Celebration
Part 1:
You are at the peak of consciousness, you can celebrate, you are celebrating. But how can the ordinary person share with you in celebration?
Nobody is ordinary. Who told you
that you are ordinary.? From where have you got the notion that you
are ordinary? Everybody is extraordinary! This is how it should be.
God never creates ordinary persons. How can God create ordinary
persons? Everybody is special, extraordinary. But remember not to
feed your ego with it. It is not on your part that you are
extraordinary, it is on the part of God. You come out of the total,
you remain rooted in the total, you dissolve back into the total -
and the total is extraordinary, incomparable. You are also
incomparable, but all the religions, the so-called religions, have
tried to make you feel ordinary. This is a trick to provoke your
ego. Try to understand this: the moment somebody says that you are
ordinary, he creates a desire in you to become extraordinary,
because you start feeling inferior.
You have to be peaks of egos, only then does life seem significant.
Life is significant, and there is no purpose in it! It is a
purposeless significance, like a song, or a dance - like a flower;
for no purpose at all it is flowering, for nobody special it is
flowering. Even if nobody passes by the road, the flower will
flower, the fragrance will be spread into the winds. Even if nobody
ever comes to smell it, it is irrelevant. The very flowering is the
significance, not any purpose.
But you have been taught that you
are ordinary. ′Become great poets, become great painters, become
great leaders of men, great politicians, become great saints.′ As
you are, all the religions condemn you, ′You are nothing, a worm on
the earth. Become something! Prove that you are something before
God′ - as if to prove your mettle. But I tell you that this is
absolutely absurd. These religions have been talking irreligion.
There is no need for you to prove anything. The very phenomenon that
God has produced you is enough; you are accepted. God has mothered
you, it is enough. What more can you prove? You need not be great
painters, you need not be great leaders, you need not be great
saints. There is no need to be great, because you are already great.
This is my emphasis: you are already that which you ought to be. You
may not have realized it, that I know. You may not have encountered
your own reality, that I know. You may not have looked within
yourself and seen the emperor within, that I know. You may be
thinking that you are a beggar and trying to be an emperor. But as I
see you, you are already the emperor.
There is no need to postpone
celebration. Immediately, right this moment you can celebrate.
Nothing else is needed. To celebrate, life is needed and life you
have. To celebrate, being is needed and being you have. To
celebrate, trees and birds and stars are needed, and they are there.
What else do you need? If you are crowned and caged in a golden
pa1ace, then will you celebrate? In fact, then it will become more
impossible. Have you ever seen an emperor laughing and dancing and
singing in the street? No, he is caged, imprisoned: manners,
etiquette...
Be ordinary. Nothing is wrong with
ordinariness, because in your very ordinariness you are
extraordinary. Don′t bother about the conditions to decide when you
will celebrate. If you bother about fulfilling certain conditions,
do you think that then you will celebrate? You will never celebrate,
you will die a beggar. Why not right now? What are you lacking? This
is my observation: if you can start right now, suddenly the energy
is flowing. And the more you dance, the more it is flowing, the more
capable you become. The ego needs conditions to be fulfilled, not
life. Birds can sing and dance, ordinary birds. Have you ever seen
any extraordinary birds singing and dancing? Do they ask that they
first have to be a Ravi Shankar or a Yehudi Menuhin? Do they ask
that first they have to be great singers and go to colleges of music
to learn, and then they will sing? They simply dance and simply
sing; no training is needed.
Man is born with the capacity to
celebrate. When even birds can celebrate, why not you? But you
create unnecessary barriers, you create a hurdle race. There are no
barriers. You put them there and then you say, ′Unless we cross them
and jump them, how can we dance?′ You stand against yourself, you
stand divided against yourself, you are an enemy to your self. All
the preachers in the world go on saying that you are ordinary, so
how can you dare to celebrate? You have to wait. First be a Buddha,
first be a Jesus, a Mohammed, and then you can.
