According to Osho, ecstasy is not a future event—it is the overflowing now. When you stop sipping life in measured doses and drink straight from the source, reserve and control drop, the ego’s sense of separation dies, and you bloom. Ecstasy drowns you in love; it requires courage, readiness, and worthiness to receive without measure, letting the present possess you completely.
It’s when you stop holding back and let love wash over you right now, so your little ‘me’ disappears and you simply bloom.
From the Discourses
Passages where Osho speaks to this question — each links to the complete discourse.
Osho, an ecstasy is spreading within me, but I’m afraid it might slip away!
He says: I know—but it does not come to the tongue. If one knows “I am Brahman,” what fear remains then—that Muslims will be annoyed, that they will hang me, who will say what, what trouble may come? Even that fear? Whenever Mansoor was intoxicated, that one sound arose. Then the master banished him. Mansoor bowed and left, wandering from village to village. But that cry kept resounding. When Mansoor was in his senses, he would not say it. But there were moments when the flood rose—Mansoor disappeared and only God spoke. Then what could Mansoor do! He was arrested. When he was arrested, the caliph asked the master to give a written certificate that this man is a heretic, a kafir, because what he is saying is blasphemy. They say Junaid wrote it. And Mansoor was hanged. But to Mansoor it made no difference. On the day the guards…
Question: BELOVED OSHO, WHAT IS AGONY AND WHAT IS ECSTASY? These are the two ways: either run away from it as everybody else is doing, or run into it. Reach to its very center howsoever painful, fearful -- but reach to the center, because that is you. And it is good at least one time to be at the very exact center of your being. The moment you reach that center then the second word becomes significant: ecstasy. Ecstasy is the flower of agony. Agony is not against ecstasy. Agony is the way to ecstasy. You just have to accept it -- what else can one do? It is there. You can close your eyes -- that does not mean that the sun has disappeared; it is still there. And everybody is trying to close his eyes; the sun is too glaring. Close your eyes, completely close your eyes.
Dance, my heart! Dance today with joy. The strains of love fill the days and the nights with music, and the world is listening to its melodies. Mad with joy, life and death dance to the rhythm of this music. The hills and the sea and the earth dance. The world of man dances in laughter and tears. Why put on the robe of the monk, and live aloof from the world in lonely pride? Behold! My heart dances in the delight of a hundred arts; and the creator is well pleased.
I. 105. man mast hua tab kyon bole WHERE IS THE NEED OF WORDS, WHEN LOVE HAS MADE DRUNKEN THE HEART? I HAVE WRAPPED THE DIAMOND IN MY CLOAK; WHY OPEN IT AGAIN AND AGAIN? WHEN ITS LOAD WAS LIGHT, THE PAN OF THE BALANCE WENT UP: NOW IT IS FULL, WHERE IS THE NEED FOR WEIGHING? THE SWAN HAS TAKEN ITS FLIGHT TO THE LAKE BEYOND THE MOUNTAINS; WHY SHOULD IT SEARCH FOR THE POOLS AND DITCHES ANYMORE? YOUR LORD DWELLS WITHIN YOU: WHY NEED YOUR OUTWARD EYES BE OPENED? KABIR SAYS: "LISTEN, MY BROTHER! MY LORD, WHO RAVISHES MY EYES, HAS UNITED HIMSELF WITH ME." Just the other night, one woman from the West was saying to me that she has come here because she has seen many people coming here, becoming sannyasins, whose lives have been transformed and who have become so happy. That's why she has…
Question: BELOVED OSHO, ONCE, SOME YEARS AGO, WHILE MAKING LOVE, I DISAPPEARED. I WOULD LIKE TO SAY, "LITERALLY DISAPPEARED," BECAUSE I FELT AS IF ALL OF ME SIMPLY VANISHED. BUT CERTAINLY MY BODY MUST HAVE BEEN THERE, BECAUSE MY PARTNER DIDN'T NOTICE THAT HE WAS SUDDENLY ALONE. I HEARD MY VOICE SAY: "I AM GOING," AND THEN POSSIBLY ONLY FOR A SECOND OR TWO, NO ONE WAS THERE. THOUGH I HAVE HAD MOMENTS OF JOY WHILE MAKING LOVE SINCE, I HAVE ALWAYS BEEN PRESENT TO KNOW THAT THEY ARE MOMENTS OF JOY. PRESUMABLY ECSTASY WAS THE TRIGGER FOR WHAT HAPPENED, BUT THE HAPPENING ITSELF WASN'T ECSTATIC, IT WASN'T ANYTHING, IT SIMPLY WAS. IS MEDITATION THAT PREVIOUS STAGE OF ECSTASY, OR THAT STATE OF NOT-EVEN-ECSTASY, JUST ISNESS? Ecstasy or blissfulness are all toys to allure you towards meditation. You will find them only in the beginning.
You said one reaches when one is totally frustrated. Can one also reach in total ecstasy?
That is impossible! Because total ecstasy is not possible unless you have reached. When you reach, only then total ecstasy flowers. Otherwise, what will be the need to reach, if you are already totally ecstatic? Then there is no point in going anywhere, you have already reached the goal! In total ecstasy the goal is already left behind. Who wants to reach then? Where will you reach then? There is no more. The path has come to the very end. In total frustration the ecstasy happens. And why do I say in TOTAL frustration? Because if you are still hoping that happiness is possible in this world -- and when I say THIS world always remember I don't mean the world of the trees and the birds and the sky, when I say this world I mean YOUR MIND, THIS mind, this ego centred mind -- if you are still…