Why do I take myself and everything so seriously?

Question: BELOVED MASTER, WHY DO I TAKE MYSELF AND EVERYTHING SO SERIOUSLY? Prembodhi, the ego can exist only if you take yourself and everything seriously. Nothing kills the ego like playfulness, like laughter. When you start taking life as fun, the ego has to die, it cannot exist anymore. Ego is illness; it needs an atmosphere of sadness to exist. Seriousness creates the sadness in you. Sadness is a necessary soil for the ego. Hence your saints are so serious, for the simple reason that they are the most egoistic people on the earth. They may be trying to be humble, but they are very proud of their humbleness. They take their humbleness very seriously. The real saint cannot be serious. The really religious person has to be a celebrant. Just look around... look at the trees -- are they serious?

Beloved master, why do I continue to take myself and life in general so seriously?

Sufis function that way. Somebody is a weaver, somebody may be a potter, somebody may be making carpets. Do you know what Gurdjieff used to do in the West? His business was carpet selling He was a carpet salesman, that was his business. If you had seen him you would have never recognized that a great master was there. That's how the Sufis have existed, down the ages. They don't stand out, there is no need. It is always the ego that hankers for the peak, and it is the ego that does not allow you to live in constant joy. And constant joy is not a peak, remember. In fact it is more like peace than like bliss, more like peace. Bliss is there, but like a fragrance; you cannot catch hold of it. It is there, but very indirect, very subtle, very delicate. It is not a peak,…

Question: BELOVED OSHO, YOU ARE AGAINST SERIOUSNESS. YOU HAVE LAUGHED ABOUT EVERYTHING, INCLUDING GODS, GODMEN AND SCRIPTURES. HOW COME YOU THINK THAT PEOPLE SHOULD TAKE YOU AND YOUR TEACHING SERIOUSLY? Anand Maitreya, who has told you that I expect people to take me and my teachings seriously? I want to be understood joyously, not seriously. I want to be taken playfully, not seriously -- not with a long British face, but with beautiful laughter. Your laughter, your playfulness is the recognition that you have understood me. Your seriousness shows that you have misunderstood me, you have missed it -- because seriousness is nothing but sickness. It is another name of sadness; it is a shadow of death. And I am all for life.

Beloved Osho, again on the subject of destroying ego, another question appears to be relevant to me right now, and that is the fact that wherever I go, sooner or later, trouble bubbles up. Usually it happens with authorities of some kind. Osho, I wonder if this happens because, being unaware, I go on pushing the edges? Or is it an old habit of the ego? Or....?

Your ego is keeping you encaged, imprisoned. Don't nourish it... and I am saying it because I know it is everybody's possibility not to nourish the ego and to get out into the open sky. One day at the London zoo two Jewish ladies, both blond and middle-aged, were standing in front of the cage of Guy the gorilla, and no doubt passing remarks on aspects of his physique. Suddenly Guy, who was kept alone and whose life was very boring, was possessed by a tremendous urge. He gripped the bars before him, and, such was the force of his lust, wrenched them apart. He leaned out, seized the blonder of the two ladies, drew her into the cage and pulled the bars together. The hapless, screaming, blonder lady was dragged towards the inner sleeping quarters, screened from public view. Some days later, recovering in a Harley Street clinic, the…

As a comparatively new sannyasin I am a little worried about the number of very serious, worried looking sannyasins around you. Could you reassure me about this please?

So of course there are many people around me who are serious; they have not understood me at all. They may be projecting their minds on me, they may be interpreting whatsoever I am saying according to their own minds, but they have not understood me. They are wrong people. Either they will have to change or they will have to leave. Finally, only those people will be with me who can celebrate life so totally, with no complaint, with no grudge. Others will go; sooner they go, the better. But this happens: thinking that I am religious, old religious-type people also sometimes come to me, and once they come they bring their own minds with them and they try to be serious here also. One man came to me, old man. He was a very famous Indian leader. Once he attended a camp, and he saw a few sannyasins…