But just the opposite is the case:
if you can dance, you are already the Buddha; if you can celebrate,
you are already Mohammed; if you can be blissful, you are Jesus. The
contrary is not true; the contrary is a false logic. It says: first
be a Buddha, then you can celebrate. But how will you be a Buddha
without celebrating? I say to you, ′Celebrate, forget all Buddhas!′
In your very celebration you will find that you have yourself become
a Buddha.
Remember this, that the teachings of the awakened ones, all the
awakened ones and all of their teachings, can be summarized into a
simple sentence, and that sentence is: you are already that which
you can be. You may take many lives to realize it; that is for you
to determine. But if you are alert, not even a single moment is to
be lost. ′Thou art that,′ tattwarnasi swetketu, you are
already that, there is no need to become. Becoming, the very effort
to become some thing, is illusory. You are, you are not to become.
But preachers tell you that you are ordinary and they create a
desire in you to become extraordinary. They make you feel inferior
and create a desire to become superior. They create an inferiority
complex and then you are in their grip. Then they teach you how to
become superior. First they condemn you, create a guilt within you,
and then they show you the path to be virtuous.
You will really be in difficulty
with me because your mind would like the same, because that gives
you time. And I don′t give you time. I say that you are already
that. Everything is ready. Start the feast, celebrate it! Your mind
says, ′But I have to get ready, a little time is needed.′ That′s
why, in this postponement, preachers come in. Through this gap they
enter into your being and destroy you. They say, ′Yes, time is
needed. How can you celebrate right now? Prepare, train yourself.
Many things have to be discarded, many things have to be improved.
You need a long training and discipline. It may take many lives, and
only then will you be able to celebrate. How can you celebrate right
now?′ They appeal to you because then you can relax and you can say,
′Okay, so if it is a question of a long time, right now is not the
problem. We can go on doing whatsoever we are doing.′ Some day in
the future, a golden tomorrow, a rainbow-like thing.... When it is
achieved, you will dance.
Meanwhile you can be miserable;
meanwhile you can allow yourself to be miserable; meanwhile you can
enjoy self-torture - it is up to you. If you decide for misery, no
need to create so much philosophy around it. You can simply say, ′I
enjoy misery.′ It is really surprising that nobody ever asks, ′How
can I be miserable right now? A discipline is needed, training is
needed. I will go to Patanjalis, and ask great Masters, and then I
will learn how to be miserable.′
It seems that to be miserable needs
no training; you are born to be miserable. But then why does bliss
need training? Both are two aspects of the same coin. If you can be
miserable without training, you can be blissful without training. Be
natural, loose, and just feel things. And don′t wait - start! Even
if you feel that you don′t know the right steps, start dancing.
I am not saying that dancing is
going to be your art. For art, training may be needed. I am simply
saying that dancing is just an attitude. Even not knowing the right
steps, you can dance. And if you can dance, who bothers about the
right steps! - dancing in itself is enough. It is an overflowing of
your energy. If it becomes an art by itself, it′s okay; if it
doesn′t become, it′s okay. In itself it is enough, more than enough.
Nothing else is needed.
So don′t say to me, ′You are at
the peak of consciousness.′ Where are you? Where do you think
you are.? Your valley is in your dreams. Your darkness is because
you remain with closed eyes; otherwise you are there where I am. It
is not that you are in the valley and I am at the peak. I am at the
peak and you are also at the peak, but you dream about the valley. I
live in Poona, you also live in Poona. But when you fall asleep, you
start dreaming about London and New-York and Calcutta, and you visit
thousands of places. I don′t go anywhere; in my sleep also, I am in
Poona. But you go wandering. You are at the same peak where I am, it
is just that you remain with closed eyes. You say, it is too dark.′
I talk about light and you say, ′You must be somewhere else on a
high peak. We are ordinary people living in darkness.′ But I can see
that you are sitting on the same peak with closed eyes. You have to
be beaten out of your sleep, shocked. And then you will see that the
valley never existed. Darkness was not there; only your eyes were
closed.
