Pleasure

Osho, religions call worldly pleasures unstable and fleeting and thereby try to create dispassion in us. But isn’t it precisely their fleetingness that is also the reason for their attraction?

Certainly, it is so; transience itself is the cause of attraction. And religions do not create dispassion by merely declaring life transient. Religion says: wherever there is transience, suffering will follow like a shadow. Transience is not the cause of dispassion; the suffering that comes in its wake is. Transience attracts, it beckons. The faster life runs away, the more the mind says—Enjoy, quickly! Now it’s here, now it’s gone. Who knows when the curtain will fall? So enjoy as much as you can; live with the utmost urgency. Let not even a single moment go idle—suck it dry. Exhaust the full possibility of each moment. Transience is attraction. Death is approaching; that is precisely why we cling to life. If death did not come, who would cling to life? If pleasures came and never left, who would worry? The cause of attraction is transience. The faster a thing dissolves,…

Beloved Osho, how is it that all the past buddhas expressed themselves against money and sex, which are the sources of worldly pleasures? You are perhaps the first buddha to stand by all of them together -- pleasure, happiness, and bliss -- which is causing so much misunderstanding and opposition in your case. Did the past buddhas try to compromise with tradition and to play for safety?

Naturally, Maitreya, those who are clinging to the old buddhas are going to be against me, because their whole point is that the world is sin and it has to be renounced. Pleasure is sin and it has to be renounced -- even simple pleasures like drinking a cup of tea are sins. In Mahatma Gandhi's ashram, people used to drink tea, hiding. And once in a while somebody was caught, and he was so condemned that Mahatma Gandhi would go on a fast. This is a special way of torturing people. And the whole ashram would torture the person: because you drank tea, Mahatma Gandhi has gone on a fast unto death. And he would never say that it is a punishment for you. He would say, "It is a punishment for myself, because it shows that my soul is not pure enough; that's why my disciples go on…

Beloved Osho, religions try to make us disinterested in worldly happiness by saying that it is temporary and transient. But is not this very transiency the cause of it attraction?

The awakening of nonattachment is because of misery and anguish. Religion says that you must try to see that the momentary pleasure is followed by unlimited misery. And you also know it very well that whenever you found happiness, misery followed. Whenever you were happy, later on your eyes were full of tears. You fell down whenever you were vain. Bad luck started as soon as you thought that good luck was smiling on you. Religion says that if you want happiness which will not get lost and will not turn into misery then look for the eternal, the immortal, and wake up from this transient world. Time spent in dreams is time lost. Seek the truth. What is the definition of truth? The definition of truth is that which was always, which is always and which will be always. The definition of untruth is that which was not yesterday…

Osho, Buddha says: live on the minimum, only on what is absolutely necessary. You say: don’t live stingily or lukewarm; live to the maximum, in excess. How are we to reconcile the two?

Movement doesn’t happen like that. Movement is in one direction. Choose west—then west it is. Forget that the other three directions even exist. Granted, they exist. Granted, some people are walking there. But you have left those directions. Now you go west. Don’t let one hand go east, the other west, and one leg south. That “coordination” won’t set; in attempting it, you will be badly fragmented. This has become humanity’s condition. Earlier, when the world was not so close-knit—before the earth became a small village, before religions were mutually familiar—many realized the ultimate. As the earth shrank and people became acquainted with one another’s religions, religiosity declined. Why? Because all directions entered everyone’s mind. You read the Quran and you read the Gita. You drown in neither. When you read the Quran you remember the Gita; when you read the Gita you remember the Quran—and you keep trying to…