Question – Whenever a certain feeling of opening comes and a certain peace, always a strong anxiety and a depression follow and make me very tired. It seems to be a vicious circle. What is the attitude to take?
Osho – It always happens, it is natural, not vicious. Whenever you are happy, very happy, you are at a peak, suddenly the valley will follow. There are always valleys with peaks, you cannot be on the peak forever – soon you will fall into the valley, in a deep depression. If you are feeling very, very energetic, soon a tiredness will settle in.
The opposite is always round the corner. It has to be so because the opposite is not the opposite, it is the complementary. If you are happy continuously for a long time it will be too much excitement, it will be moving to the extreme – and that can be dangerous to life. You have to be thrown back into sadness. Sadness is relaxing, it is not an excitement; it is like night following day – tired, you fall asleep.
It is not vicious, it is natural, and nature has its own economy. So what to do? Don’t disturb the circle. The only thing that you have to do is that when you are high, don’t get identified with that highness. When you feel very, very happy, remember always that it is only a mood, not you; a climate surrounding you, but not you. When it is raining you don’t think that you are the rain. When the rains have stopped and the sun has come out and it is very sunny, you don’t think that you are the sun or the sunniness… it is something happening around you. It is the same inside – remember.
Happiness is just like rains or the sunniness, it is a climate, a mood around you, an environment – but not you. You are the watcher, you are the witness who knows that now everything is very beautiful. If you are the watcher you will always remember that sooner or later the other opposite will follow. You are already ready for it.
If you are ready for it, it will not be so depressing: the height will not be such an excitement, and the sadness will not be so sad. And by and by, by and by, the peak and the valley will start coming nearer and nearer and nearer and a moment comes when the peak disappears, the valley disappears, and you are on plain ground. That plain ground is neither happiness nor unhappiness, we have given it a different name, we call it bliss, ANAND. It is not happiness. A man of bliss is not happy in the ordinary sense, because he is not excited at all. He is absolutely calm and quiet without any excitement.
It is not sadness either, because a man of bliss is silent but not sad. In a man of bliss, sadness and happiness have met, they have come to a harmony. All that is beautiful in sadness – and remember, there is much that is beautiful in sadness – and all that is beautiful in happiness, is there together. And all that is bad in happiness – there is much that is bad – and all that is bad in sadness – of course you know that much badness is there – both are gone. What is good in happiness? The feeling of euphoria. What is bad in happiness? The excitement, because every excitement is tiring.
Excitement is a dissipation of energy; excitement is fever, excitement is feverish, it is an ill state of affairs. That feverishness will not be there in a man of bliss. He will be happy but not feverish. There will be no excitement, you will not even be able to see whether he is happy or not. If you come across a Buddha you will not be able to feel whether he is happy or not he is so unexcitedly happy that on the surface nothing shows, he is so deeply happy that on the surface nothing shows. His happiness is not the happiness of a storm, with excitement and fever, his happiness is of a silent lake.
In sadness the bad thing is that you feel dull, you feel heavy. In a man of bliss there is no dullness. He’s weightless, he is not heavy at all. He does not walk on the earth in fact, he flies, he has wings. He has no weight, gravitation doesn’t affect him. He is like a feather.
And what is good in sadness? The depth. Sadness is very deep, no laughter can be as deep as sadness. No laughter can be as deep as sadness, because laughter is always superficial, a little profane, a little vulgar. Sadness has a sobriety of its own, sadness has a depth of its own, sadness has a deep feeling – the feeling of the valley, very deep and penetrating. It has something sacred about it, holy about it. A man of bliss is in that depth, in that holiness, in that sacredness.
He is both, and is not both; he transcends both and he is a harmony of both. A man of bliss is a miracle, a rare combination of opposites, a rare synthesis of opposites. So don’t think that this is vicious, it is natural. All that you have to do is to remember that you are separate. When happy, know that happiness is around you, bubbling everywhere; laughter is all around, shaking you to your very roots – but remain alert. Don’t get identified with the mood.
Don’t become the mood, remain a watcher because the watcher always knows the other is coming, following. Soon you will see the day is disappearing and the night is coming. Remain a watcher. When you have become sad, again go on watching. As the day has passed, the night will also pass, everything passes. After a few alert moments you will remember that you are completely separate – you are neither, neither this nor that. This is how for the first time you will feel blissful. Now you know unhappiness cannot disturb you, and happiness cannot disturb you. You have attained to an unperturbable state, the state of bliss. That is the goal of all buddhas.
Source – Osho Book “Tao: The Three Treasures, Vol 2”