Osho - Meditate over it as deeply as possible, because it
contains one of the most fundamental truths. These four words will have to be
understood, pondered over. The first is pleasure, the second, happiness; the
third is joy, and the fourth is bliss.
Pleasure is
physical, physiological. Pleasure is the most superficial thing in life; it is
titillation. It can be sexual, it can be of other senses, it can become an
obsession with food, but it is rooted in the body. The body is your periphery,
your circumference; it is not your center. And to live on the circumference is
to live on the mercy of all kinds of things that go on happening around you.
The man who seeks pleasure remains at the mercy of accidents.
It is like the
waves in the ocean; they are at the mercy of the winds. When strong winds come,
they are there; when winds disappear, they disappear.
They don't have
an independent existence; they are dependent, and anything that is dependent on
the other brings bondage.
Pleasure is
dependent on the other. If you love a woman, if that is your pleasure, then
that woman becomes your master.
If you love a
man, if that is your pleasure and you feel unhappy, in despair, sad, without
him, then you have created a bondage for yourself.
You have created
a prison, you are no more in freedom.
If you are a seeker after money and
power, then you will be dependent on money and power.
The man who goes
on accumulating money, if it is his pleasure to have more and more money, will
become more and more miserable -- because the more he has, the more he wants,
and the more he has, the more he is afraid to lose it.
A double-edged sword: the more he wants... the
first edge of the sword. Hence he becomes more and more miserable.
The more you
demand, desire, the more you feel yourself lacking something, the more hollow,
empty, you appear to yourself.
On the other
hand -- the other edge of the sword -- is that the more you have, the more you
are afraid it can be taken away; it can be stolen.
The bank can go
bankrupt, the political situation in the country can change, the country can go
communist. There are a thousand and one things upon which your money depends.
Your money does not make you a master, it makes you a slave.
Pleasure is
peripheral; hence it is bound to depend on the outer circumstances. And it is
only titillation.
If food is
pleasure, what actually is being enjoyed? -- just the taste!
For a moment,
when the food passes your taste buds on the tongue, you feel a sensation which
you interpret as pleasure. It is your interpretation. Today it may look like
pleasure and tomorrow it may not look like pleasure. If you go on eating the
same food every day your buds on the tongue will become nonresponsive to it.
Soon you will be fed up with it -- that's how people become fed up.
One day you are
running after a man or a woman and the next day you are trying to find an
excuse to get rid of the other.
The same person,
nothing has changed! What has happened meanwhile? You are bored with the other,
because the whole pleasure was in knowing
the new. Now the other is no longer new; you are acquainted with the
territory of the other.
You are acquainted with the body of the other,
the curves of the body, the feel of the body. Now the mind is hankering for
something new. The mind is always hankering for something new. That's how mind
keeps you always tethered somewhere in the future. It keeps you hoping, but it
never delivers the goods -- it cannot. It can only create new hopes, new
desires.
Just as leaves
grow on the trees, desires and hopes grow in the mind. You wanted a new house
and now you have it -- and where is the pleasure?
Just for the
moment it was there, when you achieved your goal. Once you have achieved your
goal, your mind is no longer interested in it; it has already started spinning
new webs of desire.
It has already started thinking of other,
bigger houses. And this is so about everything.
Pleasure keeps you in a
neurotic state, restless, always in turmoil. So many desires, and every desire
unquenchable, clamoring for attention.
You remain a
victim of a crowd of insane desires -- insane because they are unfulfillable --
and they go on dragging you into different directions.
You become a
contradiction. One desire takes you to the left, another towards the right, and
simultaneously you go on nourishing both the desires. And then you feel a
split, then you feel divided, then you feel torn apart, then you feel like you
are falling into pieces. Nobody is responsible. It is the whole stupidity of
desiring pleasure that creates this.
And it is a
complex phenomenon. You are not the only one who is seeking pleasure; millions
of people just like you are seeking the same pleasures.
Hence there is
great struggle, competition, violence, war. All have become enemies to each
other because they are all seeking the same goal, and they all can't have it;
hence the
struggle has to be total.
You have to risk
all -- for nothing, because when you gain, you gain nothing, and your whole
life is wasted in this struggle.
A life which
might have been a celebration becomes a long, drawn out, unnecessary struggle.
When you are so
much after pleasure you cannot love, because the man who seeks pleasure uses
the other as a means.
And to use the
other as a means is one of the most immoral acts possible, because each being
is an end unto himself, you cannot use the other as a means.
But in
pleasure-seeking you have to use the other as a means. You become cunning
because it is such a struggle. If you are not cunning you will be deceived, and
before others deceive you, you have to deceive them.
Machiavelli has
advised pleasure-seekers that the best way of defense is to attack.
