PLEASURE IS ANIMAL, HAPPINESS IS HUMAN, BLISS IS DIVINE

Beloved Master, What is Happiness?

Jayananda, it depends. It depends on you, on your state of consciousness or unconsciousness, whether you are asleep or awake. There is one famous maxim of Murphy. He says there are two types of people: One, who always divide humanity in two types, and the other, who don't divide humanity at all. I belong to the first type.... Humanity can be divided in two types: the sleeping ones and the awakened ones -- and, of course, a small part in between.

Happiness will depend on where you are in your consciousness. If you are asleep, then pleasure is happiness. Pleasure means sensation, trying to achieve something through the body which is not possible to achieve through the body, forcing the body to achieve something it is not capable of. People are trying, in every possible way, to achieve happiness through the body.

The body can give you only momentary pleasures, and each pleasure is balanced by pain in the same amount, in the same degree. Each pleasure is followed by its opposite because body exists in the world of duality, just as the day is followed by night and death is followed by life and life is followed by death. It is a vicious circle. Your pleasure will be followed by pain, your pain will be followed by pleasure.

But you will never be at ease. When you will be in a state of pleasure you will be afraid that you are going to lose it, and that fear will poison it. And when you will be lost in pain, of course, you will be in suffering, and you will try every possible effort to get out of it -- just to fall again back into it. Buddha calls this the wheel of birth and death. We go on moving in this wheel, clinging to the wheel... and the wheel moves on. Sometimes pleasure comes up and sometimes pain comes up, but we are crushed between these two rocks.

But the sleepy person knows nothing else. He knows only a few sensations of the body -- food, sex. This is his world; he goes on moving between these two. These are the two ends of his body: food and sex. If he represses sex he becomes addicted to food: if he represses food he becomes addicted to sex. Energy goes on moving like a pendulum. And whatsoever you call pleasure is, at the most, just a relief of a tense state. Sexual energy gathers, accumulates; you become tense and heavy and you want to release it.

The man who is asleep, his sexuality is nothing but a relief, like a good sneeze. It gives you nothing but a certain relief. A tension was there, now it is no more there; but it will accumulate again. Food gives you only a little taste on the tongue; it is not much to live for. But many people are living only to eat; there are very few people who eat to live.

The story of Columbus is well-known. It was a long trip. For three months they saw nothing but water. Then one day Columbus looked out at the horizon and saw trees. And if you think Columbus was happy to see trees, you should have seen his dog! That's why the Siberian dogs are the fastest in the world: because the trees are so far apart. But this is the world of pleasure. The dog can be forgiven, but you cannot be forgiven.

During their first date, the young man, looking for ways to have a good time, asked the young lady if she would like to go bowling. She replied that she did not care to go bowling. He then suggested a movie, but she answered that she did not care for them. While trying to think of something else he offered her a cigarette which she declined. He then asked if she would like to dance and drink at the new disco. She again declined by saying she did not care for those things. In desperation he asked her to come to his apartment for a night of lovemaking. To his surprise she happily agreed, kissed him passionately and said, "You see, you don't need any of those things to have a good time!"

It depends on people what can be called happiness. To the sleeping, pleasurable sensations are happiness. He lives from one pleasure to another pleasure. He is just rushing from one sensation to another sensation. He lives for small thrills. His life is very superficial; it has no depth, it has no quality. He lives in the world of quantity.

Then the people who are in between, who are neither asleep nor awake, who are just in a limbo, a little bit asleep, a little bit awake. You sometimes have that experience in the early morning: still sleepy, but you can't say you are asleep because you can hear the noise in the house, your wife preparing tea, the noise of the samovar or the milkman at the door or children getting ready to go to school. You can hear these things, but still you are not awake. Vaguely, dimly these noises reach to you, as if there is a great distance between you and all that is happening around you.

It feels as if it is still a part of the dream. It is not a part of the dream, but you are in a state of in-between. The same happens when you start meditating. The nonmeditator sleeps, dreams; the meditator starts moving away from his sleep towards awakening. He is in a transitory state. Then happiness has a totally different meaning: it becomes more of a quality, less of a quantity; it is more psychological, less physiological.