Be alert. And if you want to be alert, celebration will be very,
very helpful. When I say celebrate what do I mean? I mean that
whatsoever you do, don′t do it as a duty, do it from your love;
don′t do it as a burden, do it as a celebration. You can eat as if
it is a duty: long-faced, dull, dead, insensitive. You can throw
food inside yourself without ever tasting, without ever feeling for
it. It is life; you live through it. Don′t be so insensitive to it.
Indians have said, ′anam brahman,′ food is Brahman. This is
celebration: you are eating brahman, you are eating God through
food, because only God exists. When you are taking a shower, it is
God showering because only God exists. When you go for a morning
walk, it is God on a morning walk. And the breeze is also God, and
the trees are also God - everything is so Divine. How can you be a
long-face, dead and dull, moving in life as if you are carrying a
burden?
When I say celebrate, I mean become
more and more sensitive to everything. In life, dance should not be
apart. The whole life should become a dance; it should be a dance.
You can go for a walk and dance.
Allow life to enter into you, become
more open and vulnerable, feel more, sense more. Small things filled
with such wonders are lying all around. Watch a small child. Leave
him in the garden and just watch. That should be your way also; so
wonderful, wonder-filled: running to catch this butterfly, running
to catch that flower, playing with mud, rolling in the sand. From
everywhere the Divine is touching the child.
If you can live in wonder you will
be capable of celebration. Don′t live in knowledge, live in wonder.
You don′t know anything. Life is surprising; everywhere, it is a
continuous surprise. Live it as a surprise, an unpredictable
phenomenon: every moment is new. Just try, give it a try! You will
not lose anything if you give it a try, and you may gain everything.
But you have become addicted to misery. You cling to your misery as
if it is something very precious. Look at your own clinging.
Have you ever observed that if somebody is in misery, you show
sympathy, you feel much love? It is not the right kind of love, but
you show sympathy. If somebody is happy, celebrating, blissful, you
feel jealous, you feel bad. It is very difficult to sympathize with
a happy man. It is very difficult to feel good for a happy man; you
feel good when somebody is unhappy. At least you can think that you
are not so unhappy and you have an upper hand; you show sympathy.
A child is born and the child starts
learning things. Sooner or later he discovers that whenever he is
unhappy, he attracts the attention of the whole family. He becomes
the center and everybody feels sympathy for him, everybody feels
love for him. Whenever he is happy and healthy and everything is
good, nobody bothers about him.
The mother is cooking food and the child goes on asking questions and goes on jumping, and she becomes cross. I know that there are problems; the mother has to cook food. But the child should be the first preference, because a child is going to be the whole world, a child is going to be the tomorrow, a child is going to be the coming humanity. He should be the first, the priority should be his.
...
You are forcing him to enter into your sad, miserable attitude to
life. He could have grown as a child, he could have kept the
quality, the quality of wonder, surprise, and the quality to be here
and now, in the moment.
This I call the real revolution. No
other revolution is going to help man: French, Russian or Chinese,
no revolution is going to help man; they have not helped. Basically
the same pattern between the parent and the child continues, and
there is the cause. You can create a communist world, but it will
not be much different from the capitalist world. The labels will be
different only on the surface. You can create a socialist world, you
can create a Gandhian world, but it will not be different because
the basic revolution is between the mother, the father, and the
child. Somewhere within the parents and the child is the link; and
if that link is not changed, the world will go on moving in the same
rut.
When I say this I don′t mean that I
am giving you an excuse to be miserable. I am simply giving you the
explanation so that you can become aware. So don′t try to say in
your mind, ′Now what can be done? I am already forty or fifty or
sixty, my parents are dead and even if they were alive, I cannot
undo the past. It has happened, so I have to live as I am.′ No, if
you understand the thing, you can simply drop out of it. There is no
need to cling to it.
This is the revolution: to make everybody like a small child. The
body may grow but the quality of consciousness should remain
innocent, virgin, like a child.
You are already where you need to
be, you are already in that space which you are seeking. Just make a
little effort to come out of your clinging to misery. Don′t invest
in misery; invest in celebration. You take one step towards life and
life takes one thousand towards you. Just take one step out of your
clinging to misery. The mind will go on pulling you backwards. Just
be indifferent to the mind and tell the mind, ′Wait, I have lived
enough with you, now let me live without mind.′ That′s what a child
is: living without mind, or, living with no mind.
