Existence is not a work, it is a celebration—a sheer dance of energy which will go on and on forever in different forms, but cannot disappear. Energy is eternal.
It is a very wrong conditioning that has created a workaholic society, which condemns people who do not participate. Yes, there are needs: you need food, you need clothes, you need some shelter. Naturally, you will have to do something to create these small things. But this is not the destiny of existence that you created a house, that you produced a few children, that you are fighting with your wife. I cannot see that against the vast panorama of existence, your small stupidities are fulfilling any destiny.
I want it to be emphatically understood by my people: we don’t have any work here. We have to join in the celebration of existence. Those small needs are only survival measures. Don’t brag about how big a bank balance you have; existence has no need of it. Don’t brag about how great a politician you are, a prime minister or a president; existence simply knows nothing about you. Existence is more in tune with these small birds who for no reason start singing, out of sheer energy. I want to destroy the achieving mind. That is your disease. I want you to relax and enjoy.
I have heard a story, I don’t know whether it is true or not. It has to be true.
Long ago, when humanity was not such a big crowd of five billion people, they decided: let us see what happens if one particular day everybody laughs loudly, dances and jumps for no reason at all. The whole world at a certain moment decided it was worth experimenting to see what happens. And what happened was very shocking, because everybody thought, “When there will be so much noise and laughter and dancing and singing, it is better to remain silent and watch and enjoy the whole thing.” But everybody thought the same way. Mind functions the same way. For those five minutes that were chosen for rejoicing, shouting, jumping—whatever you wanted to do to express your joy—the whole world fell completely silent. They could not believe… what has gone wrong?
Nothing had gone wrong; it is the same mind. Everybody thought, “Let us watch it. It is going to be great entertainment. If you become a participant you will not be able to enjoy all kinds of things that will be happening all around.” But what came to their mind was that because everything stopped—there was such silence, as there has never been.
This whole universe is a temple, and the whole existence is trying to reach you in so many ways—through the sun rays, through the trees, through the birds—these are all messengers. I want to transform even the small work that you do. Make it more aesthetic, make it more creative. Make it a great joy, because it is your life. It is going to give you food, it is going to give you clothes; so whatever you do, it is not work, it is simply to remain as long as possible in this body and celebrate existence.
I have loved only one American in my life, and that man is Walt Whitman. And the reason I loved him is one of his small poems. The title of the poem explains everything. It is “I Celebrate Myself”. Only when you can say, “I celebrate myself”—then your work is transformed into celebration and your life becomes a non-achieving, non-ambitious journey of beauty. The moment you love the work, it becomes creative. It takes on a totally different colour, different beauty. These people, these trees, these birds should also become part of the space that you call love. And then you will not ask, “I want to be free.” You are free!
Love is the only alchemy that brings freedom. It is hate, it is anger, it is jealousy that keeps you in bondage. Just a pure love—unconditional, because what condition can you put on the birds? What condition can you put on the trees? Unconditional love, and you are free. Free from all jealousy, free from all anger, because there is no enemy here. All are friends and all are lovers and all are part of one cosmic whole.
But this kind of confusion happens in the mind, because the mind is carrying very contradictory, inconsistent, irrelevant information. Your mind has been completely destroyed, because society does not need you to have a mind. Society needs you to be a worker, a slave, and a slave is not supposed to have a mind of his own.
They have used a very cunning way to destroy your mind, so that you can remain satisfied that you have your mind and in fact, you don’t have it. They have put all kinds of contradictory things in it.
One has to attain to freedom, and nobody has told you that love is freedom.
Nobody has told you that celebration is freedom.
Nobody has told you that to be alone and content, so utterly satisfied that you can say “I celebrate myself,” is freedom.
You don’t understand that the path that brings you to yourself… from where you have never gone away, just your mind has been projecting faraway goals. But you have remained in your home. The only thing that can bring you back, can withdraw your projections, is the joy of being alone. You don’t know the purity of aloneness. Aloneness is your home. And aloneness is your freedom—freedom from the other, freedom from the need of the other, freedom from the dependence on others.
Aloneness is your freedom and aloneness is your home.
This celebrating existence, this celebrating consciousness is your home.
Excerpted from Om Mani Padme Hum # 26 Courtesy Osho International Foundation www.osho.com
This was first published in the November 2012 issue of Complete Wellbeing.
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