He enjoys music more, he enjoys poetry more, he enjoys creating something. He enjoys nature, its beauty. He enjoys silence. He enjoys what he had never enjoyed before, and this is far more lasting. Even if the music stops, something goes on lingering in you. And it is not a relief.

The difference between pleasure and THIS happiness is: it is not a relief, it is an enrichment. You become more full, you become a little overflowing. Listening to good music, something is triggered in your being, a harmony arises in you -- you become musical. Or dancing, suddenly you forget your body; your body becomes weightless. The grip of gravitation over you is lost. Suddenly you are in a different space: the ego is not so solid, the dancer melts and merges into the dance. This is far higher, far deeper

than the joy that you gain from food or sex. This has a depth. But this is also not the ultimate. The ultimate happens only when you are fully awake, when you are a buddha, when all sleep is gone and all dreaming is gone, when your whole being is full of light, when there is no darkness within you. All darkness has disappeared and with that darkness, the ego is gone. All tensions have disappeared, all anguish, all anxiety. You are in a state of total contentment. You live in the present; no past, no future anymore. You are utterly herenow.

This moment is all. Now is the only time and here is the only space. And then suddenly the whole sky drops into you. This is bliss. This is REAL happiness. Seek bliss, Jayananda; it is your birthright. Don't remain lost in the jungle of pleasures; rise a little higher. Reach to happiness and then to bliss.

Pleasure is animal, happiness is human, bliss is divine. Pleasure binds you, it is a bondage, it chains you. Happiness gives you a little more rope, a little bit of freedom, but only a little bit. Bliss is absolute freedom. You start moving upwards; it gives you wings. You are no more part of the gross earth; you become part of the sky. You become light, you become joy. Pleasure is dependent on others. Happiness is not so dependent on others, but still it is separate from you. Bliss is not dependent, is not separate either; it is your very being, it is your very nature. To attain it is to attain to God, to nirvana.

OSHO♥

ISN'T SEX ANIMALISTIC?

I Love my husband but I hate Sex, and that creates conflict. Isn't sex Animalistic?

It is. But man is an animal -- as much of an animal as any other animal. But when I say that man is an animal, I don't mean that man finishes with animality; he can be more than the animal, he can be less also. That is the glory of man, the freedom and the danger, the agony and the ecstasy. A man can be far lower than animals, and a man can be far higher than gods. Man has infinite potentiality.

A dog is a dog: he remains a dog. He is born a dog and he will die a dog. A man can become a Buddha, and a man can become an Adolf Hitler too. So man is very open-ended on both sides -- he can fall back. Can you find any animal more dangerous than man, more mad than man? Just think of a scene: fifty thousand monkeys sitting in a stadium killing small children -- throwing them into a fire. What will you think about them?

Thousands of children are being thrown into a fire... A great fire is burning just in the middle of the stadium, and fifty thousand monkeys enjoying with joy, dancing, and children are being thrown -- their own children. What will you think about these monkeys? Will you not think that the monkeys have gone mad? But this has happened in humanity. In Carthage it happened: fifty thousand men burning children. They burnt three hundred children at one time. as an offering to their god. Their own children!

But forget about Carthage, it is long past. What did Adolf Hitler do in this century'? Of course, this is a far-advanced century, so Adolf Hitler was capable of doing greater things than Carthage. He killed millions of Jews, thousands at a time would be forced into a chamber and gassed. And hundreds of people would be looking from the outside... watching through one-way mirrors. What you will think about these people? What type of men...? People being gassed, burnt, evaporated, and others are watching? Can you think about animals doing such a thing?

During three thousand years, man has been through five thousand wars -- killing and killing and killing. And you call sex animalistic? Animals have never done anything more 'animalistic' than man. And you think man is not an animal? Man IS an animal. And the idea that man is not an animal is one of the hindrances for your growth. So you take it for granted that you are not animals, and then you stop growing. The first recognition has to be this: 'I am an animal and I have to be alert and and go beyond it.'

