Topic

What is there to celebrate?

Somebody asked: OSHO, YOU GO ON TELLING US TO CELEBRATE LIFE. WHAT IS THERE TO celebrate? I can understand. His question is relevant. There seems to be nothing to celebrate. What is there to celebrate? His question is your question, is everybody's question.

But reality is just the contrary. There is everything to celebrate. Each moment is so immense, is so fantastic, each moment brings such an ecstasy.... But you are asleep. The ecstasy comes, hovers around you and goes. The breeze comes, dances around you and goes. And you remain asleep. The flowers bloom and the fragrance comes to you, but you are asleep. God goes on singing in a thousand and one ways, God dances around you; but you are asleep.

You ask me: WHAT IS THERE TO CELEBRATE? What isn't there to celebrate? Everything that one can imagine is there. Everything that one can desire is there. And it is more than you can imagine. It is in abundance. Life is a luxury!

Just think of a blind man. He has never seen a rose flower bloom. What has he missed? Do you know? Can't you feel any compassion for him? That he has missed something, something divine? He has not seen a rainbow. He has not seen the sunrise or the sunset. He has not seen the green foliage of the trees. He has not seen colour. How dull his consciousness is! And you have eyes and you say: WHAT IS THERE TO CELEBRATE? The rainbow is there, the sunset is there, the green trees are there, such a colourful existence.

And yet I understand. Your question is relevant. I understand that this question has some meaning. The rainbow is there, the sunset is there, the ocean, the clouds, all are there -- but you are asleep. You have never looked at the rose flower. You have passed by, you have seen the rose flower -- I am not saying you have not seen it, you have eyes so you see -- but you have not looked at it, you have not meditated upon it, you have not given a single moment of your meditation to it, you have never been in tune with it, you have never been by the side of it, sitting close by, in communion, you have never said 'hello' to it, you have never participated with it. Life passes by, you are just there, not participating. You are not en rapport with life, that's why your question is meaningful. You have eyes and yet you don't see, you have ears yet you don't hear, you have a heart yet you don't love -- you are fast asleep.

This has to be understood, that's why I go on repeating it again and again. If you understand that you are asleep, the first ray of awakening has entered you. If you can feel that you are asleep then you are no more, then you are just on the verge of where the day breaks -- the morning, the dawn.

But the first essential is to understand that 'I am asleep.' If you think you are not asleep then you will never be awake. If you think that this life which you have been living up to now is a life of an awakened being, then why should you seek and search ways to awaken yourself? When a man dreams, and dreams that he is awake, why should he try to be awake? He already believes that he is awake. This is the greatest trick of the mind and everybody is befooled by this trick. The greatest trick of the mind is to give you the idea of that which you are not, and to help you feel that you are already that.

Gurdjieff used to tell a parable.... There was a magician who was also a shepherd. He had thousands of sheep to look after and he was a very miserly man so he didn't want many servants and he didn't want many watchmen. He did not want to pay anybody and he did not want his sheep to be lost or taken by the wolves. But it was very difficult for him to take care of all the sheep alone. He was very rich and he had many sheep.

So he played a trick on the sheep. He hypnotised them -- he was a magician. He hypnotised them and told every sheep, 'You are not a sheep. Don't be afraid.' To some he said, 'You are a lion.' To some he said, 'You are tigers.' To some he even said, 'You are men. Nobody is going to kill you. Don't be afraid and don't try to escape from here.'

The sheep started believing in his hypnosis. Every day he would butcher a few sheep but the others would think, 'We are not sheep. He is butchering only sheep. We are lions, we are tigers, we are wolves, we are this and that...' even that they were men. Some were even told that they were magicians -- and they believed it. It was always some sheep which was to be butchered. They remained aloof, distant. They were not worried. And by and by they were all butchered.

'This is the situation,' Gurdjieff used to say.

When somebody dies, has the question occurred to you that it is your death? No, the mind goes on playing the game. The mind says it is always the other that dies, it is never you.

Sometimes an old man comes to me, very old. And he is always worried about my death. He asks, 'Osho, if you die, what will happen to me?' He is nearabout seventy-five. I am always surprised when he says, 'If you die what is going to happen to me?' Osho is going to die and he is not going to die! There is every possibility he will die before me but about that he never asks. Whenever he comes this is his question, 'Don't leave me. If you die, what will happen to me?'

This is how the mind goes on functioning. It is always somebody else who dies. Have you not seen people in their cars rushing with mad speed? Why? There is a deep idea in the mind that accidents happen to others. Even on boards it is written how many accidents are happening every day, how many people died yesterday, yet people go on rushing by. Who bothers? These things happen to others. 'These accidents, yes, they happen, but they never happen to me.' That idea persists . Gurdjieff's parable is not just a parable.

All that is wrong happens to somebody else. Even death. You cannot conceive of your own death. And if you cannot conceive of your own death, you cannot become religious. Even to think about it seems impossible -- how can I die? How?

One goes on keeping oneself separate from all, one goes on believing that one is the exception. Watch out! Whenever you feel that you are the exception, remember, the mind is going to deceive you. The magician of the mind is tricking you. And it has tricked everybody. This is the metaphysical sleep. 'Death is not going to happen to me. And I am already that which I want to be. And everything is good. And I am awake. And I already know. So what is there to seek and search for?' These false notions, these absurd ideas have been repeated for so long that you have been hypnotised by them. You have autohypnotised yourself. The magician is not somewhere out-side, it is your own mind. It takes all significance away from you. Significance is only in awareness, significance is awareness. It is a kind of radiance. When you become aflame with awareness everything becomes aflame with significance.

It is you who are reflected in existence -- the existence functions as a mirror. If you are dull and dead, there is nothing to celebrate because existenCe simply shows your dull and dead face. What is there to celebrate? If you are alive, flowering, singing a song, dancing a dance, the mirror reflects a dance, a song -- there is much to celebrate. When you celebrate there is much more to celebrate. and it goes on and on. There is no end to it. If you don't celebrate, by and by you become more and more dead and more and more dull. There is less and less to celebrate. One day suddenly life is absolutely meaningless.

Children are more alert than they will ever be again in their life unless they deliberately start seeking some path of awareness, some path of meditation. Unless by accident they come close to a Master -- a Sufi, a Zen, a Hassid -- they will get more and more into the mire of sleep. Children are born awake and old people die fast asleep, snoring. If you are asleep there is no celebration.

But why -- why is man asleep? What is the root cause of it? It is a way to avoid; sleep is a way to avoid. There are many problems in life. Obviously they are there. When I say celebrate, I don't mean there are no problems. Problems are there. They have to be encountered, they have to be transcended. And celebration is a way to encounter them.

I am not saying there are no problems, I am not telling you fairy tales, I am not telling you that there are no problems and that life is simply beautiful and there are no thorns and only rose flowers -- there are not. For every one rose, there exist one thousand thorns. I am not creating a dream for you, a utopia. I am utterly realistic and pragmatic.

But the way to get beyond the thorns is to celebrate life, is to celebrate that one flower. In fact, that one flower is more precious because there are one thousand thorns. If there were all flowers and flowers and no thorns, flowers would be meaningless. It is because of darkness that the morning is so beautiful, it is because of death that life has such joy, it is because of illness that health is significant.

I am not saying there is nothing to be worried about. There are many things, but there is no need to worry about them. They can be encountered. They can be encountered without any worry, they can be encountered through celebration. There are only two ways to encounter them: one is the way of worry and the other is the way of celebration. The way of worry is the way of the world; the way of celebration is the way of religion.