The Enlightened Person Is Always Joyous
by the Enlightened Master Osho
Serious and sad people become something else, they don't
become enlightened. They become popes, Mother Teresas, Mahatma Gandhis, Morarji
Desais, Shankaracharyas, Ayatollah Khomaniacs, Imams, priests. The churches,
the synagogues, the temples, the mosques, the Gurudwaras they are full of
these people; they are serious people. They gather around an enlightened person
and they start destroying all that he has brought into the springtime. They
start creating a dead tradition and the tradition has to be serious, the
tradition cannot be non-serious.
The enlightened person is always joyous, but the tradition, the convention cannot be joyous. The whole structure of a tradition is basically political; it is there to dominate, it is there to oppress, it is there to exploit. And you cannot exploit people playfully, you have to be very serious. You have to make them so sad, so afraid of life itself, you have to create so much trembling in their being, that out of that fear they fall into your hands; they become objects of your manipulation.
A man like me cannot exploit you, because this whole place is more like a tavern than a temple. It is more playful than serious. We are engaged in a beautiful game! The moment you think of it as a game, all seriousness disappears, things become lighter. You can walk in a dancing way; there is no weight on you.
But the priests cannot do it; their whole prestige depends on their seriousness. The more serious they are, the more somber-looking, the more "holier-than-thou" they can pretend to be … And they will do everything they will fast… naturally, when a person fasts he becomes serious, he cannot laugh. When you are hungry, starving, you cannot laugh and you cannot allow anybody else to laugh either. It is not a laughing matter! You are starving, sacrificing, crucifying yourself, and people are laughing! It cannot be pardoned, it cannot be forgiven.
Naturally, when you go to a fasting person you become serious you have to be serious. That is simple manners. Now, a person who is distorting his body in every possible way, who is torturing his body in every possible way how can you laugh? The very scene is sad; you feel burdened. It is very difficult to be with these so-called saints. That's why people just go to pay their respects and escape immediately, because to sit with them means they will make you burdened, they will create guilt in you...
These sad people become Catholic priests, Hindu Shankaracharyas, Mohammedan Imam, and what-not. These serious people lose their humanity; they become parrots. But it pays. You need not have much intelligence to be a parrot, you need not have much courage to be a parrot; if you just have a little bit of memory and you can recite the Vedas, the Gita, the Koran, you will be respected and honored. You are not doing anything creative, you are not adding anything to the beauty of the world, you are not contributing to the earth and its joys, on the contrary, you are destroying. But people have been conditioned for thousands of years, and they go on doing things according to their conditioning. Parrots are worshipped….
Life has to be taken hilariously! Life is so full of laughter, it is so ridiculous, it is so funny that unless your juices have gone completely dry you cannot be serious. I have looked around at life in every possible way and it is always funny, whatever way you look at it! It gets funnier and funnier! It is such a beautiful gift of the beyond...
I am against all seriousness. My whole approach is that of humor, and the greatest religious quality is a sense of humor not truth, not God, not virtue, but a sense of humor. If we can fill the whole earth with laughter, with dancing and singing people singing and swinging! if we can make the earth a carnival of joy, a festival of lights, we will have brought for the first time a true sense of religiousness to the earth."
Osho - "The Goose is Out"The enlightened person is always joyous, but the tradition, the convention cannot be joyous. The whole structure of a tradition is basically political; it is there to dominate, it is there to oppress, it is there to exploit. And you cannot exploit people playfully, you have to be very serious. You have to make them so sad, so afraid of life itself, you have to create so much trembling in their being, that out of that fear they fall into your hands; they become objects of your manipulation.
A man like me cannot exploit you, because this whole place is more like a tavern than a temple. It is more playful than serious. We are engaged in a beautiful game! The moment you think of it as a game, all seriousness disappears, things become lighter. You can walk in a dancing way; there is no weight on you.
But the priests cannot do it; their whole prestige depends on their seriousness. The more serious they are, the more somber-looking, the more "holier-than-thou" they can pretend to be … And they will do everything they will fast… naturally, when a person fasts he becomes serious, he cannot laugh. When you are hungry, starving, you cannot laugh and you cannot allow anybody else to laugh either. It is not a laughing matter! You are starving, sacrificing, crucifying yourself, and people are laughing! It cannot be pardoned, it cannot be forgiven.
Naturally, when you go to a fasting person you become serious you have to be serious. That is simple manners. Now, a person who is distorting his body in every possible way, who is torturing his body in every possible way how can you laugh? The very scene is sad; you feel burdened. It is very difficult to be with these so-called saints. That's why people just go to pay their respects and escape immediately, because to sit with them means they will make you burdened, they will create guilt in you...
These sad people become Catholic priests, Hindu Shankaracharyas, Mohammedan Imam, and what-not. These serious people lose their humanity; they become parrots. But it pays. You need not have much intelligence to be a parrot, you need not have much courage to be a parrot; if you just have a little bit of memory and you can recite the Vedas, the Gita, the Koran, you will be respected and honored. You are not doing anything creative, you are not adding anything to the beauty of the world, you are not contributing to the earth and its joys, on the contrary, you are destroying. But people have been conditioned for thousands of years, and they go on doing things according to their conditioning. Parrots are worshipped….
Life has to be taken hilariously! Life is so full of laughter, it is so ridiculous, it is so funny that unless your juices have gone completely dry you cannot be serious. I have looked around at life in every possible way and it is always funny, whatever way you look at it! It gets funnier and funnier! It is such a beautiful gift of the beyond...
I am against all seriousness. My whole approach is that of humor, and the greatest religious quality is a sense of humor not truth, not God, not virtue, but a sense of humor. If we can fill the whole earth with laughter, with dancing and singing people singing and swinging! if we can make the earth a carnival of joy, a festival of lights, we will have brought for the first time a true sense of religiousness to the earth."
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1 comment:
what a load of crap ....a truly enlightened person would not need to stand in judgement over other religions. I walk in total freedom and am daily filled with joy and chose Catholic after doing the new age, penticostal, baptist, methodist, non denominational and buddism....so get over yourself. Funny thing....my parish priest makes us laugh constantly at mass.
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