Once you are ready to enter into the emptiness, suddenly the fear disappears. The same energy becomes a celebration. You can dance, because that which appeared as emptiness was an interpretation of the mind. It was not empty. It was so full that the mind could not understand the fullness of it!
I am not serious, I am just celebrating. And when I talk to you, I am not giving you an idealogy, a philosophy, a religion — no. I simply want to share my celebration. Shift from the words to silence. Don’t listen to my words; listen to me. There, precisely there, is the message.
Just look at the facticity of it. Existence is celebrating! It is a celebration I It is already dancing — in every leaf, in every stream, in every rock, and in every star — it is always dancing. And you are invited. Otherwise you would not have been here. You are accepted; otherwise you would not have been here.
Emptiness cannot be polluted by anything, its purity is total and absolute. That emptiness is always virgin. Out of that emptiness, living in that emptiness, great joy and great peace arise and well up. This is what I call creativity. It can become a song, it can become a painting, it can become a dance, it can become love, it can become all kinds of things. But one thing is similar: it overflows. This overflowing love is a state, a luxury, a sharing for the sheer joy of sharing. This love is celebration.
My whole approach towards life is that of total acceptance, is that of celebration, not of renunciation.
Be open, and God starts pouring into you like wine from every nook and corner of existence. Then wherever you look, you find God. Then whatsoever you touch, you find God. Then whatsoever you drink and eat, you find God. And when God pours from everywhere, then life is a celebration.
Sufism is not ascetic. God wants you to celebrate. Look at these trees, how green they are and how juicy. Look at his roses, how red they are an dhow alive. Look at his birds on the wing, look at his stars — the whole existence is a dance, the whole existence is a constant celebration. Why should he ask you to become long faces, sad, shrunken? Do you think he wants you to become ugly — to torture yourself, to be violent with yourself, then you will be able to cause him, then you will be able to provoke him? He makes no conditions, remember. His love is unconditional. He has loved you already, that’s why he has created you.
Life is a celebration because it is an adventure.