Part 2:
Can you talk to us more about celebration? Is it possible to celebrate misery?
It is possible, because celebration is an attitude. Even about misery you can
take an attitude of celebration. For example: you are sad - don′t get identified
with sadness. Become a witness and enjoy the moment of sadness, because sadness
has its own beauties. You have never watched. You get so identified that you
never penetrate the beauties of a sad moment. If you watch, you will be
surprised at what treasures you have been missing. Look - when you are happy you
are never so deep as when you are sad. Sadness has a depth to it; happiness has
shallowness about it. Go and watch happy people. The so-called happy people, the
playboys and playgirls - in clubs, in hotels you will find them, in theatres -
are always smiling and bubbling with happiness. You will always find them
shallow, superficial. They don′t have any depth. Happiness is like waves just on
the surface; you live a shallow life. But sadness has a depth to it. When you
are sad it is not like waves on the surface, it is like the very depth of the
Pacific Ocean: miles and miles to it.
Move into the depth, watch it. Happiness is noisy; sadness has a silence to it.
Happiness may be like the day, sadness is like the night. Happiness may be like
the light, sadness is like darkness. Light comes and goes; darkness remains - it
is eternal. Light happens sometimes; darkness is always there. If you move into
sadness all these things will be felt. Suddenly you will become aware that
sadness is there like an object, you are watching and witnessing, and suddenly
you start feeling happy. Such a beautiful sadness! - a flower of darkness, a
flower of eternal depth. Like an abyss without any bottom, so silent, so
musical; there is no noise at all, no disturbance. One can go on falling and
falling into it endlessly, and one can come out of it absolutely rejuvenated. It
is a rest.
It depends on the attitude. When you become sad you think that something bad has
happened to you. It is an interpretation that something bad has happened to you
and then you start trying to escape from it. You never meditate on it. Then you
want to go to somebody: to a party, to the club, or put the T.V. on or the
radio, or start reading the newspaper - something so that you can forget. This
is a wrong attitude that has been given to you - that sadness is wrong. Nothing
is wrong with it. It is another polarity in life.
Happiness is one pole, sadness is another. Blissfulness is one pole, misery is
another. Life consists of both, and life is a ritual because of both. A life
only of blissfulness will have extension, but will not have depth. A life of
only sadness will have depth, but will not have extension. A life of both
sadness and blissfulness is multi-dimensional; it moves in all dimensions
together. Watch the statue of Buddha or sometimes look into my eyes and you will
find both together - a blissfulness, a peace, a sadness also. You will find a
blissfulness which contains in it sadness also, because that sadness gives it
depth. Watch Buddha′s statue - blissful, but still sad. The very word ′sad′
gives you wrong connotations - that something is wrong. This is your
interpretation.
To me, life in its totality is good. And when you understand life in its
totality, only then can you celebrate; otherwise not. Celebration means:
whatsoever happens is irrelevant - I will celebrate. Celebration is not
conditional on certain things: ′When I am happy then I will celebrate,′ or,
′When I am unhappy I will not celebrate.′ Celebration is unconditional; I
celebrate life. It brings unhappiness - good, I celebrate it. It brings
happiness - good, I celebrate it. Celebration is my attitude, unconditional to
what life brings.
But a problem arises because whenever I use words, those words have connotations
in your mind. When I say ′Celebrate′, you think one has to be happy. How can one
celebrate when one is sad? I am not saying that one has to be happy to
celebrate. Celebration is gratefulness for whatsoever life gives to you.
Whatsoever God gives to you, celebration is a gratitude; it is a gratefulness. I
have told you and I will tell you again....
