:: LAUGHTER ::

HAPPINESS: THE INTRINSIC VALUE OF LIFE

Life is purposeless. Life is a sheer joy, a playfulness, a fun, a laughter, to no purpose at all. Osho says, “Life is its own end, it has no other end. The moment you understand it you have understood what meditation is all about. It is living your life joyously, playfully, totally, and with no purpose at the end, with no purpose in view, no purpose there at all.”

“Be an individual if you want to be happy. If you want to be happy, then start choosing on your own. There are many times when you will have to be disobedient -- be! There are many times when you will have to be rebellious -- be! There is no disrespect implied in it. Be respectful to your parents. But remember that your deepest responsibility is towards your own being.
Everybody is dragged and manipulated, so nobody knows what his destiny is. What you really always wanted to do you have forgotten. And how can you be happy? Somebody who could have been a poet is just a moneylender. Somebody who could have been a painter is a doctor. Somebody who could have been a doctor, a beautiful doctor, is a businessman. Everybody is displaced. Everybody is doing something that he never wanted to do -- hence unhappiness.

Happiness happens when you fit with your life, when you fit so harmoniously that whatsoever you are doing is your joy. Then suddenly you will come to know: meditation follows you. If you love the work that you are doing, if you love the way you are living, then you are meditative. Then nothing distracts you. When things distract you, that simply shows that you are not really interested in those things.

The teacher goes on telling the small children: "Pay attention to me! Be attentive!" They are attentive, but they are attentive somewhere else. A cuckoo is crying with all its heart outside the school building, and the child is attentive -- nobody can say he is not attentive, nobody can say he is not meditative, nobody can say he is not in deep concentration -- he is. In fact, he has completely forgotten the teacher and the arithmetic that he is doing on the board. He is completely oblivious. He is completely possessed by the cuckoo. And the teacher says: "Be attentive! What are you doing? Don't be distracted!" In fact, the teacher is distracting.

The child is attentive -- it is happening naturally. Listening to the cuckoo, he is happy. The teacher is distracting and the teacher says: "You are not attentive." He is simply stating a lie. The child was attentive. The cuckoo was more attractive to him, so what can he do? The teacher was not so attractive. The arithmetic has no appeal. But we are not born here to be mathematicians. There are a few children who will not be interested in the cuckoo. The cuckoo may go on getting madder and madder, and they will be attentive to the blackboard. Then arithmetic is for them. Then they have a meditation, a natural meditative state.

We have been distracted into unnatural motivations: money, prestige, power. Listening to the cuckoo is not going to give you money. Listening to the cuckoo is not going to give you power, prestige. Watching the butterfly is not going to help you economically, politically, socially. These things are not paying, but these things make you happy.

A real person takes the courage to move with things that make him happy. If he remains poor, he remains poor; he has no complaint about it, he has no grudge. He says: "I have chosen my way -- I have chosen the cuckoos and the butterflies and the flowers. I cannot be rich, that's okay! But I am rich because I am happy."

This type of man will never need any method to concentrate, because there is no need -- he is in concentration. His concentration is spread all over his life. Twenty-four hours he is in concentration.
Man has gone topsy-turvy. I was reading:

Old Ted had been sitting on the edge of the river for some hours without getting a bite. The combination of several bottles of beer and a hot sun caused him to nod off, and he was completely unprepared when a lively fish got himself hooked, tugged at his line and woke him up. He was caught completely off balance and, before he could recover, found himself in the river.

A small boy had been watching the proceedings with interest. As the man struggled to get out of the water, he turned to his father and asked, "Dad, is that man catching a fish or is that fish catching a man?"

Man has gone completely topsy-turvy. The fish is catching you and dragging you; you are not catching the fish. Wherever you see money, you are no more yourself. Wherever you see power, prestige, you are no more yourself. Wherever you see respectability, you are no more yourself. Immediately you forget everything -- you forget the intrinsic values of your life, your happiness, your joy, your delight.

You always choose something of the outside, and you bargain with something of the inside. You lose the within and you gain the without. But what are you going to do? Even if you get the whole world at your feet and you have lost yourself, even if you have conquered all the riches of the world and you have lost your own inner treasure, what are you going to do with it? This is the misery.

IF YOU CAN learn one thing with me, then that one thing is: Be alert, aware, about your own inner motives, about your own inner destiny. Never lose sight of it, otherwise you will be unhappy. And when you are unhappy, then people say: "Meditate and you will become happy!" They say: "Concentrate and you will become happy; pray and you will become happy; go to the temple, be religious, be a Christian or a Hindu and you will be happy!" This is all nonsense.
Be happy! and meditation will follow. Be happy, and religion will follow. Happiness is a basic condition.”

A SUDDEN CLASH OF THUNDER
# 7, ONLLY THE GOLD