Life as Celebration

A Change of Attitude Can Integrate Even Misery and Unhappiness into a Life of Depth and Authenticity

By: OSHO

Narrated by: OSHO

We all feel sometimes like a stranger to ourselves, with uncomfortable feelings of having lost direction in life, feeling insecure and missing a kind of authenticity and centeredness in life. In a society where ideals of eternal happiness and beauty are dominating our life around the clock and being sad looks like failure. Understanding that life is not a 'selfie', always smiling and bubbling with happiness, Osho opens a different perspective in this talk, responding to a series of questions, which embraces life in a more total way, a life where insecurity is beautiful, a moving and changing world is embraced and discomfort, uneasiness and uprootedness are becoming part of an adventure called life.

©1975 OSHO International Foundation (P)2015 OSHO International Foundation

This is Osho at his best: Osho gold!

This is hands down one of the best Osho talks. I'm gonna mention some of what he said and this is quoting him. Life is richer because of happiness and sadness but sadness has a negative connotation. The idea is to celebrate no matter what, celebration is not conditional, celebrate life. You don't have to be happy to celebrate: celebration is gratefulness no matter what life gives you. He told a story about a Sufi that was hungry, cold, and tired from a journey and feeling neglected. The people in the town wouldn't give him shelter, so him and his followers were suffering outside the town. He started praying and said God, you are wonderful, you always give me whatsoever I need. The disciple said you are going too far, particularly this night we are suffering and you thank God? He said God gives me whatsoever I need, tonight I need poverty, hunger, danger, rejection. If I didn't need it he wouldn't give it to me so it must be a need, I will be grateful. This is a good attitude. Celebrate because you are sad and this will create a distance. This allows you to transform the energy, turn iron to gold, coal to a diamond. When you are angry dance, when you are sad sing, the dance will be angry at first, the song will have sad notes at first but nothing is wrong with a sad note. Even death is nothing to be sad about, how can life die? Life is eternal, celebration continues, actors change but the drama continues, waves change but the ocean continues. When you can die celebrating, death cannot kill you, on the contrary you can kill death. Happiness is just on the surface like waves whereas sadness has depth miles deep. Happiness is noisy and sadness is silent. Happiness is like the day and sadness is like the night. Be thankful for the feeling and appreciate the depth of feeling. You don't have to identify with it but you can appreciate it. Such a beautiful sadness: a flower of darkness, a flower of eternal depth. Have a better attitude and meditate on your sadness, it's not wrong it's just a polarity of life. You have nothing to lose, at the worst you will lose your sadness. One energy is behind sorrow, happiness, meditation and it is up to you to transform it to what you want the energy to be. Like I said this was gold and a perfect example of how encouraging and enlightening an Osho talk can be.