If you befriend your sadness instead of fighting it, it softens, teaches you deep things, and helps you feel whole.
From the Discourses
Passages where Osho speaks to this question — each links to the complete discourse.
Day by day, near you, I find myself liking my sadness. What is happening to me, Osho?
That's how it should be. If you can like your sadness also, then the sadness is no longer sad. The sadness is sad because you dislike it. The sadness is sad because you would not like to be in it. The sadness is sad because you reject it. Even sadness becomes a flowering of tremendous beauty, of silence, of depth, if you like it. Nothing is wrong; that's what I want you to be: to like everything that happens, even sadness. Even death has to be loved; only then will you transcend death. If you can accept death, love and welcome it, now death cannot kill you; you have transcended it. When sadness comes, accept it. Listen to its song. It has something to give to you. It has a gift which no happiness can give to you, only sadness can give it. Happiness is always shallow; sadness, always deep.…
Osho, living in the ashram I feel very blissful; but sometimes, suddenly, I become sad. What is this sadness that comes and goes? Please explain.
Even so, Ranjan will sometimes remember. The husband may not remember. In America, a husband whose wife has gone off to India—will he remember! For him it’s like the cat’s luck finding the cream pot open. He must be tasting freedom. But Ranjan—she has a woman’s heart—sometimes worry will come, and sadness will seize her. Watch that sadness with witnessing. Gradually it will disappear. And if ever you do go back home, go only as a witness. Do not go before that. So that there, too, you can see it all as a dream—whether sweet or bitter. Whatever happens outside in this world has no ultimate value. What happens within is the only value. Ranjan, look to the inner! Unfurl, O petals—open your fragrant doors. On the little couch of the far horizon dawn has awakened, the sky has smiled. The splendor of the rising sun is scattered on the…
Feel your substance, bones, flesh, blood, saturated with the cosmic essence.
FEEL THE FINE QUALITIES OF CREATIVITY PERMEATING YOUR BREASTS' AND ASSUMING DELICATE CONFIGURATIONS. Whenever you start thinking in terms of sadness, you become sad, and you become receptive to all the sadness around you. Then everybody helps you to be sad. Everybody helps, the whole world is always ready to help you, whatsoever you do. When you want to be sad, the whole world is helpful, cooperative. You have become receptive. Really, you fall to a certain wave-length where only sadness can be received. So even if someone comes to cheer you up, he will make you more sad. He will not look friendly, he will not look understanding; you will feel that he is insulting you because you are so sad and he is trying to cheer you up. He thinks your sadness is superficial. He is not taking you seriously. And when you are ready to be happy,…
Beloved Osho, the other night, along with a few other people, I was hypnotized by kaveesha. When she began by asking us to take deep breaths -- the zen flute playing, the incense and the candle burning -- I immediately went into a space where my chest felt full, like tears were welling up inside. I felt like I was in a space that I once was in before -- a place where I was closest to my inner home, a place my body was relaxed in, where meditation came naturally and the surroundings were warm. Why was there sadness coming up when this experience was happening?
He would feed the dog, and while the dog was eating he would go on ringing a bell. Now, a bell has nothing to do with food; you can ring a bell before any dog and he will not take any interest. He will think that you are a little crackpot: "What are you doing ringing a bell before a dog? What is the point?" He may even turn away just to avoid listening to your ringing bell. But you could not have expected what happened to Pavlov's dogs. After fifteen days of feeding the dog and at the same time ringing the bell, on the sixteenth day there was no food, just the ringing of the bell -- and the dog was ready for food, his tongue hanging out. And this was done with not one dog but seventy dogs. He was a scientist: one dog cannot prove anything,…
Whenever a certain feeling of opening comes and a certain peace, always a strong anxiety and a depression follow and make me very tired. It seems to be a vicious circle. What is the attitude to take?
And what is good in sadness? The depth. Sadness is very deep, no laughter can be as deep as sadness. No laughter can be as deep as sadness, because laughter is always superficial, a little profane, a little vulgar. Sadness has a sobriety of its own, sadness has a depth of its own, sadness has a deep feeling -- the feeling of the valley, very deep and penetrating. It has something sacred about it, holy about it. A man of bliss is in that depth, in that holiness, in that sacredness. He is both, and is not both; he transcends both and he is a harmony of both. A man of bliss is a miracle, a rare combination of opposites, a rare synthesis of opposites. So don't think that this is vicious, it is natural. All that you have to do is to remember that you are separate. When happy,…