Hedonism

Are there different levels of hedonism? I suspect 'eat, drink and be merry' means different things to different people.

Because the first hedonist lives in the body, there are people who are against the first hedonist and they think they are spiritual. They are not. That's a logical fallacy. Because the first goes on living in the body, there are people who Logically think 'We have to go against the body, then only can we enter into the second realm of our being, then only can we attain to happiness, to heaven, to bliss. Because the first is missing -- and the first is missing because he is too much obsessed with the body -- the second, this so-called spiritualist, becomes obsessed AGAINST the body. This is not a real spiritualist. The real spiritualist is a hedonist. Let me repeat it: He is not against the body, he is for the soul. So now there are three kinds of people: the ordinary hedonist who lives in the body, the…

Since I have been here this time I have been feeling increasingly unspiritual and more and more stupid -- like an orange vegetable. I feel to be enjoying sensual pleasures and in general to be very hedonistic. This doesn't fit with my previous feelings and ideas about being close to a master. What is happening? Am I going off the track? What to do?

Beautiful. Enjoy. Because it is only through enjoying them that you will come to see the illusoriness of them -- there is no other way. If I say they are illusory, Ikkyu says they are illusory, Buddha says they are illusory, they are not going to become illusory just because these people say so. You have to see it on your own. Buddha has said again and again: Don't believe what I say, unless you have examined it, lived it, observed it, concluded it, on your own. How can you know the illusoriness of these enjoyments unless you go into them? Go into them. Go into them as totally as possible, so sooner you can come out. Be a hedonist. By being a hedonist you will see that all pleasures bring pain, that each pleasure is followed by great pain. Slowly slowly, you will see that the pleasure and pain…

You can discover it only, you cannot create it. And that discovery can be helped by Gurdjieff's statement. If you are shaken, and you cannot sleep anymore, knowing that you may not have the soul at all -- because you have not encountered. One thing is certain. You are not aware, so you cannot deny him. You know your mind. You know your body, but you don't know the knower, who knows the mind, who knows the body -- but he is there. Knowing the mind, knowing the body is enough proof that there is a third entity in you, which knows these both. And it is from the very birth. In fact, if you listen to children, in the beginning all the children of all the races use third person for themselves. They don't say, "I am thirsty." They say, "The baby is thirsty.

Beloved Osho, I have just passed a time of deep spirituality, and my life is changed. I understand your work more and more, and with my commune I want to be in more communion with you. I want to know how this is possible.

The revolution that spirituality brings is in a way very simple, but in another way it is very complex too. And you have to understand both sides, the simplicity of it and the complexity of it. A man of spirituality becomes innocent. He is just like a child. He is not childish, but he is as if just born in the world, as if for the first time he has opened his eyes. The colors are more colorful, everything has more a dream quality to it -- even stones are not so hard, they are also alive and with heart. This childlike innocence makes the spiritual person in a deep sense unburdened of all knowledge. He knows nothing. This knowing nothing is not ordinary ignorance. The ordinary ignorance knows something; however ignorant, it always knows something. The ordinary ignorant person knows very little but believes he knows much; he magnifies…