It happened: A man wrote to a country hotel in Ireland to ask if his dog would be allowed to stay there. He received the following answer: Dear Sir, I have been in the hotel business for over thirty years. Never yet have I had to call in the police to eject a disorderly dog in the small hours of the morning. No dog has ever attempted to pass off a bad cheque on me. Never has a dog set the bed-clothes alight through smoking. I have never found a hotel towel in a dog's suitcase. Your dog is welcome.
P.S. If he can vouch for you, you can come too!

Animals are beautiful, whatsoever they are; they are just innocent. Man is very cunning, very calculating, very ugly. Man can fall lower than the animals, because man can rise higher than man higher than gods. Man has an infinite potentiality: he can be the lowest and he can be the highest. He has the whole ladder in his being, from the first rung to the last rung.

So the first thing I would like to say to you: don't call sex just animalistic, because sex can be just animalistic -- that is possible, but it need not be. It can rise higher, it can become love, it can become prayer. It depends on you. Sex in itself is nothing like a fixed entity; it is just a possibility. You can make it as you like it, as you want it. That is the whole message of Tantra: that sex can become Samadhi. That is the vision of Tantra: that sex can become Samadhi, that through sex the ultimate ecstasy can enter in you. Sex can become the bridge between you and the ultimate.

You say: I Love my husband but I hate Sex, and that creates conflict. How can you love your husband and yet hate sex'? You must be playing on words. How can you love your husband and hate sex? Just try to understand it. When you love a man, you would like to hold his hand too. When you love a man, you would like to hug him sometimes too. When you love a man, you would not only like to hear his sound, you would like to see his face too. When you only hear the sound of your beloved, the beloved is far away, the sound is not enough; when you see him too you are more satisfied.

When you touch him, certainly you are even more satisfied. When you taste him, certainly you are even more satisfied. What is sex? It is just a meeting of two deep energies. You must be carrying some taboos in your mind, inhibitions. What is sex'? Just two persons meeting at the maximum point -- not only holding hands, not only hugging each other's bodies, but penetrating into each other's energy realm. Why should you hate sex?

Your mind must have been conditioned by the Mahatmas, the so-called 'religious' people who have poisoned the whole of humanity, who have poisoned your very source of growth. Why should you hate? If you love your man, you would like to share your total being with him: there is no need to hate. And if you hate sex, what are you saying'? You are simply saying that you want the man to take care of you financially, to take care of the house, to bring you a car and a fur coat. You want to use the man... and you call it love'? And you don't want to share anything with him.

When you love, you share all. When you love, you don't have any secrets. When you love, you have your heart utterly open; you are available. When you love, you are ready to go with him even to hell if he is going to hell. But this happens. We are very expert with words: we don't want to say that we don't love, so we make it look as if we love and we hate sex. Sex is not all love -- that's true, love is more than sex -- that's true; but sex is the very foundation of it. Yes, one day sex disappears, but to hate it is not the way to make it disappear.

To hate it is the way to repress it. And whatsoever is repressed will come up one way or other. Please don't try to become a monk or a nun. Remember, sex is natural. One can go beyond it, but not though repression. And if you repress it, sooner or later you will find some other way to express it; some perversion is bound to enter -- you will have to find some substitute. And substitutes are of NO help at all; they DON'T help, they CAN'T help.

And once a natural problem has been turned in such a way that you have forgotten about it, and it has bubbled up somewhere else as a substitute, you can go on fighting with the substitute, but it is not going to help substitutes never help; they only create perversions. obsessions. Be natural if you want to go beyond nature some day. Be natural: that is the first requirement. I am not saying that there is nothing more than nature, there is a higher nature -- that is the whole message of Tantra. But be very earthly if you really want to rise high in the sky.

Can't you see these trees? They are rooted in the earth, and the better they are rooted the higher they go. The higher they want to go, the deeper they will have to go into the earth. If a tree wants to touch the stars, the tree will have to go and touch the very hell -- that's the only way. Be rooted in your body if you want to become a soul. Be rooted in your sex if you really want to become a lover. Yes, the more energy is converted into love, the less and less need of sex will be there, but you will not hate it.

Hate is not a right relationship with anything. Hate simply shows that you are afraid. Hate simply shows that there is great fear in you. Hate simply shows that deep down you are still attracted. If you hate sex, then your energy will start moving somewhere else. Energy has to move. If God gives you sexual energy, it becomes sacred. Anything from God is sacred and everything is from God. And by "God" I don't mean a certain person, I mean the whole existence.

