According to Osho, you don’t manufacture balance—you allow it. Move with life’s polarity: when a peak arrives, dance and savor; when a valley comes, rest and receive its soothing darkness. Drop clinging and fear; welcome both day and night as one play of existence. In relaxed acceptance, balance discovers you—and joy deepens and lasts longer.
Stop trying to steady the rollercoaster; enjoy the highs, rest in the lows, and balance will come on its own.
From the Discourses
Passages where Osho speaks to this question — each links to the complete discourse.
The peaks are getting pretty wonderful, but the valleys are deeper and darker than ever. Finding balance seems impossible. What to do?
Don't be worried about balance. Balance will seek you; I will see that balance seeks you. You simply do this much: while on the peak, dance; while in the valley, rest. Accept the valley; accept the peak. Both are parts of the one whole and you cannot deny one part. They are two aspects of the same coin. Remember, one who enjoys more is bound to suffer more because he becomes very sensitive. But suffering is not bad. If you understand it rightly, suffering is a cleansing. If you understand it rightly, sadness has a depth to it which no happiness can ever have. A person who is simply happy is always superficial. A person who has not known sorrow and has not known sadness, has not known the depths. He has not touched the bottom of his being; he has remained just on the periphery. One has to move…
Osho, please comment on the art of balanced living. Mr life is often an experience of extremes, with the middle road difficult to maintain for any length of time.
Masochists have always moved towards religion. Religion has a great attraction for masochists. In fact, so many masochists down the ages have moved towards religion -- it was very natural, that movement -- that religion became dominated by the masochists. That's why religion goes on insisting on being life-negative, life-destructive. It is not for life, it is not for love, it is not for joy. It goes on insisting that life is misery. By calling life misery, it rationalizes its own clinging to misery. I have heard a beautiful story -- I don't know how far it is correct, I cannot vouch for it: In paradise, one afternoon, in the most famous cafe, Lao Tzu, Confucius and Buddha are sitting, and talking sweet nothings. The bearer comes and in a tray brings three glasses of the juice called life and offers them. Buddha immediately closes his eyes and he says,…
Everybody goes to those peaks, but people know how to come down. In fact, you are not needed to know. Your system works in such a way; it has its own inner economy. It goes only so far, it allows that much freedom, and then immediately everything is pulled back and you have to move to the extreme opposite, otherwise there will be no relaxation. It is just as when you have been working the whole day and in the night you fall asleep. Nobody complains: 'I am awake for the whole day and in the night I fall asleep and become unconscious. These are extremes. I would like to be in a balance.' That means you will not be either awake or asleep; you will be in a limbo -- a little awake and a little asleep. That will not be worth anything.
Osho, at times I feel I am on the very peak of life. It seems that everything—the whole mystery of life—has been found. But then, in certain moments, I also experience a very dense sadness and helplessness. I cannot grasp what my real problem is.
As long as there are peaks, there will be valleys. As long as there is the longing for the peak, you will have to endure the melancholy of the valleys as well. One who has asked for pleasure has, along with it, asked for pain. And when pleasure comes, pain enters with it like a shadow. We change the names of our pleasures, but we do not become free of pleasure; and the one who is not free of pleasure will not be free of pain. Ashtavakra’s entire teaching is just this: be free of duality. Only the one who is free of duality arrives. The peak you think you have reached is the illusion of arrival—because there is no peak to arrive at. Arrival is a vast plain—neither height nor depth. Arrival is like a scale that has balanced: both pans exactly equal and the needle at rest. Or…
Osho, how can the feeling of bliss be cultivated? How to taste that throb of bliss, that thrill, that excitement, that dance of bliss? How can life be filled with it?
The man said, “What difficulty is there in that? We all do the same.” The fakir replied, “If only! The day everyone on earth does just this, no one will need to go anywhere to seek liberation. For when you sleep, you don’t only sleep—you do a thousand other things. Your sleep is a long disturbance, a long agony, a long nightmare. When you eat, you don’t only eat—you do a thousand things. You appear to be eating but you are also at your shop, or in court fighting a case. Whatever you do, you do a thousand other things along with it. No act of yours gathers your whole being. “There is only one practice: when you do something, do it totally. When you work, total work. When you rest, total rest.” Then you keep traveling between the two banks of bliss, day and night—swinging from one to the…