A Sufi mystic was very poor, hungry, rejected, tired of the journey. He went to
a village in the night and the village wouldn′t accept him. The village belonged
to the orthodox people, and when orthodox Mohammedans are there it is very
difficult to persuade them. They wouldn′t even give him shelter in the town. The
night was cold and he was hungry, tired, shivering with not enough clothes. He
was sitting outside the town under a tree. His disciples were sitting there with
great sadness, depression, even anger. And then he started praying and he said
to God, ′You are wonderful! You always give me whatsoever I need.′ This was too
much. A disciple said, ′Wait, now you are going too far, particularly on this
night. These words are false. We are hungry, tired, with no clothes, and a cold
night is descending. There are wild animals all around and we are rejected by
the town, we are without shelter. For what are you giving your thankfulness to
God? What do you mean when you say, "You always give me whatsoever I need?"′ The
mystic said, ′Yes, I repeat it again: God gives me whatsoever I need. Tonight I
need poverty, tonight I need being rejected, tonight I need to be hungry, in
danger. Otherwise, why should He give it to me? It must be a need. It is needed
and I have to be grateful. He looks after my needs so beautifully. He is really
wonderful!′ This is an attitude that is unconcerned with the situation. The
situation is not relevant.
Celebrate, whatsoever the case. If you are sad, then celebrate because you are
sad. Try it. Just give it a try and you will be surprised - it happens. You are
sad? - start dancing because sadness is so beautiful, such a silent flower of
being. Dance, enjoy, and suddenly you will feel that the sadness is
disappearing, a distance is created. By and by, you will forget sadness and you
will be celebrating. You have transformed the energy.
This is what alchemy is: to transform the baser metal into higher gold. Sadness,
anger, jealousy - baser metals can be transformed into gold because they are
constituted of the same elements as gold. There is no difference between gold
and iron because they have the same constituents, the same electrons. Have you
ever thought about it, that a piece of coal and the greatest diamond in the
world are just the same? They don′t have any difference. In fact coal pressed by
the earth for millions of years becomes a diamond. Just a difference of
pressure, but they are both carbon, both constituted of the same elements.
The baser can be changed into the higher. Nothing is lacking in the baser. Only
a rearrangement, a recomposition is needed. That is the whole of what alchemy
means. When you are sad, celebrate, and you are giving a new composition to
sadness. You are bringing something to sadness which will transform it. You are
bringing celebration to it. Angry? - have a beautiful dance. In the beginning it
will be angry. You will start dancing and the dance will be angry, aggressive,
violent. By and by, it will become softer and softer and softer, when suddenly,
you will have forgotten anger. The energy has changed into dancing.
But when you are angry, you can′t think of dancing. When you are sad, you can′t
think of singing. Why not make your sadness a song? Sing, play on your flute. In
the beginning the notes will be sad, but nothing is wrong with a sad note. Have
you heard, in the afternoon sometimes, when everything is hot, burning hot, fire
all around, and suddenly from a mango grove you can hear a cuckoo start singing?
In the beginning, the note is sad. She is calling her lover, her beloved, on a
hot afternoon. Everything is fiery all around, and she is hankering for love. A
very sad note, but beautiful. By and by, the sad note changes into a happy note.
The lover starts responding from another grove. Now it is no more a hot
afternoon; everything is cooling down in the heart. Now the note is different.
When the lover responds, everything has changed. It is an alchemical change.
You are sad? - start singing, praying, dancing. Whatsoever you can do, do, and
by and by, the baser metal is changed into a higher metal - gold. Once you know
the key, your life will never be the same again. You can unlock any door. And
this is the master key: to celebrate everything.
I have heard about three Chinese mystics. Nobody knows their names. They were
known only as the ′Three Laughing Saints′, because they never did anything else;
they simply laughed. They moved from one town to another, laughing. They would
stand in the market place and have a good belly laugh. The whole market-place
would surround them. All the people would come, shops would close and customers
would forget for what they had come. These three people were really beautiful -
laughing and their bellies waving. And then it would become an infection and
others would start laughing. Then the whole market-place would laugh. They had
changed the quality of the market. And if somebody would say, ′Say some thing to
us,′ they would say, ′We have nothing to say. We simply laugh and change the
quality.′ When just a few moments before, it was an ugly place where people were
thinking only of money - hankering for money, greedy, money the only milieu
around - suddenly these three mad people came and they laughed, and changed the
quality of the whole market-place. Now nobody was a customer. Now they had
forgotten that they had come to purchase and sell. Nobody bothered about greed.
