What is the relationship between silence and blissfulness?

Question: BELOVED OSHO, CAN YOU TALK ABOUT THE RELATIONSHIP BETWEEN SILENCE AND BLISSFULNESS? IS SILENCE ALL THAT IS NEEDED? DOES EVERYTHING ELSE FOLLOW? Prem Samarpan, there is no relationship between silence and blissfulness; they are two names of the same thing. Silence is blissfulness, not in the dictionaries, but in actual experience. And I don't see that in actual experience it can be different to different people. As you become silent, you cannot be worried, you cannot be tense; you cannot be miserable, you cannot be noisy, you cannot be chattering continuously. Otherwise, how can you be silent? And when all these stupid activities are gone, silence simply clears the ground for blissfulness to be discovered. They are almost the same phenomenon because they happen simultaneously. As you become silent, a certain sweetness, a certain fragrance, a certain beatitude spontaneously arises in you.

Bliss is a state of awareness, watchfulness, meditativeness, of profound silence, peace. Nothing stirs in you, all is quiet, and you are absolutely relaxed. Out of that relaxation something bursts forth at you very center, some energy that has always remained there starts flowing, becomes dynamic. It has been dormant because you were never looking at it. You never paid any attention, you were concerned with the body and the mind. Now, you have turned in. Your whole concern, your whole attention, has settled at the center. You have left the circumference far behind. When the energy is absolutely centered, at the center, bliss happens. Happiness has to move from pleasure to bliss. Bliss is always perfect. You can't have imperfect bliss, it is impossible. It is like you cannot have an imperfect circle: if it is imperfect it is not a circle.

A computer can know everything possible but it will remain a computer and it will repeat only that which is fed into it. It cannot be blissful either -- what bliss can a machine have? It cannot be loving either -- how can a machine be loving? It may say 'I love you, I love you very much, I am ready to die for you' -- it may say beautiful things, but they will be simply words. It can be taught to hug you and kiss you but there will be no love at all. And you will know that this is just foolish -- a machine kissing you and hugging you. You will look all around, embarrassed! A machine can be taught these things and the machine can do these things very efficiently. But millions of people are doing exactly that: functioning like machines, computers.

This state of bliss which ordinarily we come to know only in deep sleep, has to be known in full consciousness. So either in great deep sleep one comes to it, or in great awakening -- in buddhahood, enlightenment, one comes to know it. So there are only two possibilities of being blissful: either blessed are the ignorant -- or the awakened. You are blissful either when you fall back into deep unconsciousness.... Then you become part of the cosmos -- your ego cannot exist there. When you cannot dream, how can your ego exist? -- because the ego is a dream. Then your desires are not there, because all desires are your dream. And with that whole bundle of desires disappearing, you have disappeared -- because you are nothing but a bundle of desire -- so you are part of the cosmos.

And the great gifts of life are only for people who are ready to go totally into something, whether it is silence, freedom, truth -- it does not matter what it is. All the ultimate values require you to be a lover. Sannyas is a love affair with silence. The most unique experience of life is that of silence; otherwise life is very noisy. Outside there is noise, inside there is noise, and both together are enough to drive anybody crazy. They have driven the whole world crazy. One has to stop the inner noise -- the outer noise is beyond our control and there is no need either to stop it. But we can stop the inner noise.