Is merriment required for creation and revolution?

Another pundit has asked: Osho, I felt very hurt when, in your reply to Pandit Mansaram Shastri, you said this is not a Dharma Chakra Pravartan but a fair of fun and frolic, a tavern. To bring about creation and revolution, is merriment required, or tireless sadhana and toil? How will the new human being arrive?

The questioner is Narendra Vachaspati. Do you think joy and celebration are easy? Joy and celebration come through tireless sadhana and labor. If you want to be gloomy, you need neither labor nor sadhana. A priest was instructing newly ordained priests—about to go out and preach—giving them final advice: “When you speak of the Kingdom of God, look toward the sky. Let your eyes fill with wonder. Let your face glow. A smile on your lips. Let nothing but bliss shine forth! When you utter the word ‘heaven,’ display such expressions—then people will understand.” One priest stood up and asked, “And when we have to speak of hell?” He replied, “In that case, just stand exactly as you are. Seeing you, they’ll understand hell!” Narendra Vachaspati, for me, joy and celebration are the Dharma Chakra Pravartan. For me, to make people drink the divine—to pour God like wine and have…

So all that one has to do is to understand 'What am I doing with myself?' The very understanding brings a transformation. You stop creating misery and instantly bliss starts showering on you. And then one laughs at how long one has been miserable, and for no reason at all. Nobody else was responsible for it. It is just our ignorance of what we are doing that creates hell. Ignorance is hell, unawareness is hell. Awareness is paradise. Religions in the past have been very serious. That seriousness is a disease. It is like a cancer of the soul; hence in religious people's lives all songs disappeared, all joy disappeared, all fun disappeared. They became dull and dead. They became a heavy weight on humanity. They crushed humanity under their weight. They thought they were becoming holy; they were simply becoming phony.

[NOTE: This is an unedited tape transcript of an unpublished darshan diary, which has been scanned and cleaned up. It is for reference purposes only.] [Meditation is getting out of the mind by knowing you are not it; bliss is simply knowing it. Osho talked about the two tonight.] Man is disconnected from God because of his misery, because misery has a speciality of its own. It closes you, it closes all the doors, all the windows, all possibilities. It makes you encapsulated, it makes you an island, and one starts suffocating within oneself. One needs the wind, the rain, the sun. And just as the body needs all these things, the soul also needs God. God is a nourishment for the soul. In bliss you become open, and the moment you are open, you are bridged.

My approach is: see clearly and choose the rose, and forget all about ambition. By becoming a sannyasin this change has to happen -- only then are you truly a sannyasin -- that you move your whole energy from ambition, from the head, and allow your heart to grow. And then thousands of flowers grow. Suddenly the spring comes to your being. Then one knows what contentment is &nd one knows what sharing is, and one feels grateful to god for giving us such a beautiful life and such a tremendously ecstatic existence. But without love one simply drags. Love brings dance to your being, it brings celebration. My sannyasins are not to be like the old stupid so-called saints -- sad and serious and ugly, with long faces. And you can see on their noses, their egos. They are holier-than-thou, always condemning others.

Osho, I cannot accept happiness. It seems sorrow appeals to me. Yet I want happiness. When happiness comes, I can’t trust it. When happiness comes it feels like a dream. Please untangle my confusion!

Keep three things in mind. First, wherever in sorrow you have tied your vested interests, recognize them. Do not derive even the slightest profit from suffering; otherwise happiness will never be yours. Do not give sorrow a place in your life—by any excuse, any pretext. Uproot the weeds of suffering from the garden of your life; only then can roses bloom. And be very alert. For centuries sorrow has been taught. Your saints and sages tell you life is suffering. Your priests say you must suffer the fruits of sins from past lives—someone has to bear them. Endless ideas are thrust upon you for one purpose only: to make your suffering seem natural, inevitable. Supports are placed under your sorrow. Remove all supports and suffering collapses. These props you’ve leaned against—kick them away. You are not suffering the karmic fruits of past births—fruits don’t take that long! They are immediate.…