When the cuckoo starts singing, have you ever thought for what the song is for? It is to attract a sexual partner. But nobody condemns the cuckoo as obscene. When the flowers open and send their fragrance, what do you think they are doing? They are advertising that "I have come to flower; now butterflies, bees are invited and welcome." But for what? -- because the flower has small seeds which will go with the butterflies, with the bees. Because the same division exists in the whole existence: there are plants which are male, and there are plants which are female. The male plant has to send its seeds to the female plant, its beloved.

Have you seen the dance of a peacock? Do you think he is dancing for you? And remember one thing: The beautiful tail of rainbow colors and the dancing peacock is male. He is attracting some female. It is only the insane humanity where the female has to attract the male. All over nature, it is the male who attracts the female. And for that reason, all over nature the male is more beautiful -- because the female need not have any beauty; just being female is enough. But strange -- man has been standing on his head, doing shirshasana continuously.


It is the male who should be more beautiful so that a female is attracted towards him. But religions have made a mess. To such an extent that if you see a rich man walking with his wife, he looks like a servant, and the wife looks nothing but an advertisement for his riches. All the diamonds, all the emeralds, all the rubies, all gold -- that is an advertisement for the man. He's just a businessman; having a beautiful wife is a business strategy so you can invite your customers to your house for dinner, and your wife will hypnotize them with her beauty so that you can cut their pockets!

But man has become just a servant, a businessman. His riches are known through the wife -- his riches, his beauty, his genius has to be kept hidden. Whenever you disturb nature and start manufacturing your own rules, remember it is a crime -- unforgivable. Man, unless he meditates, will go crazy -- crazy after women. And man finds meditation more difficult than the woman. Experienced mothers who have given two, three births can be asked before the birth and can say whether there is a girl or a boy in their womb, because a girl remains silent, and a boy starts playing football. He starts kicking here and there.

In meditation girls can enter deeper. On the one hand they can go deeper in meditation; on the other hand their sexuality is negative, it is not a compulsion on them. I was amazed in my experience moving amongst all kinds of monks and nuns, because no monk is really celibate, but nuns are celibate. They can manage to be celibate; they don't have an aggressive sex, and moreover nature has provided that every month their sex energy goes out of their body automatically, they are clean again for one month.

But man is in a difficulty. His sex energy can be subdued only by deeper meditation. Then he will not go crazy. Unless you meditate deeply, you will not be able to transcend your sexual craziness.

The student demonstration had turned into a riot. Suddenly a man staggered out of the crowd carrying a limp girl in his arms. "Here," shouted a cop running up to the man, "give her to me. I will get her out of this."
"The hell with you," replied the man, "go and find one of your own!"
Even in a riot, when people are being killed, shot, the man's mind remains continuously thinking of sex.

Sex is man's greatest bondage. You have to make every effort for meditativeness, so that all your sexual energy, instead of moving downwards, starts moving upwards. Instead of finding a beautiful woman, start creating a beautiful man within you. Rather than finding a graceful woman, your energy can make you graceful. But man is more stupid than woman. The whole of history has been made up by man, and you can see the madness: it is a history not of mankind, but of madness, wars, rape, burning living people, destruction.
And now they have come to the peak; perhaps Ronald Reagan will be the last chapter of history -- although there will be no one to read it, and perhaps no one will be able to write it even.

A married couple took their little boy to the circus. During the gorilla act the husband had to go to the bathroom, and while he was gone, the little boy nudged his mother and said, "What is that long thing hanging down between the gorilla's legs?"
His mother was very embarrassed and said quickly, "Oh, that's nothing, dear."
When the husband returned, the wife went off to buy some popcorn, and while she was gone, the little boy nudged his father and said, "Daddy, what is that big thing hanging down between the gorilla's legs?"
The father smiled and said, "That son, is his penis."
The little boy looked puzzled for a moment and then said, "Then why did mummy just say it was nothing?"
"Son," said his father proudly, "I have spoiled that woman."

OSHO♥