Osho,
Why is there so much suffering in life?“The whole past of humanity has been dominated by masochistic, sadistic, and suicidal people. That’s why there is so much misery. To be blissful in this world looks as if you are committing a crime; to dance with joy among so many dead people all around… you cannot be forgiven.
“I have always thought that Christianity became the greatest religion of the world because Jesus was on the cross. Just think, if he was with his girlfriend on the beach there would not have been any Christianity, although he would have enjoyed.
“And why did it become the greatest religion? Almost half of humanity is Christian. Because he represents your deepest desire. You also want to be crucified, and in different ways you are crucifying yourself; in the name of duty, in the name of nations, in the name of the religion….
“Jesus says, ‘Everybody has to carry his cross on his shoulders.‘ But why? this will look very awkward – wherever you go you will be carrying your cross. But nobody has objected to it. Nobody has said, ‘Why?’ And if I say that everybody has to carry his guitar they all condemn me!”
Is it these same masochistic people who keep urging everyone to live in “hope”?
“We hope that we will experience bliss one day but we hope only for that which we have not experienced. We have not experienced bliss; hence we continuously think that we will find bliss tomorrow, in the future. People with more imaginative powers think that they will find it in the next life. And those with an even more fanciful imagination think that they will find bliss after death in heaven, in some ultimate liberation.
“If human beings had known bliss, they would never have imagined heaven. Heaven is imagined by those who have never experienced ecstasy. What they have not experienced, they hope to find in heaven.”
To continue reading this OSHO Talk, visit: Losing Suffering, Attaining Bliss
“We are searching for bliss, we are searching for happiness; but we are dreaming of it very far away, in faraway lands, in utopias, in fantasy. Life remains a suffering, and we go on dreaming about better lands, better states of the society, better states after life – paradise, moksha. These are all fantasies. They are created by us so we can bear our suffering, so hope remains. But this is very unfortunate. It is because of this hope that you remain in a hopeless state. It is because of this seeking that you go on missing. Lao Tzu says: ‘Seek and you will miss.’ Why ‘Seek and you will miss’? – because it is inside you. It can be found only when all seeking ceases.”
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But how will we find bliss without seeking it?
“Seeking means you are running after something, some shadow, some illusion, some dream, some desire. And when you are occupied with some dream you cannot look within. You cannot look into the seeker when you are running after the sought, you cannot turn in. Your eyes are focused on the horizon. You remain an extrovert – you cannot look within because you have become obsessed with the without.
“The without becomes your whole life from birth to death – not even a single empty moment when you can rest and relax to feel who is this seeker in you.”
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Will looking within help if the source of our suffering is on the outside?
“It is not that God has destined you to suffer, no. It is not because Adam and Eve committed sin that you are suffering, no. These are tricks to avoid the responsibility – then anything will do: Adam and Eve…. Poor Adam and Eve become scapegoats….
“These are just different names for the same trick, the same strategy, ‘I am not responsible.’ Something else…. The unconscious, history, economics, God, fate, karma, anything will do – xyz – anything will do. But one thing is certain: ‘I am not the cause of my suffering.’ And that is where your whole misery lies, in that trick.
“Understand well, you are the cause of your suffering, nobody else. To recognize this is the first step in being a religious person. You don’t throw your responsibility onto others, you simply recognize the fact: ‘I am the cause of my suffering.’ And with that, of course, you will feel a little sad, you will look a little stupid. If you are the cause, then why do you go on creating suffering for yourself? You don’t like to suffer.
“In the beginning you will feel a little sad, stupid, puzzled, confused. But soon you will feel a great freedom. If you are the cause of your misery, then you can be the cause of your blessing, of your bliss; then great freedom is attained. When one takes responsibility for oneself, one becomes free. You become free from past karma, you become free from fate, kismet, you become free from history, you become free from psychology. You become free from all excuses. And once you have pinpointed the real cause, things start changing.”
