According to Osho, agony and ecstasy are not opposites but complementary poles of a single, organic inner phenomenon. From the outside they appear contrary; from the inside they are two faces of the same energy. Ordinary pains are momentary and caused by expectations; agony is existential—you. By dropping expectations and seeing from within, the same depth that feels like agony flowers as ecstasy.
They’re two sides of one coin; when you stop expecting and look from inside, the hurting side turns into joy.
From the Discourses
Passages where Osho speaks to this question — each links to the complete discourse.
Question: BELOVED OSHO, WHAT IS AGONY AND WHAT IS ECSTASY? The same. They are not opposites as they are understood to be. They are complementaries, intrinsic parts of one organic whole. Neither can exist without the other. It will be a little difficult to understand because they have always been thought to be polar opposites. They are polar opposites, seen from the outside. But all polar opposites are joined together from the inside. The negative or positive poles of electricity, the body and soul -- from the outside they are not only different but antagonistic. From the inside they are two aspects of one phenomenon. Let us first try to understand their meaning. What is agony? It is not ordinary suffering, misery, pain. All these are very superficial things, just like ripples on the surface of a pond. They don't have any depth.
Is there any pain worse than this? You have touched my secret: all my sources are poisoned and yet I manage to go on living and it is not possible -- that is what I want to hide from everyone. You put the finger on my deepest wounds, and make me scream out in pain and then you lead me to the only life-giving source -- acceptance.
Neerjo, ecstasy is only out of agony -- and the deeper the agony, the deeper the ecstasy will be; total the agony, total will be the ecstasy. Everything has to be paid for. For ecstasy, we have to pay in agony. One has to go through deep pain to get rid of pain. Pain is cleansing. Pain is a fire; it burns the rubbish in you, it destroys the unessential. Just as we purify gold through fire, consciousness is purified through pain. Pain has something to deliver to you. Don't avoid pain! If you avoid pain, you are avoiding pleasure. Don't avoid the world! If you avoid the world, you have avoided God. Don't avoid darkness. If you avoid darkness, dawn will never come. It is out of the dark night that the morning is born. And when the night is darkest, the sunrise is closest. Remember this fundamental law…
So please don't create your old enthusiasm and excitement again; that was false. And I am not against excitement or against enthusiasm, but I am for a true ecstasy. Excitement is a poor substitute for ecstasy. Ecstasy arises only when you have started living your authentic being. If it is sad at this moment, then it is perfectly good; accept it and be sad. And you will be surprised that through accepting the sadness, sadness disappears. Now, there are two ways to let the sadness disappear. One is to accept it, then ecstasy will arise. The other is to forget about it, to repress it, to avoid it, to escape from it, and to create some kind of excitement. That excitement will be untrue; the sadness will remain there and you will have to come to terms with it sooner or later. It is better to do it sooner... ...
Question: OSHO, WHAT IS ANGUISH? IS IT JUST ANOTHER NAME FOR ANXIETY? I said to him, "Those two months have given you a taste of anguish. Don't forget those moments. Now you are out, use that anguish for your meditation -- try to find out.... Because you may become mad again and before you become mad at least have something figured out: who you are." But it was too much to expect of that poor man, because within a month he was mad again. But what to say about the whole of humanity? You are aware of anxiety. But you are not aware of anguish yet. In the first place, when you do feel anguish, you will feel in a tremendous turmoil, in a very deep depression... a fathomless abyss just opening in front of you, and you are falling into it.
Question: BELOVED MASTER, UNIMAGINED ECSTASY, UNIMAGINED PAIN. Yoga Sudha, it is natural. Ecstasy and great pain happen together, because it is a new birth: the joy of being born, the joy of entering into the unknown, the great adventure into God. But pain is also there, great pain: the pain of leaving the old, the familiar, the known; the pain of leaving the secure, the safe; the pain of dying -- dying as the ego. If the ecstasy is true, it is bound to happen that there will be great pain. This is one of the criteria by which to judge whether the ecstasy is true or not. It is like uprooting a tree from its known soil and transplanting it into a new climate, into a new country.