Never wait for
the other to attack you; that may be too late. Before the other attacks you,
you attack him! That is the best way of defense. And this is being followed,
whether you know Machiavelli or not.
This is
something very strange: people know about Christ, about Buddha, about Mohammed,
about Krishna; nobody follows them.
People don't
know much about Chanakya and Machiavelli, but people follow them -- as if
Machiavelli and Chanakya are very close to your heart! You need not read them,
you are already following them.
Your whole
society is based on Machiavellian principles; that's what the whole political
game is all about. Before somebody snatches anything from you, snatch it from
the other.
Be always on
guard. Naturally, if you are always on guard you will be tense, anxious,
worried. And the struggle IS such and it is constant. You are one, and the
enemies are millions.
For example, if
in India you want to become the prime minister, then millions of people, who
also want to become the prime minister, are your enemies. And who does not want
to become the prime minister? One may say, one may not say. So everyone is
against you and you are against everybody else.
This small life
of seventy, eighty years, will be wasted into some utterly futile effort.
Pleasure is not
and cannot be the goal of life. The second word to be understood is happiness.
Happiness is
psychological, pleasure is physiological. Happiness is a little better, a
little more refined, a little higher, but not very much different from
pleasure. You can say that pleasure is a lower kind of happiness and happiness
is a little higher kind of pleasure -- two sides of the same coin.
Pleasure is a
little primitive, animal; happiness is a little more cultured, a little more
human -- but it is the same game played in the world of the mind.
You are not so
much concerned with physiological sensations; you are much more concerned with
psychological sensations.
But basically
they are not different; hence Buddha has not talked about four words, he has
talked about only two.
The third is
joy; joy is spiritual. It is different, totally different from pleasure,
happiness.
It has nothing
to do with the other; it is inner. It is not dependent on circumstances; it is
your own. It is not a titillation produced by things; it is a state of peace,
of silence, a meditative state. It is spiritual.
But Buddha has
not talked about joy either, because there is still one thing that goes beyond
joy. He calls it bliss. Bliss is total. It is neither physiological nor
psychological nor spiritual. It knows no division, it is indivisible. It is
total in one sense and transcendental in another sense. Buddha only talks about
two words. The first is pleasure; it includes happiness. The second is bliss;
it includes joy.
Bliss means you
have reached to the very innermost core of your being. It belongs to the
ultimate depth of your being where even the ego is no more, where only silence
prevails; you have disappeared. In joy you are a little bit, but in bliss you
are not. The ego has dissolved; it is a state of nonbeing. Buddha calls it
nirvana. Nirvana means you have ceased to be; you are just an infinite
emptiness like the sky. And the moment you are that infinity, you become full
of the stars, and a totally new life begins. You are reborn.
Pleasure is
momentary, of time, for the time being; bliss is non temporal, timeless.
Pleasure begins and ends; bliss abides forever. Pleasure comes and goes; bliss
never comes, never goes -- it is already there in the innermost core of your
being.
Pleasure has to
be snatched away from the other; you become either a beggar or a thief.
Bliss makes you
a master. Bliss is not something that you invent but something that you
discover. Bliss is your innermost nature. It has been there since the very
beginning, you just have not looked at it, you have taken it for granted. You
don't look inwards.
This is the only
misery of man: that he goes on looking outwards, seeking and searching. And you
cannot find it in the outside because it is not there.
One evening,
Rabiya was searching for something on the street in front of her small hut. The
sun was setting; slowly slowly darkness was descending. A few people gathered.
They asked the old woman -- she was a famous Sufi mystic -- "What are you
doing? What have you lost? What are you searching for?"
She said, "I
have lost my needle."
The people said,
"Now the sun is setting and it will be very difficult to find the needle,
but we will help you. Where exactly has it fallen? -- because the road is big
and the needle is so small. If we know the exact place it will be easier to
find it."
Rabiya said, "If you don't ask me that question, that will
be better -- because in fact it has not fallen on the road at all! It has
fallen inside my house."
The people started laughing and they said,
"We had always thought that you are a little insane!
If the needle
has fallen inside the house, then why are you searching on the
road?"
Rabiya said, "For a simple, logical reason: inside the house
there is no light and on the outside a little light is still there."
The
people laughed and started dispersing.
Rabiya called
them and said, "Listen! That's exactly what you are doing; I was just
following your example.
You go on
seeking bliss in the outside world without asking the first and primary
question: Where have you lost it? And I tell you, you have lost it inside. You
are looking for it on the outside, for the simple, logical reason that your
senses open outwards -- there is a little more light.
Your eyes look
outwards, your ears hear outwards, your hands reach outwards; that's the simple
reason why you are searching there. Otherwise, I tell you, you have not lost it
outside -- and I tell you on my own authority. I have also searched on the
outside for many, many lives, and the day I looked in I was surprised. There
was no need to seek and search; it has always been there."
