Life is Celebration, Be Happy

Nov 22, 2004, 12.00am IST
Shashin.

All of us want to be happy. Mystics say happiness is our nature. Happiness cannot be created and all that is needed to be happy is to be alive. Yet the whole world is miserable. Material wealth cannot make us happy and the richest society is facing the vulnerabilities of modern life. Yet, in our search for happiness, we constantly grope for sources in the outside world.



Osho says, "A happy person is not one who is always happy. He is happy even when there is unhappiness. Happiness is not conditional. The thumb rule is, to have happiness in you. Happiness alone can welcome and accept happiness... There are two ways to live life: outwards in search of happiness and inwards in search of bliss. Bliss wells up from your own sources, hence it is impossible to lose it". Our mind searches for happiness but the nature of human mind is to be on the move. And in our search we miss many moments to live happily.


Once a rich man wanted to be happy. He was in search of a wise man who could guide him on how to be happy. Some villagers assured him that a Sufi mystic who lived in the forest would be able to help him. The man found the mystic sitting peacefully below a tree. He stopped his horse and told him that he was unhappy. The mystic said that to find happiness he would have to hand over his jewels. The man gave him a bag of diamonds. Taking the jewel bag the mystic ran away. Thinking that he had been robbed, the man chased the mystic but failed to catch him. Desperate for his diamonds he returned to the forest. To his surprise he found the master sat in silence with his eyes closed at the same spot and the bag lay in front of him. Grabbing it, he danced with joy. The mystic opened his eyes and asked the man if he was happy to recover his riches. The man fell at his feet. The master added, "You have to know suffering; only then you know what happiness is".


Osho suggests a meditation technique. He says, "When you are unhappy visualise happiness. Similarly when you are happy visualise unhappiness. Slowly the opposite state absorbs the other". Once you understand your sadness, it dis- appears. This technique can transform you because "happiness is here and now... When you are free both from pain and pleasure, good and bad, light and darkness, life and death, when you are free from all dualities — that state, that transcendence, is moksha".

Also we should be happy in others' happiness. This way, we can experience instant joy. However, we must not stop and hoard happiness. Rather we should share it like the flowers share their scent with the winds. In dark and dismal moments we must build trust and happiness within us. We should start our day with a suggestion that life is a gift, that irrespective of what happens we will be happy and we will celebrate.

We should search our inner source of happiness. "Be happy, respect happiness, and help people to understand that happiness is the goal of life — satchitanand. The Eastern mystics have said God has three qua-lities. He is sat: he is truth, being. He is chit: consciousness, awareness. And, ultimately, the highest peak is anand: bliss. Wherever bliss is, God is. Whenever you see a blissful person, respect him, he is holy. And wherever you feel a gathering which is blissful, festive, think of it as a sacred place", says Osho.


Sorrow depletes the vita-lity of life, while joy makes us alive. So don't hanker for happiness; rather, search for bliss. That's what meditation is all about — the technology of the inner search for the eternal in you.