To continue reading this OSHO Talk, visit: You Are Perfect
How can I recognize that I’m creating my own suffering?
“Meditate over your suffering, and see that somewhere deep down you must be helping it – unconsciously maybe, but your support is needed. Otherwise suffering cannot exist without your support. Just withdraw your support, and suffering disappears. You are a willing partner to it. You may find so many rationalizations; rationalizations can be found, but they are all rationalizations. If you want to deceive yourself, they are very good, but if you want to wake up, drop all rationalizations. Simply see the fact that you are suffering and that life is not meant to be a suffering, it is meant to be a celebration. At any moment things can be changed.”
To continue reading this OSHO Talk, visit: An Eternal Pilgrimage
Is awareness the key to understanding suffering?
“Observe your own life: whenever you are comfortable, at ease, happy, awareness is lost. Then you live in a sort of sleep, then you live as if hypnotized, you live as if in a sleepwalk; you move and do things, but somnambulistically. That’s why religion disappears from your life whenever there is no suffering. Then you never go to the temple, it carries no sense for you; then you don’t pray to God, because why pray? There seems to be no reason.
“Whenever there is suffering you move toward the temple, your eyes move toward God, your heart moves toward prayer. There is something hidden in suffering which makes you more aware who you are, why you are, where you are going. In a moment of suffering your awareness is intense.”
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“If you suffer, immediately you become aware. The stomach comes into existence only with a stomachache. Before, it may have been there but it was not in your consciousness….
“And if you become really aware, you don’t become involved in the wrong; rather, on the contrary, you grow more and more in your awareness. Then a second phenomenon happens: in your awareness you come to know that the disease is there, the discomfort is there, the suffering is there, but that is not in you, that is just around you, on the circumference. In the center there is awareness, on the circumference there is suffering, as if suffering belongs to somebody else: you are not identified. Then a headache is there, but it is not painful to you; it is painful to the body and you are simply aware. The body becomes the object and you become the subject; there is a gap.
“In awareness all bridges are broken, the gap is immediately present. You can see: the body suffers, but the identification is broken. Suffering brings in awareness, awareness breaks the identification; and that is the key to life.”
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“When a man starts observing the suffering with immense attention, the sunrays of witnessing encounter the suffering, and it disappears like dewdrops evaporate, leaving no trace behind. What remains is bliss.
“Bliss is not the opposite of suffering. No one can ever be blissful by fighting with suffering. Bliss is the absence of suffering. When suffering is gone, what remains is called bliss.
“You must understand this rightly. No one can become blissful by fighting with suffering. Bliss is not the opposite of suffering – it is not that you have to conquer suffering and bring bliss. Bliss is not the opposite of suffering. Yes, if suffering ends, if it disappears, if it evaporates and the realization comes that there is no suffering, then the state that remains is bliss. Bliss is our nature; we do not have to bring it about.
“Suffering is a cloud that covers our inner sky; we have got so attached to it and are so occupied with it that we have totally forgotten what is hiding behind the cloud. We have forgotten that which is beyond the cloud – just as the clouds cover the sun.”
To continue reading this OSHO Talk, visit: Losing Suffering, Attaining Bliss
The idea that bliss happens by itself if only we would stop creating misery is very radical!
“My effort here is to change the whole process of transformation, to put it right. Bliss is something very natural. If you stop creating misery you are blissful; it is not something that has to be invented by you. It is the same energy that becomes misery. Don’t invest it in misery at all. Don’t put your energy into jealousy, into hatred, into anger, into possessiveness. Withdraw it from all those stupid things.
“William Blake is right when he says: ‘Energy is delight.’ If you withdraw your energy from all stupid investments you are so full of energy, throbbing with energy, dancing with energy, you cannot contain it. You have to dance, you have to rejoice! You have to love, you have to laugh. It starts overflowing.”
To continue reading this OSHO Talk, visit: Sunrise in the Soviet Union, Sunset in America
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