His Words - Osho's HeartBeats Sept 1997
 
 
Questions To Osho
 
"Osho, when you talk about our having to suffer, you tell us to be joyful at the same time.
Trying to compromise these two things seems difficult."  

When I say suffer joyfully it looks paradoxical and your mind starts thinking
how to compromise both, because to you they are contradictory. They are not,
they only appear contradictory. You can enjoy suffering.
What is the secret- how to enjoy suffering? The first thing is: if you don't
escape, if you allow the suffering to be there, if you are ready to face it,
if you are not trying somehow to forget it, then you are different. Suffering
is there but just around you; it is not in the center, it is on the periphery.
It is impossible for suffering to be in the center; it is not in the nature of things.
It is always on the periphery and you are the center.
So when you allow it to happen, when you don't escape, you don't run, you are
not in a panic, suddenly you become aware that suffering is there on the
periphery, as if happening to someone else, not to you, and you are looking
at it. A subtle joy spreads all over your being because you have realized one
of the basic truths of life: that you are bliss and not suffering.
So when I say enjoy it I don't mean become a masochist; I don't mean create
suffering for yourself and enjoy it. I don't mean: go on, fall down from a
cliff, have fractures and then enjoy it- no. There are people of that type
and many of them have become ascetics, tapasvis, and they are creating
suffering for themselves. They are masochists, they are ill. They are very
dangerous people. They wanted to make others suffer but they are not so
courageous. They wanted to kill others, be violent with others, cripple
others, but they are not so courageous, so their whole violence has turned
within. Now they are crippling themselves, torturing themselves, and enjoying
it.
I am not saying be a masochist; I am simply saying suffering is there, you
need not seek for it. Enough suffering is there already, you need no go in
search. Suffering is already there; life by its very nature creates
suffering. Illness is there, death is there, the body is there- by their very
nature suffering is created. See it, look at it with a very dispassionate
eye. Look at it --  what it is, what is happening. Don't escape. Immediately
the mind says, "Escape from here, don't look at it." But if you escape then
you cannot be blissful.
Next time you fall ill and the doctor suggests to remain in bed, take it as a
blessing. Close your eyes and rest on the bed and just look at the illness.
Watch it, what it is. Don't try to analyze it, don't go into theories, just
watch it, what it is. The whole body tired, feverish --  watch it. Suddenly,
you will feel that you are surrounded by fever but there is a very cool point
within you; the fever cannot touch it, cannot influence it. The whole body
may be burning but that cool point cannot be touched.
I have heard about one Zen nun. She died, but before she died she asked her
disciples, "What do you suggest? How should I die?" It is an old tradition in
Zen that masters ask; they can die consciously, so they can ask. And they are
so playful even about death, so humorous about it, joking, laughing, they
enjoy devising methods how to die. So disciples may suggest, "Master, this
will be good, if you die standing on your head." Or someone suggests,
"Walking, because we have never seen anyone die walking." So this Zen nun
asked," What do you suggest?"
They said, "It will be good if we prepare a fire, and you sit in it and die
meditating."
She said, " This is beautiful, and never heard of before." So they prepared a
funeral pyre, the nun made herself comfortable in it, sat in a Buddha
posture, and then they lit the fire.
One man from the crowd asked, "How does it feel there? It is so hot that I
cannot even come nearer to ask you- that's why I am shouting. How does it
feel there?"
The nun laughed and said, "Only a fool can ask such a question --  How does
it feel there? There it always feels cool, perfectly cool." She is talking of
her inner being, her center. There it is always cool and only a foolish
person can ask. It is obvious. When a person is ready to sit in a pyre
meditating, and then the pyre is burnt and she is sitting silently, obviously
it shows that this person must have achieved the innermost cool point which
cannot be disturbed by any fire. Otherwise, it is not possible.
So when you are lying on your bed, feverish, on fire, the whole body burning,
just watch it. Watching, you will recede towards the source. Watching, not
doing anything.... What can you do? The fever is there, you have to pass
through it; it is no use unnecessarily fighting with it. You are resting, and
if you fight with the fever you will become more feverish, that's all. So
watch it. Watching fever, you become cool; watching more, you become cooler.
Just watching, you reach to a peak, such a cool peak, even the Himalayas will
feel jealous; even their peaks are not so cool. This is the Gourishankar, the
Everest within. And when you feel that the fever has disappeared.... It has
never really been there; it has only been in the body, very, very far away.
Infinite space exists between you and your body -- infinite space, I say. An
unbridgeable gap exists between you and your body. And all suffering exists
on the periphery. Hindus say it is a dream because the distance is so vast,
unbridgeable. It is just like a dream happening somewhere else --  not
happening to you --  in some other world, on some other planet.
When you watch suffering suddenly you are not the sufferer, and you start
enjoying. Through suffering you become aware of the opposite pole, the
blissful inner being. So when I say enjoy, I am saying: Watch. Return to the
source, get centered. Then, suddenly, there is no agony; only ecstasy exists.

Those who are on the periphery exist in agony. For them, no ecstasy. For
those who have come to their center no agony exists. For them, only ecstasy.

 



 



 
 

"Beloved Osho, I have the most beautiful Master ever - life has given me so much since I have been with you - but still, except for moments of beatitude with you or in my meditation, deep down inside myself there is always a deep-rooted sadness and a longing for some space I can hardly remember. Can you please comment?"  
 
Meditation always opens doors, different doors to different people.
Sadness is not necessarily something bad. Don't judge it as a bad or negative
quality.
When a person who has never been silent, for the first time becomes silent,
the very silence feels sad because there is no excitement, no firecrackers.
You can misunderstand your first acquaintance with silence as sadness, but it
is not sadness. It is just that you have been always engaged in a thousand
and one things and now they have all disappeared. You feel a little lost.
Before silence becomes a song, a small period, a transitory period, is
absolutely necessary.
You know sadness. And sadness has something of silence in it -- whenever you
are sad, you are a little silent. So there is an association between your
sadness and silence. When you become silent for the first time, the only
thing you can feel from your past experience is sadness.
Allow it to deepen. Don't judge it as sadness, because that very judgment may
become a barrier. The moment you say something negative you are trying to get rid of it.
Don't say anything negative about it.
Just accept it as a bridge between silence and song.
Just wait a little, and you will start feeling that this silence is not dead,
it is not the silence of the graveyard. It is a silence which is very much
alive, a silence which is not empty but too full, overflowing....
Overflowing with what? Again, a new experience is waiting for you. You have
known only songs with words. You have never known a pure song without words,
music without sound.
Just a little waiting, and the sadness will start turning into a song with no
words, into a music with no sounds, into a dance with no movements.
Everything is going perfectly right, just a little bit of patience is needed.
When you are sick, in the hospitals you are called `patients'. Have you ever
thought about why? -- because healing takes time, and you have to be patient.
This is inner healing, and you need a deeper patience.
But if silence is there and meditation is happening, then there is no problem
at all. Spring will be coming soon with all its colors and all its flowers
and all its beauty.
Just wait a little.

OSHO

Beyond Enlightenment
Chapter 25: You are what you are seeking