Who is the Blessed One?

I start with bliss. The old religious approach was to start with contentment, and they used to say -- and it has been said in many scriptures of the world -- that the contented person is blissful. I say just the opposite is true, the blissful person is contented. And one who is not blissful, his contentment is bogus. So start by being blissful. And it will not be very difficult for you. It will be very simple and very easy. You are almost ready to take the jump! How long will you be here? -- One month. -- Be here. Good. (As Paritosh rises to leave Osho says:) Haridas, help him so he does not take the jump too soon! (much laughter) In India we make small earthen lamps. The poor people use those earthen lamps, they are the cheapest.

Why do people choose misery to be their foundation? It is really amazing. But there is a reason; misery is helpful for one thing, it helps your ego. And bliss is dangerous for the ego, it kills the ego. And we are all brought up in such a way that we become ego-oriented. Our whole education is to enhance the ego, to make us ambitious -- and ambition is insanity. Ego is nothing but sheer madness, and the egoist is bound to live in misery because he will be afraid of bliss. People talk about bliss; they say "We want bliss," but they are really afraid of bliss. Whenever bliss comes they close their doors, they shrink back, they withdraw into themselves. They close themselves like turtles, they go into their shells -- they hide in their shells -- because the moment bliss happens your ego simply evaporates.

(Bliss is inside us, Osho reiterated in his last address, which was to an Indian ex-police inspector. Turn in, he told him, and you will discover a whole new perspective to life.) Then it is no more confined by birth and death. Then we know it has been before birth and it will be there after death too. Then birth and death are not the beginning and the end of life but only ordinary episodes in an eternal journey. People are sad and miserable for the simple reason that they have been searching outside. They cannot find it there because it is not there in the first place. You have to look in the right place. Our consciousness contains all, the whole kingdom of god is there. Man comes with all that he needs, with all that he desires.

Bliss is always immeasurable. Happiness can be measured, it can be defined, it has a certain weight, it can be weighed. And it is always definable because the opposite is just close by -- unhappiness. Unhappiness defines your happiness. Your happiness is just like an island in the sea of unhappiness. But bliss is not an island, it is the ocean itself, unbounded. And that is everybody's search: knowingly, unknowingly, we are all longing for it. But if we unknowingly long for it, we may move in wrong directions. If we knowingly long for it, consciously long for it, then there is a possibility of achieving it.

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.