What happens when I gain awareness but still feel miserable?

Osho, when I came here I was very unwell. Now I am leaving having found complete health. Your love keeps showering on me; I am deeply grateful for it.

Human beings have tied great self-interest to their sorrow. You have noticed—people tell their tales of pain greatly exaggerated. They magnify their miseries so that others will pat their back and sympathize. People are mad for sympathy. And what does sympathy give? What is the use even if all pay attention to you? You’ve heard the story: a poor woman somehow saved up by grinding flour and had gold bangles made. She longed for someone to ask, “How much were they? Where did you get them?” But no one asked—no one asks about happiness! She grew anxious, distraught; she jangled them loudly all over the village, but no one asked. Whoever saw the bangles turned their eyes away. At last she set her hut on fire. The whole village gathered. She beat her breast, raised her hands and cried, “I’m ruined! I’m ruined!” From the crowd someone asked, “All right,…

And you say that you don't know the meaning of it. That's one of the essential qualities of a sannyasin: to function from the state of not-knowing. If you don't know something, simply say "I don't know." If you know, if you really know, only the say "I know." Much of the misery of the world can disappear if people become a little more alert. People go on saying things which they don't know, they go on pretending, as if they know. Not only do they deceive others, they deceive themselves too. People talk about God and heaven and hell and the theory of karma and rebirth; they go on talking about these things as if they know. They go on believing in their own false knowledge and because of this false knowledge they will never be able to attain to true knowledge.

The other day I felt 'hell is myself'. I am in hell. Hell! Do I have to accept hell before I can find bliss? I don 't understand how.

All younger cultures accept the body; old cultures deny body. Old cultures reflect the old minds, old man's mind; younger cultures reflect the young man's mind. For example in India -- it is one of the ancient-most cultures -- body is denied. Your so-called monks, munis, saints, sadhus -- they are anti-body, they are enemies to the body. They have the old man's attitude towards the body. In America -- it is a very young country -- the body is accepted, enjoyed. When a country is young, the body is enjoyed, when the country is old, the body becomes the enemy. It simply shows the old man's attitude. If you understand this simple phenomenon -- that headache makes you aware of the head, illness makes you aware of the body -- then it must be something like illness in your soul which makes you aware of the self. Otherwise a…

Beloved Osho, I loved hearing about your meetings with the old enlightened sand sculptor from bombay. Did you come across other enlightened individuals in your travels?

And if your watchfulness becomes really strong, then it may be music, it may be dance, it may be love -- it makes no difference: it simply cuts like a sharp sword between you and the object, whatever it is. Religious people are, perhaps, the farthest from watchfulness because they are trying prayer, they are trying devotion to God, they are trying to believe in God. They will be afraid of watching because watching will mean that God will simply disappear -- because it was only a belief, not a fact. The prayer will disappear because it was devoted to, addressed to a God who does not exist. The devotion will disappear because there is no one high above in the sky to be devoted to. Religious people are the most afraid of watchfulness. That's my experience. They do not want to meditate, they do not want to be alert,…

Osho, “If there is awareness, the other is always beneficial.” Is this what you mean by a buddha, an awakened one?

If there is awareness, the other is neither beneficial nor harmful; if there is awareness, you draw your well-being from everywhere. Without awareness, you draw your ill-being from everywhere. If there is awakening, wherever you are, heaven begins to be created—because of your awakening. If there is no awakening, wherever you are, the stench of hell begins to rise—because of you. Understand it this way: to live in stupor builds hell; to live awake builds heaven. No one has ever suffered while awake. No one has ever known happiness while asleep. In sleep, at most you can hope for happiness; happiness never arrives. In the hope of happiness you can bear a great deal of suffering, but happiness never arrives. What comes with wakefulness—that alone is happiness. There is no relation to the other at all. If you understand rightly, there is no other; it is you. Your idea about…