Bliss is your
innermost core.
Pleasure you
have to beg from others; naturally you become dependent.
Bliss makes you
a master. Bliss is not something that happens; it is already the case.
Buddha
says: THERE IS PLEASURE AND THERE IS BLISS. FORGO THE FIRST TO POSSESS THE
SECOND.
Stop looking on
the outside. Look within, turn in. Start seeking and searching in your own
interiority, into your own subjectivity. Bliss is not an object to be found
anywhere else; it is your consciousness.
In the East we
have always defined the ultimate truth as SAT-CHIT-ANAND. SAT means truth, CHIT
means consciousness, ANAND means bliss. They are all three faces of the same
reality. This is the true trinity -- not God the Father, and the Son, Jesus
Christ, and the Holy Ghost; that is not the true trinity. The true trinity is
truth, consciousness, bliss. And they are not separate phenomena, but one
energy expressing in three ways, one energy having three faces. Hence in the
East we say God is TRIMURTI -- God has three faces. These are the real faces,
not Brahma, Vishnu, Mahesh. Those are for the children -- spiritually,
metaphysically, for the immature. Brahma, Vishnu, Mahesh: those names are for
the beginners.
Truth, consciousness, bliss -- these are the ultimate
truths.
First comes
truth; as you enter in, you become aware of your eternal reality: sat, truth.
As you go deeper
into your reality, into your sat, into your truth, you become aware of
consciousness, a tremendous consciousness.
All is light, nothing is dark. All is awareness,
nothing is unawareness.
You are just a
flame of consciousness, not even a shadow of unconsciousness anywhere. And when
you enter still deeper, then the ultimate core is bliss -- anand.
Buddha says:
Forgo everything that you have thought up to now meaningful, significant.
Sacrifice
everything for this ultimate because this is the only thing that will make you
contented, that will make you fulfilled, that will bring spring to your
being... and you will blossom into a thousand and one flowers.
Pleasure will
keep you a driftwood.
Pleasure will
make you more and more cunning; it will not give you wisdom.
And it will make
you more and more a slave; it will not give you the kingdom of God. It will
make you more and more calculating, it will make you more and more
exploitative. It will make you more and more political, diplomatic. You will
start sucking people; that's what people are doing.
The husband says
to the wife, "I love you," but in reality he simply uses her. The
wife says she loves the husband, but she is simply using him.
The husband may be using her as a sexual
object and the wife may be using him as a financial security.
Pleasure makes
everybody cunning, deceptive. And to be cunning is to miss the bliss of being
innocent, is to miss the bliss of being a child.
At Lockheed, a
part was needed for a new airplane and an announcement was sent around the
world to get the lowest bid. From Poland came a bid of three thousand dollars.
England offered to build the part for six thousand. The asking price from
Israel was nine thousand. Richardson, the engineer in charge of constructing
the new plane, decided to visit each country to find the reason behind the
disparity of the bids.
In Poland, the manufacturer explained, "One
thousand for the materials needed, one thousand for the labor, and one thousand
for overhead and a tiny profit."
In England, Richardson inspected the
part and found that it was almost as good as the Polish-made one. "Why are
you asking six thousand?" inquired the engineer.
"Two thousand for
material," explained the Englishman, "two thousand for labor, and two
thousand for expenses and a small profit."
In Israel, the Lockheed
representative wandered through a back alley into a small shop and encountered
an elderly man who had submitted the bid of nine thousand dollars. "Why
are you asking that much?" he asked.
"Well," said the old Jew,
"three thousand for you, three thousand for me, and three thousand for the
schmuck in Poland!"
Money, power,
prestige -- they all make you cunning.
Seek pleasure
and you will lose your innocence; and to lose your innocence is to lose all.
Jesus says: be like a small child, only then can you enter into my kingdom of
God. And he is right.
But the
pleasure-seeker cannot be as innocent as a child. He has to be very clever,
very cunning, very political; only then can he succeed in this cut-throat
competition that exists all around.
Everybody is at
everybody else's throat. You are not living amongst friends. The world cannot
be friendly unless we drop this idea of competitiveness. But we bring every
child.... From the very beginning we start poisoning every child with this
poison of competitiveness. By the time he will be coming out of the university
he will be completely poisoned. We have hypnotized him with the idea that he
has to fight with others, that life is a survival of the fittest. Then life can
never be a celebration. Then life can never have any kind of religiousness in
it. Then it cannot be pious, holy. Then it cannot have any quality of sacredness.
Then it is all mean, ugly.
Buddha says: FORGO THE FIRST TO POSSESS THE SECOND.
Source - Osho Dhammapada Vol 8
Human Beings have built a World Wide
Economy on such a model. 
