Life has become a torture chamber, a concentration camp; it is no more a celebration. It should be a celebration. If nature is allowed to take its own course, it is bound to be a celebration.
Let this sensitivity grow, and slowly slowly, as you become more and more sensitive, more and more sensuous, you will see more and more beauty around. The deeper your insight, the greater the beauty. And when you see this whole existence as a tremendous dance, a celebration, you are liberated by it. It is celebration that liberates, it is love that liberates, it is beauty that liberates — it is not metaphysics or philosophy.
Everything that you do should be expressive of you; it should have your signature on it. Then life becomes a continuous celebration. Even if you fall sick and you are lying in bed, you will make those moments of lying in bed moments of beauty and joy, moments of relaxation and rest, moments of meditation, moments of listening to music or to poetry. There is no need to be sad that you are sick. You should be happy that everybody is in the office and you are in your bed like a king, relaxing — somebody is preparing tea for you, the samovar is singing a song, a friend has offered to come and play flute for you…. These things are more important than any medicine. When you are sick, call a doctor. But more important, call those who love you because there is no medicine more important than love. Call those who can create beauty, music, poetry around you because there is nothing that heals like a mood of celebration.
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.
As your silence grows; your friendliness, your love grows; your life becomes a moment-to-moment dance, a joy, a celebration.
God is not a thing, it is an attitude, an attitude of celebration and festivity. Drop sadness. He is so close by; dance! Drop long faces, it is sacrilege — because He is so close by. Forget your childish miseries and worries; He is so close by. Don’t go on brooding about immaterial things; He is so close by. Allow Him to hold your hand. He has been waiting for you for long.
If your celebration comes to a peak, this shore turns to be that shore. When you are really at the peak of your celebration, when your dance is at the ultimate climax, immediately this shore is no more this shore; you are on the other shore. You are no more in the world, you are in God.
Religion cannot be anything other than a celebration of life. And the serious person becomes handicapped: he creates barriers. He cannot dance, he cannot sing, he cannot celebrate. The very dimension of celebration disappears from his life. He becomes desert-like. And if you are a desert, you can go on thinking and pretending that you are religious but you are not.
A pious ego is more poisoned than ordinary egos because it is purer: it is pure poison. And these people have conditioned the human mind. They are neurotic people. Something is missing — they are not normal, they are not healthy; they are morbid, ill. These ill people have conditioned humanity’s mind. They have destroyed laughter from the earth, they have destroyed festivity. They have destroyed celebration — and destroying celebration they have destroyed the very foundation of God. Life is a celebration!
These two are the parts. The inner silence — the silence so deep that there is no vibration in your being; you are, but there are no waves; you are just a pool without waves, not a single wave arises; the whole being silent, still; inside, at the center, silence — and on the periphery, celebration and laughter. And only silence can laugh, because only silence can understand the cosmic joke. So your life becomes a vital celebration, your relationship becomes a festive thing; whatsoever you do, every moment is a festival. You eat, and eating becomes a celebration; you take a bath, and bathing becomes a celebration; you talk, and talking becomes a celebration; relationship becomes a celebration. Your outer life becomes festive, there is no sadness in it. How can sadness exist with silence? But ordinarily you think otherwise: you think if you are silent you will be sad. Ordinarily you think how you can avoid sadness if you are silent. I tell you, the silence that exists with sadness cannot be true. Something has gone wrong. You have missed the path, you are off the track. Only celebration can give proof that the real silence has happened.
Celebration is possible only when existence is a continuous newness, and existence is always young. When nothing grows old, when nothing really dies — because everything is constantly reborn — it becomes a dance. Then it is an inner music flowing. Whether you play an instrument or not is not the point, the music is flowing.
Look at people’s faces. They carry life as a burden — boring, with no meaning. It seems that everything is just a nightmare, a very cruel joke, that somebody is playing a trick, torturing them. Life is not a celebration, it cannot be. With a mind burdened by memory life cannot be a celebration. Even if you laugh, your laughter carries boredom. Look at people laughing: they laugh with an effort. Their laugh may be just to be mannerly, their laugh may be just etiquette.
Osho Quotes on Celebration – II
