitement.

And I cannot define what happiness is, because it depends on what kind of person you are. What is happiness to you may be unhappiness to your brother. What is unhappiness to you may be happiness to your neighbour. 

Four women sat for hours under the hairdryers at the beauty parlour. After exhausting their gossip, they turned to philosophy. The first lady said, "Happiness is when my husband brings home his paycheck."

The second lady stated, "Happiness is gambling in Las Vegas and winning."

The third lady commented, "Happiness is vacationing without my husband or my children."

The fourth lady concluded, "Happiness is eating without worrying about calories."

Upon eavesdropping, one hairdresser whispered to the other, "Happiness is not having to listen to these cackling hens." 

It depends. Your happiness is your idiosyncrasy; it may be unhappiness to somebody else. It has no truth about it; it is only your dream. And you can have any dream you like. To somebody power is happiness; to somebody money is happiness; to somebody else money is misery -- he escapes, renounces the money; he escapes from all power, goes to the jungle. To somebody, people are happiness; to somebody, aloneness. It depends on you.

But I am not interested in happiness at all. Because basically it has to depend on its opposite -- and anything that depends on its opposite keeps you divided. And to live divided is to live in hell.

I would like you to attain something which is not dependent on its opposite -- in fact, which has no opposites to it. Bliss has no opposite to it. And to be blissful is to have arrived home: one becomes a Buddha -- serene, calm, cool, quiet, and yet utterly blissful.

Philosophia Perennis, Vol-1
# 9, Bliss Beyond all Duality
Q-4

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