Buddha Sutra – “They delight in Meditation.”Osho on above Buddha Sutra – This is a very significant sutra; remember it. Buddha says: THEY DELIGHT IN MEDITATION.
It is easy to meditate if you don’t want to be blissful — it is very
easy to meditate. If you want just to be blissful and you don’t want to
be in meditation, that too is easy. The rarest combination is meditation
plus bliss. Meditation minus bliss is easy; bliss minus meditation is
easy. But meditation minus bliss is not true meditation and bliss minus
meditation is not true bliss either. They are true only when they are
together.
Many people have tried to meditate without bliss because it is
simple, less complex. You have to take only one work upon yourself: that
you have to still your mind. And you can force your mind to be stilled,
but you will become sad, you will have a long face.
That’s why your saints — so-called saints — look sad. Sadness has
become a necessary quality for being a saint. They can’t laugh, they
can’t dance, they can’t sing, they can’t love, they can’t rejoice. They
talk about bliss but they only talk about it. You don’t see any bliss in
their eyes, you don’t see any bliss in their milieu, you don’t see any
bliss radiating from their inner center. They look sad, dull, dead,
unintelligent, for the simple reason that they have chosen a shortcut
and there is no shortcut. They have avoided the complexity of spiritual
transformation. They have chosen meditation, they have forced their mind
to be still. It is a negative state; their minds are only empty, not
silent — forcibly made still. But it is not a natural growth of silence,
it is not the flowering of silence. Their silence is like the cemetery,
it is not the silence of a garden.
The silence of the garden is full of music: the bees humming and the
birds singing and a distant call of the cuckoo. They are all in it,
essential parts of it. The garden has a very living silence, full of
song and joy. The cemetery is also silent, but it is only the silence of
death; because there is nobody, hence there is silence.
You can meditate, force yourself to be silent, but you will miss God,
you will miss nirvana. And you can also try to be blissful; that means
you can pretend, you can practice, you can rehearse bliss. You can
always try to be blissful, smiling, at least looking happy.
Slowly slowly, it becomes so practiced… like Jimmy Carter. Now his
smile is disappearing, but just remember two years before — you could
have counted his teeth! You can practice it. I have heard that in the
beginning days of his presidency his wife had to close his mouth in the
night! I don’t know how far it is true, but it appears to be true —
because if you practice the whole day, then in the night too your
muscles become fixed. Even in sleep you will go on smiling.
You can practice blissfulness too, but a practiced blissfulness is
false. Anything practiced is false, remember it — never forget it.
Things have to be spontaneous and natural, not practiced, not
cultivated. Cultivated blissfulness is only a mask. You are smiling, but
the smile is not in the heart. You are showing joy, but you are not
joyous. Your heart is a desert; only on the face you have put plastic
flowers. They may deceive others, but they can’t deceive you and they
can’t deceive a master. Your smile, your joy, is formal — just good
manners.
This too has happened. There have been many saints, very blissful,
always singing and dancing, but deep down just deserts. They both have
chosen only the half, and the half-truth is far more untrue than any
untruth.
Truth has to be total, truth has to be whole. And the whole truth is:
bliss PLUS meditation. It is difficult of course, arduous, to manage
both. Why? — because they seem to be polar opposites. Meditation means
silence and bliss means dance. Meditation means stillness and bliss
means a song. Meditation means escaping from the world and bliss means
sharing with the world. Meditation you can do in a Himalayan cave, but
to be blissful you will have to come back to the world.
Bliss needs to be shared; it exists only in sharing. It can’t exist
when you are alone, it disappears. It is a communion. Meditation can
exist in aloneness and bliss can exist in togetherness. But when both
exist then you have to learn a totally new way of life.
Source – Osho Book “Dhammapada, Vol 8″
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