Paradox means opposites can be true together—like crying from joy—so you live the whole of life instead of choosing sides.
From the Discourses
Passages where Osho speaks to this question — each links to the complete discourse.
Osho, in the pangs of separation from the Beloved, the devotee sometimes weeps and sometimes laughs. What kind of contradiction is this?
Or tell me outright that relief is not in my fate. If You must give, then give today—not on the Day of Judgment. How long is one to wait? And yet he knows too, he understands too— To complain to Him is futile, Seemab: It is you who are not yet worthy of His gracious glance. He knows this as well: What cause for complaint? What is my worthiness? I am not yet even fit for His compassion! So wearied am I by these mirage-like thoughts, My heart wishes even you would not come into thought. Exasperated, I would break this enchantment of thought— Or make me certain that it is You who dwell in my thought. Sometimes he becomes so harried by remembering and remembering, by weeping and weeping, that he says: I am so tired, so afflicted...so wearied am I by these mirage-like thoughts—by thoughts of you, by…
Osho, with reference to the East—and especially India—a question has been pursuing me for a long time: those who once scaled the Gaurishankar of philosophy and reflection, of religion and meditation, how did they, in the course of time, become so broken, degenerate, and impoverished? Osho, please be gracious and shed some light on this question.
The question is meaningful. The East reached great heights—but crippled heights, like a bird that has flown very high with only one wing. How high can it truly go, and how far? Maybe it flutters a bit, rides the winds a little, drags itself some distance—but not for long. Seeing just one wing, you can already say: this bird will fall; its fall is inevitable. Flight happens with two wings. A lame man can walk, but how different that walk is from walking on two sound legs. The lame walk is painful, compelled. One with two healthy legs sometimes runs for no reason, even dances, strolls with nowhere to go. The joy in the meeting of those two legs is complete in itself. Therefore I do not tell my sannyasin to renounce the world. The world has been renounced and the result is clear—those who left it fell badly, flat…
Osho, a contradiction arises. As you said in Bombay about Krishna—and again here at the outset—that Krishna’s life was a transcendent and miraculous life: laughing, playful, blossoming like flowers. Whereas the lives of the others were suffering-centered. No one ever saw Jesus laughing. So if a devotee asks for suffering, stays gloomy, never laughs, then how is that transcendent vision of Krishna fulfilled? I would like to know this from you.
The devotee who asks for suffering is not a suffering-monger. A suffering-monger creates so much suffering for himself that there is no need to ask anyone for more. Does a suffering-monger go to ask someone for suffering? He already lives in so much suffering that you cannot give him any more. A devotee asks for suffering because he is already receiving plenty of joy; he wants to taste suffering too, with which he is completely unfamiliar. A devotee is never miserable, and even if he weeps, his tears are tears of bliss. Devotees have wept much, but their tears are not tears of sorrow. We make a big mistake because we ourselves have cried only in sorrow; we have never cried in bliss. So we have tied tears to sorrow as if inevitably. But tears have no necessary relation to sorrow. Tears are related to overflowing. Whenever any feeling crosses…
Osho, you said there should be contentment toward the world and discontent toward God. And you also said that no craving should remain; there should be acceptance of what is, and a witnessing attitude. Please have the compassion to clarify the apparent contradiction between these two statements.
The world is not made to fit together. If it did, you would never search for God. Why does the search for the divine arise? Because the world does not fit. If it did, would Buddha search? Would Mahavira? Would Ashtavakra? If the world fit, God would become nonessential! Understand this: If contentment were possible in the world, religion would be meaningless. Religion has meaning because contentment is not possible here. So we seek contentment elsewhere. That is why I said: whatever is here—little or much—be at ease with it. Being at ease does not mean you will find contentment in it; it means don’t keep running after it. Don’t try to assemble this toy; it won’t fit. And toward God become discontent. There, discontent itself is contentment. There, thirst itself is the quenching. The more intense the thirst, the nearer the lake comes. The day the thirst is so…
Osho, you say that only those who go dancing and singing gain entry into the temple of the Divine. But the devotee-saints advise going there with an offering of pain and tears. Please, compassionately clarify this contradiction.
Pain, too, has a song, and tears have their own dance. The truth is, no song rises like the song that rises out of pain, and no dance is as alive as the dance of tears. So there is no contradiction. Go dancing and singing. In dancing and singing everything is included—pain comes, weeping comes, tears come. When I say, “Go dancing and singing,” I am saying: go filled with trust; the union will happen. The meeting is certain. There is not a grain of doubt in it. Of course there is pain. Until the union happens, there is sorrow, there is anguish. “Someone should ask my heart about your half-drawn arrow: whence this lingering sting, if it had pierced all the way through?” The arrow has struck, but it has not gone clean through. Therefore the ache is great. To attain the Divine—this fact has lodged in the heart…