According to Osho, celebration-leela is the flowering that comes after pure witnessing: when the ‘I’ and ‘you’ dissolve, existence naturally overflows as dance, play and sheer festivity. Stillness is not the end; the Divine’s very nature expresses as the cosmic raas—birds singing, stars shining, life blossoming. Entering the inner temple means allowing this egoless, spontaneous celebration to happen through you.
After deep inner silence, drop the ego and let life dance through you like joyful play.
From the Discourses
Passages where Osho speaks to this question — each links to the complete discourse.
And you have also asked, “And in your celebration-leela...?”
That is the final thing. In witnessing everything comes to a standstill; but if this stillness were the ultimate state, why would the Divine create at all? The Divine was already still! Then why this expansion of the leela? This dance, this chirping of birds, these flowers blossoming on the trees, these moon and stars, this vast explosion! The Divine is pure witnessing! So the one who stops at witnessing has not entered the temple within. One has climbed all the steps; the last thing remains. Now neither you remain nor I remain—now let the dance happen. Now dance. Sometimes you could not dance because of the “you,” sometimes because of the “I.” Now that both are gone, what can stop you from dancing? What bondage is there now? Which wall of the prison stops you? Now dance; now enact the raas; now let celebration happen! Why sit any longer?…
And you have asked: “What is celebration?”
A very false form of vitaragata has become prevalent in this country—negational, negative, life-denying, celebration-denying. It teaches shrinking, not spreading. I teach you to expand. I hold that becoming vast is the way to come near Brahman. Our word “expansion” is itself a form of the word “Brahman.” Brahman means that which keeps on becoming vast, whose vastness knows no end—spreading and spreading. Bliss is expansion; misery is contraction. You have experienced it: when you are miserable you shrink completely. When you are miserable, you shut the doors and windows and lie in a corner. You want no one to meet you, no one to speak, no one to see you, and that nothing be seen. In great misery a person even commits suicide. That too is only the final device of contraction. One shrinks so much that one will no longer see the sun’s light, nor people’s faces, nor…
Beloved Osho, wherever you are, there is a festivity and celebration. What is this wonderful phenomenon?
Narendra, festivity and celebration are our natural states; you have just forgotten them. When you come to me, you suddenly remember that there is no need to be sad, no need to be miserable, that life wants you to sing and dance, that life is not serious, but playfulness. The ancient seers used to call it leela; that word can only be translated as 'playfulness'. It is God's playfulness. You just have to be reminded. Anybody who knows it... being close to him, you see your face in his mirror. And suddenly there is a remembrance, and your misery disappears -- because your misery is false, your sadness is false. Celebration is your truth. It has nothing to do with me; it is just that in my presence you forget for a moment your false mask of misery. Suddenly you-feel-a joy, a cheerfulness, a fragrance arising in you. It is…
Life is not to be renounced but experienced, lived, loved, because it is only at the innermost core of life that you will feel the presence of god. Hence my sannyasins have to be lovers of life, and they have to be dancers, singers, musicians, poets, creators, because the fundamental of my religion is, if you want to come closer to the creative energy of existence you have to be creators yourself. That's the only way to come close to the creative energy, or call it the creator. By your becoming creative, you start participating in god's creation. Celebrate -- don't miss a single opportunity to celebrate. Go on searching for opportunities to celebrate. If you cannot find them, invent them, because the whole point is celebration, not whether there is a real opportunity or a fictitious opportunity -- that doesn't matter.
What is the essence of celebration?
That's what we are doing here, and you are asking about the essence. Why not have a taste of it yourself? But mind is such, it makes questions out of everything: "What is celebration?" Rather than dancing, rather than laughing, rather than loving, rather than enjoying this silence, the mind asks: "What is celebration?" Mind is something like a tree on which questions grow, and you answer one question and out of that one question, another question will come up. Everybody knows what celebration is. I have never come across a person who does not know what celebration is. Just rejoicing in your being, just rejoicing in this moment, this tremendous universe. You had not asked for it, you have simply been given a universe which is infinite and eternal. You have not asked and you have been given a consciousness which is eternal, which can become festive. If you…