The seers of the ancient East have been very emphatic about the point that all the great arts — music, poetry, dance, painting, sculpture — are all born out of meditation. They are an effort to in some way bring the unknowable into the world of the known for those who are not ready for the pilgrimage — just gifts for those who are not ready to go on the pilgrimage. Perhaps a song may trigger a desire to go in search of the source, perhaps a statue.
The next time you enter a temple of Gautam Buddha or Mahavira just sit silently, watch the statue. Because the statue has been made in such a way, in such proportions that if you watch it you will fall silent. It is a statue of meditation; it is not concerned with Gautam Buddha or Mahavira.
That's why all those statues look alike — Mahavira, Gautam Buddha, Neminatha, Adinatha…. Twenty-four tirthankaras of Jainas… in the same temple you will find twenty-four statues all alike, exactly alike.
In my childhood I used to ask my father, "Can you explain to me how it is possible that twenty-four persons are exactly alike? — the same size, the same nose, the same face, the same body…."
And he used to say, "I don't know. I am always puzzled myself that there is not a bit of difference. And it is almost unheard of — there are not even two persons in the whole world who are alike, what to say about twenty-four?"
But as my meditation blossomed I found the answer — not from anybody else, I found the answer: that these statues have nothing to do with the people. These statues have something to do with what was happening inside those twenty-four people, and that was exactly the same.
And we have not bothered about the outside; we have insisted that only the inner should be paid attention to.
The outer is unimportant. Somebody is young, somebody is old, somebody is black, somebody is white, somebody is man, somebody is woman — it does not matter; what matters is that inside there is an ocean of silence. In that oceanic state, the body takes a certain posture.
You have observed it yourself, but you have not been alert. When you are angry, have you observed? — your body takes a certain posture. In anger you cannot keep your hands open; in anger — the fist. In anger you cannot smile — or can you?
With a certain emotion, the body has to follow a certain posture.
Just small things are deeply related inside.
So those statues are made in such a way that If you simply sit silently and watch, and then close your eyes, a negative shadow image enters into your body and you start feeling something you have not felt before.
Those statues and temples were not built for worshipping; they were built for experiencing. They are scientific laboratories. They have nothing to do with religion. A certain secret science has been used for centuries so the coming generations could come in contact with the experiences of the older generations — not through books, not through words, but through something which goes deeper — through silence, through meditation, through peace.
As your silence grows; your friendliness, your love grows; your life becomes a moment-to-moment dance, a joy, a celebration.
Do you hear the firecrackers outside? Have you ever thought about why, all over the world, in every culture, in every society, there are a few days in the year for celebration? These few days for celebration are just a compensation — because these societies have taken away all celebration of your life, and if nothing is given to you in compensation your life can become a danger to the culture.
Every culture has to give some compensation to you so that you don't feel completely lost in misery, in sadness. But these compensations are false.
These firecrackers outside and these lights outside cannot make you rejoice. They are only for children; for you they are just a nuisance. But in your inner world there can be a continuity of lights, songs, joys.
Always remember that society compensates you when it feels that the repressed may explode into a dangerous situation if it is not compensated. The society finds some way of allowing you to let out the repressed. But this is not true celebration, and it cannot be true.
True celebration should come from your life, in your life.
And true celebration cannot be according to the calendar, that on the first of November you will celebrate. Strange, the whole year you are miserable and on the first of November suddenly you come out of misery, dancing. Either the misery was false or the first of November is false; both cannot be true. And once the first of November is gone, you are back in your dark hole, everybody in his misery, everybody in his anxiety.
Life should be a continuous celebration, a festival of lights the whole year round. Only then you can grow up, you can blossom.
Transform small things into celebration.
OSHO