According to Osho, yes—feeling you haven't gone inside despite happiness is not only possible but almost certain when joy is borrowed or circumstantial. Surface happiness can breed complacency; real work is to enter your own being. You won't lose happiness by going within; it will expand, ripen into bliss, and ultimately flower into enlightenment. You're on the right track—now move inward.
Yes—outer happiness doesn’t mean you’ve looked inside; start exploring within so joy can deepen into lasting peace.
From the Discourses
Passages where Osho speaks to this question — each links to the complete discourse.
Beloved Osho, I have been a sannyasin for eleven years. Never in my life have I been as happy as now. But when I listen to you lately, I feel that I have never really gone inside. Is this possible?
Not only possible, it is absolutely certain. Just being happy is nothing. It is dangerous too, because somebody who is unhappy at least tries to find some way to get out of it. You have been a sannyasin for eleven years. Naturally -- my people are immensely happy people, and happiness is catching -- you are caught by the happiness of everybody. And there is no reason to be sad here, there is no reason to be frustrated here, there is no reason to be disappointed here. But this happiness is not what I call blissfulness. This happiness is good, but just good is not enough. You will have to enter into yourself. And remember, in entering into yourself you are not going to lose your happiness. You are fortunate, because the person who starts from unhappiness will have to lose unhappiness. You are not going to lose anything. You…
In a worldly sense I am completely happy. But still, I am not happy. I do not understand the reason for my unhappiness. Could you indicate the way?
Only one who becomes completely happy in a worldly sense discovers that happiness is unreal. The unhappy never find out. The unhappy live in the hope that if they can find worldly happiness then everything will be alright. The hope of an unhappy person is very alive. In the eyes of a discontented man there is a flame of hope. Only in the eyes of the contented does the flame of hope vanish. This is why I continuously say that only the contented person, contented in the so-called worldly sense, can start off on the religious quest. When you have all the so called contentment and still you are not happy, then it becomes clear that there can be no contentment in 'this world.' Whatever you could collect on the outside, you have collected. Now you are in a situation where all illusions have broken, where all the mirages of…
Osho, in worldly terms I have every kind of comfort, yet I am still not happy. I don’t even understand the cause of my unhappiness. Please guide me.
Let there be recognition of the Divine; let a slight bond form, a thread of love. Even a raw, fragile thread of his love—and there is an endless shower of bliss. What cannot be obtained by possessing the whole world is obtained in a single moment of samadhi. The treasure is within. You have brought this treasure with you. Happiness is your nature. Happiness is not to be acquired. And no condition has to be fulfilled for happiness; happiness is unconditional, because happiness is your nature. To be unhappy is a distortion; to be happy is a spontaneous happening. Just as fire is hot—such is its nature—so for a human being to be blissful is his nature. Seeing a blissful person, do not think some specialness has occurred. The blissful person is the ordinary, simple person. Seeing a miserable person, understand that something has gone wrong, some abnormality is there.…
Bliss demands only one thing and that is the decisive factor. Misery allows you the ego and takes everything else. Bliss does not allow you the ego and gives you everything else, the whole existence. You have to decide. Either you choose the ego... then the kingdom of God is not yours; then you live in an egoistic, illusory world, surrounded by an ocean of misery. The ego can exist only in hell. That context is a must for the ego to exist. Any moment bliss can be victorious over you if you surrender the ego, if you drop the idea of "I," the idea of being separate from existence. You will be overflooded with bliss and you will have inexhaustible energy for creating. My sannyasins have to be creative, because my experience, my observation, is that only by being creative do you come closer to the creator.
Why am I still not happy?
Because you still are, and because you are still chasing happiness. Happiness cannot be sought, you cannot seek it. It is a by-product, it is a natural consequence. If you make a goal out of happiness you will never find it, you will always miss it. It comes very silently, it comes like a whisper, it comes like your shadow. When you are totally absorbed into something and not thinking about happiness at all, it is there. Whenever you are thinking about it, it is not there, it is very shy. Whenever you look around, it disappears; whenever you start thinking 'Am I happy or not?' you are not. A happy man never thinks about happiness -- he is so happy, how can he think about happiness? Only an unhappy man thinks about happiness, and by thinking, he becomes more unhappy. I have heard.... A big dog saw a little…