< Previous | Contents | Next >
CHAPTER 5
Better madly happy than sadly sane
5 October 1977 pm in Chuang Tzu Auditorium
[A sannyasin, who is leaving, says she wants to return with her children and husband.]
Mm mm, good! Something has happened and it will go on growing. It is not like a thing that happens; it is a process.
It will go on happening. Just cooperate with it; don’t stop it! Don’t stop it at all – even if sometimes it feels crazy. Because sometimes it happens when there is no reason to be happy. You feel like being happy and then it looks crazy, mm? When nothing is there as an excuse to be happy and you are feeling suddenly tremendously happy, a laughter comes and there is no visible reason for it, don’t stop it.
That is one of the basic problems when happiness starts happening. Then it comes from within. Ordinarily it comes from without. Something has to happen outside, then you feel happy, but that is momentary because nothing from the outside can be permanent. For example, you can find ten thousand rupees by the side of the road but you cannot find it every day. So one day you are happy, the next day you are waiting to find ten thousand rupees again by the side of the road and you cannot; you become unhappy. And those ten thousand rupees that you have found cannot make you happy forever. For a moment there is happiness, for a moment a ray of happiness, joy... but only for a moment. Once you have got those rupees it disappears. The joy was there because of the surprise, the unexpectedness of it. But once you have taken those rupees home the unexpectedness is gone.
From the outside happiness can happen only in small small glimpses, but from within it can come like a flood. But when it comes from within you will look crazy to people, because there is no visible
reason why you are laughing or why you are smiling or why you are crying with tears of joy. Tears of joy are flooding your eyes and your whole being is suffused with a kind of light, but there is no reason it is irrational. It looks absurd; you will look mad!
That’s why I am saying particularly not to stop it. And it comes unawares; it will come out of the blue. Suddenly walking on the road somewhere in holland it is there. Don’t hold it... risk everything for it. Even if people start thinking you are mad, there is nothing to be worried about. It is better to be mad and happy than to be unhappy and sane. This so-called sanity is just a kind of misery. And to be happy one needs to be capable of going will not allow oneself to go mad must for a really healthy mind. Have you read ‘Zorba the Greek’?...
Read it! Zorba says to his boss, ‘There is something missing in you, boss. A touch of madness! Unless you cut the string, you will never really live.’ A little madness gives you dimensions, gives you poetry and gives you enough courage to be happy in this unhappy world.
So don’t hold it and don’t control it. It is going to come to you again and again. Suddenly in the middle of the night you start laughing. Your husband will think you have gone crazy! Making love to your husband suddenly it comes like a wild joy and a great laughter bursts forth!
This will happen again and again. I am making you aware of it so that you can accept it and welcome it. And husbands are not accustomed to that sort of thing. They are accustomed to a dead wife who simply lies down there, almost dead, not moving at all. Only bad women make any movements; good women are simply there like corpses. They don’t even show their joy or their interest, because that is not a quality of a good woman. So husbands are accustomed to making love to a dead woman, and now you will never be dead again.
More and more life will be coming to you... and life is wild. Life is not like a domesticated animal, no: it is like a wild animal. It comes like a roaring tiger. It will come again and again and more and more and in very strange situations. So allow it, mm? Your mind will say ‘Stop!’ Just take hold of my locket and remember me and allow it.
And the next time you come, then we can move on a higher altitude, mm? Good!
[A sannyasin, newly returned, says that she feels energy in her head, her hands and around her mouth. Osho checks her energy.]
Something very meaningful is arising in you, but it will have to be put into a more creative dimension otherwise you will feel heavy with energy. When energy comes it has to be directed into creativity, otherwise it can become a heavy load. It is power, and power has to be used, has to be put to use.
[Osho feels that the time is ripe now for her to try some eastern groups. He suggests she book for Zazen and Vipassana.]
The real problem is when the energy is not arising. It is arising; this is not a problem. One should be happy! You are richer now because of it. You were never so rich; now you have enough power. If you don’t use it in some way it will create trouble. Then it will become sore and it will create wounds in you. Otherwise, it will start creating new flowers in your being and new songs will arise.
The same energy, blocked, unused can become a china wall around you and you will be caged in it. The same energy used rightly, artfully, skillfully, can become a dance. And my whole work here is how first to create energy, how to generate it. Because each human being is a dynamo and is completely oblivious of how much energy he can produce. Infinite energy is possible.
So the first thing is how to create energy and the second thing is how to make it creative. Once you have learned how to create energy and how to use it, you have started moving on the real journey of life. Then the pilgrimage starts. Then each day will bring greater joy and greater celebration. So welcome it!
And after these two groups tell me how you are feeling. Good... good!
[A sannyasin doesn’t have a question, but says she just wanted to see Osho. She bows down at his feet.]
Very good! Come back! That’s the way – whenever you want to see me, go this way: close your eyes and you will find me. And that’s what your name means: capacity to see.…
Your eyes are open! They are changing. The old eyes are disappearing and the new eyes are born. A new consciousness is coming in. So even if you feel disoriented sometimes, don’t be worried, because in that transitory period when the old eyes go and the new ones come, sometimes one feels almost blind.…
Because one is accustomed to the old, then the old disappears; one has to get accustomed to the new. Mm? I can see that: that blindness is still there, but it will go! Soon you will have fresh eyes.…
Very good! Whenever you feel like it, just do it! Do it anywhere and you will find me!
[A sannyasin who has done several groups says that she is so much more open and aware of what’s going on – which is a new feeling!... But she has a knot in her chest, and is doing postural integration which Osho says will help dissolve.]
Your mind has changed – your body needs change. There is a disparity between body and mind; that’s why you are feeling like this. And that (the chest) is the point where body and mind meet.
That is the lock where they are joined together; that is a knot. So when the mind changes and the body does not, you will feel it. If the body changes and the mind does not, you will feel it. It is felt only when the old adjustment is no more there; otherwise nobody feels it. It is there in everybody’s chest, that knot, but you feel it only when one thing changes: either the body or the mind.
So it is a very good sign that the mind has become more alert, more open, and is flowing. The body needs the same flow. The body is hankering for the same flow but it does not know what to do. The mind has gone a little ahead and the body is lagging behind, hence you feel that lock. Postural integration will do it, mm?
[She say she is going to the West soon. Osho stresses she should finish the whole course of postural integration first, otherwise something will be left incomplete. He adds that doing the Vipassana group
will be of help too. If it is still there after that, then tell me, he says. Otherwise, if it hasn’t gone there is always the surgeon!]
[A sannyasin says he is feeling restless lately, and wants to go to Goa, but when he is in Goa he wants to be in Poona. Osho checks his energy.]
It is not restlessness – you have misunderstood it: it is too much energy. But too much energy sometimes can give you the impression of being restless. Sometimes the energy is too much – you cannot sleep – but you feel you are restless because the energy won’t allow you to sleep. Sometimes the energy is so much that you cannot absorb it. Much remains outside and that outside energy goes on hankering to do this and go there and be somewhere else. You simply need some work.…
It will disappear after a few days. You are working in the garden? Get into it, mm? And whenever you feel restless, just raise your hands, close your eyes and remember me. It will come with great force. For two minutes just let the energy be there and then come back, and all restlessness will disappear. Goa is not going to help mm? going here and there is not going to help.
You have to go in. Going out will be simply a kind of distraction. It is not going to be of any use and it is a sheer wastage. The energy is there: use it for the inward journey.
So do this whenever you are feeling restless. The trees will also enjoy it, and the garden will have some kind of fertiliser ... human energy! Two minutes will do; then start working again. And after three weeks report to me, mm? Good!
< Previous | Contents | Next >