They were laughing and they were dancing around these three mad people. For a
few seconds a new world opened.
They moved all over China, from place to place, from village to village, just
helping people to laugh. Sad people, angry people, greedy people, jealous
people: they all started laughing with them. And many felt the key - you can
transform.
Then, in one village it happened that one of the three died. Village people
gathered and they said, ′Now there will be trouble. Now we have to see how they
laugh. Their friend has died; they must weep.′ But when they came, the two were
dancing, laughing and celebrating the death. The village people said, ′Now this
is too much. This is unmannerly. When a man is dead it is profane to laugh and
dance.′ They said, ′You don′t know what has happened! All three of us were
always thinking of who was going to die first. This man has won; we are
defeated. The whole life we laughed with him. How can we give him the last send
off with anything else? - we have to laugh, we have to enjoy, we have to
celebrate. This is the only farewell that is possible for the man who has
laughed his whole life. And if we don′t laugh, he will laugh at us and he will
think, "You fools! So you have fallen again into the trap?" We don′t see that he
is dead. How can laughter die, how can life die?′
Laughter is eternal, life is eternal, celebration continues. Actors change but
the drama continues. Waves change but the ocean continues. You laugh, you change
and somebody else laughs, but laughter continues. You celebrate, somebody else
celebrates, but celebration continues. Existence is continuous, it is a
container. There is not a single moment′s gap in it. But the village people
could not understand and they could not participate in the laughter this day.
Then the body was to be burned, and the village people said, ′We will give him a
bath as the ritual prescribes.′ But those two friends said, ′No, our friend has
said, "Don′t perform any ritual and don′t change my clothes and don′t give me a
bath. You just put me as I am on the burning pyre." So we have to follow his
instructions.′
And then, suddenly, there was a great happening. When the body was put on the
fire, that old man had played the last trick. He had hidden many fireworks under
his clothes, and suddenly there was Diwali ! Then the whole village
started laughing. These two mad friends were dancing, then the whole village
started dancing. It was not a death, it was a new life.
No death is death, because every death opens a new door - it is a beginning.
There is no end to life, there is always a new beginning, a resurrection.
If you change your sadness to celebration, then you will also be capable of
changing your death into resurrection. So learn the art while there is still
time. Don′t let death come before you have learned the secret alchemy of
changing baser metals into higher metals. Because if you can change sadness, you
can change death. If you can be celebrating unconditionally, when death comes
you will be able to laugh, you will be able to celebrate, you will go happy. And
when you can go celebrating, death cannot kill you. Rather, on the contrary, you
have killed death. But start it, give it a try. There is nothing to lose. But
people are so foolish that even when there is nothing to lose, they won′t give
it a try. What is there to lose?
If you are sad, then I say celebrate, dance, sing. What are you to lose? At the
most, sadness will be lost, nothing else. But you think it is impossible. And
the very idea that it is impossible will not allow you to give it a try. And I
say it is one of the most easy things in the world, because energy is neutral.
The same energy becomes sadness; the same energy becomes anger; the same energy
becomes sexuality; the same energy becomes compassion; the same energy becomes
meditation. Energy is one. You don′t have many types of energies. You don′t have
many separate pockets of energy where this energy is labeled ′sadness′ and this
energy is labeled ′happiness′. Energies are not pigeon-holed, they are not
separated. There exists no watertight compartment in you. You are simply one.
This one energy becomes sadness, this one energy becomes anger. It is up to you.
One has to learn the secret, the art of how to transform energies. You simply
give a direction and the same energy starts moving. And when there is a
possibility of transforming anger into bliss, greed into compassion, jealousy
into love... you don′t know what you are losing. You don′t know what you are
missing. You are missing the whole point of being here in this universe. Give it
a try.