Playfulness

Beloved Osho, playfulness, happiness and creativity come together inside myself when I am in this state -- I call it `craziness'. Can you please talk about this?

First, what you call craziness is authentic sanity. When you are not in that state which you call craziness, you are crazy. Creativity, you call craziness. Playfulness, you call craziness. Joyfulness, you call craziness. Then what is sanity? So first, drop that word `craziness'. Only the creators are sane. What they create does not matter. In India, there have been a few great mystics whose creativity cannot even be recognized as creativity. Kabir remained for his whole life spinning, weaving. He was a weaver. He had thousands of disciples, and they would tell him, "You have become old, and you are unnecessarily tiring yourself. We can take care of you; you stop this weaving, and then making clothes, and going to the market and selling them." But Kabir always said, "You do not understand. You think I am just a weaver. I am not just like other weavers -- it…

Osho, you emphasize playfulness, leela. But is it possible for a playful mind to be a plastic surgeon or a scientist?

You will see it in the East: people have become dull, people have lost all joy of invention -- because all luxury has been condemned; it is a sin to seek comfort. But if you are not seeking comfort then there is no point in exploring, if you are not seeking luxury then all search stops. Then all that you need is a shelter, food, clothes -- but there you are finished. And when you don't explore you don't become rich, when you don't explore you stop growing. In the East it has happened, it has happened terribly: because the so-called priests and religious people condemned all luxuries, man became uninventive. The East is poor because of the saints -- because people are bound to remain poor if they don't explore. If people are satisfied with just whatsoever is the case they become more and more poor every day, because…

Beloved Osho, would you please tell us more about what the sufis call "adab"? Is it a "tariqa"... A method that extends beyond the physical presence of the master, becoming part of the innermost being of the disciple and reflecting, in every action of his daily?

Radha Mohammed, yes, adab is a tariqa, a method. It is the beginning of something very immense, of something utterly incomprehensible to the intellect. It is the first step of a great eternal pilgrimage. To be with the Master is simply a lesson in how to be with God. That's why down the ages the Master has been called "God". It is very symbolic, it is a metaphor. The word "metaphor" is beautiful. Meta means beyond, phor means going: that which takes you beyond. The Master is a metaphor -- he takes you beyond himself. He is just a beginning, a jumping-board. To be with the Master is nothing but a discipline in how to be with God. God is not visible, the Master is visible; it is easier to learn from the visible and then move to the invisible. Have you looked into children's books? We have to make…

Question: OOOH OSHO! THE WHOLE LIFE WATERFALLING ON ME! HEAVEN AND EARTH, WORK AND PLAY, EVERYTHING I HAVE EVER BEEN AND DONE, ALL THINGS I HAVE EVER WANTED TO WILL BE, PAST AND FUTURE SWELLING SWELLING IN BALLOON DANCING NOW! THIS ENLIGHTENMENT IS SOME CRAZY BUSINESS! Crazy baby, crazy... absolutely crazy! But don't be afraid. Go into it, and soon you will see the sanity of insanity, soon you will see that it is not crazy. You have been crazy all along before it. It looks crazy compared to your life that has happened up to now. People are living in madness, so when they come closer and closer to some inner light, compared to their life it looks crazy. Once it settles, the whole of life looks crazy, and only this light, this awareness, looks sane.