HOW IS ONE TO BE HAPPY?
If you want to be happy, you will become unhappy: the very wanting will create unhappiness. That's why people are unhappy. Everybody wants to be happy and everybody becomes unhappy. Can't you see this? Have you ever met a man who does not want to be happy? If you have met such a man you
will find he is happy. If you meet a man who says 'I don't want to be happy, I don't care a bit' then you will suddenly see, here is a man who is utterly happy. People who want to be happy you will find miserable, in the same proportion. If they want too much to be happy they will be too much unhappy the proportion of unhappiness will be the same as is their desire for happiness. What goes wrong? People come to me and they ask: 'Every-body in the world wants to be happy -- but then why are so many people, almost everybody, unhappy?' That's why: because they want to be happy. Happiness cannot be desired. You desire, and comes misery; desire brings misery. Happiness is a state of no-desire. Happiness is a state of great understanding that desire brings misery. There are two ways to be happy -- to snatch at life or to let it be. One is to snatch at life, the second is to let it be. The first demands happiness, refuses all else, and so lives between hope and fear, dream and rejection. The second way takes happiness when it happens but does not demand it and accepts all else too. It is in the acceptance of all else that happiness comes. One is no longer bound by the fearful wish to have, nor by the frantic will to hold, nor by the fever to clutch at straws of certainty. There is instead the ease of swimming with the river where the river flows. You ask: HOW IS ONE TO BE HAPPY?
If you want to be happy, you will become unhappy: the very wanting will create unhappiness. That's why people are unhappy. Everybody wants to be happy and everybody becomes unhappy. Can't you see this? Have you ever met a man who does not want to be happy? If you have met such a man you
will find he is happy. If you meet a man who says 'I don't want to be happy, I don't care a bit' then you will suddenly see, here is a man who is utterly happy. People who want to be happy you will find miserable, in the same proportion. If they want too much to be happy they will be too much unhappy the proportion of unhappiness will be the same as is their desire for happiness. What goes wrong? People come to me and they ask: 'Every-body in the world wants to be happy -- but then why are so many people, almost everybody, unhappy?' That's why: because they want to be happy. Happiness cannot be desired. You desire, and comes misery; desire brings misery. Happiness is a state of no-desire. Happiness is a state of great understanding that desire brings misery. There are two ways to be happy -- to snatch at life or to let it be. One is to snatch at life, the second is to let it be. The first demands happiness, refuses all else, and so lives between hope and fear, dream and rejection. The second way takes happiness when it happens but does not demand it and accepts all else too. It is in the acceptance of all else that happiness comes. One is no longer bound by the fearful wish to have, nor by the frantic will to hold, nor by the fever to clutch at straws of certainty. There is instead the ease of swimming with the river where the river flows. You ask: HOW IS ONE TO BE HAPPY?
That means you want to snatch at life, you want to be aggressive upon life. You cannot be happy that way. Life comes only to those who are not aggressive, life comes only to those who are in a deep passive receptivity. You cannot be violent with life. Because you are violent, you are unhappy and miserable. You go on missing life; life eludes you, it goes on escaping from your hands. You are a rapist, you want to rape life. That's why you are miserable. Life comes dancing. But only when you are not violent, aggressive. When you are not ambitious, when you are not even looking for happiness, when you are simply being here, suddenly you find happiness is showering -- there is a meet-ing between you and happiness. And a man who really knows the art of being happy -- that means non-desiring -- knows also that whatsoever happens has to be accepted deeply, with no rejection. Then everything by and by is transformed into happiness. Small things that don't make much sense, when you accept them become very significant. Things which you go on rejecting create misery. When you drop your rejection and you accept whole-heartedly, you embrace them, suddenly
you feel a grace arising in you. Slowly slowly, as the understanding grows and as the desirelessness grows, one becomes overfull of happiness. Not only that one becomes happy, one starts overflowing. One starts overreaching to other people, one starts sharing one's happiness with other people. So this is my suggestion: Don't be aggressive. Relax -- that's how happiness comes. Wait prayerfully, gratefully -- that's how happiness comes. Be receptive, be feminine, and happiness comes. Don't be male, aggressive. You can see it around the world -- countries which are too much after happiness are the most unhappy countries. For example, America -- too much after happiness. That very too-much hankering, that constant effort to be happy, is making Americans neurotic. Almost three out of four are neurotic. And about the fourth I cannot say that he is not neurotic -- he is just suspicious, ambiguous, vague. This has never happened in the history of man so many people in a kind of neurosis, as if neurosis has become the normal state of humanity. Because never before have people been so much after happiness, that's why. Go to a primitive tribe -- people who are still living without civilization, people who are called 'backward' by Americans -- just go and you will find them immensely happy. And they are backward, and sooner or later the missionaries will come and make them forward. And will educate them and will open schools and hospitals and will do great service to them, and soon they will all be unhappy and they will need psychiatrists and psychoanalysts. Then the missionaries are happy, they have done their job. Mm? How much they have served the people. And they do great work and they are really devoted people, but they don't know what exactly they are doing. America needs to become a little backward. And those people who are backward, please leave them alone, they are the only hope. But we cannot tolerate those happy people. Maybe there is some jealousy -- we cannot tolerate them.
Once a man came to me. For thirty years he had been educating aboriginal children in a jungle in Bastar; he devoted his whole life. He was thirty, then he came to Gandhi and since then he had been working. He devoted his whole life. He had come to me for some help -- he wanted some of my sannyasins to go and teach the aboriginals. I said, 'You have come to the last man. I cannot do such harm to people.' I know those Bastar people, I have been with them. They are some of the most beautiful people in the world, they should be preserved. They are the only happy people -- they still know how to dance and how to sing and how to love and how to enjoy life. They don't philosophize, they don't know arithmetic and they don't know history and they don't know geography and they cannot write. But they still have being, they still have grace. When they walk you can see, they still have vigour. Their eyes are so innocent.... For centuries nobody has committed a suicide, they don't know of anybody who has ever committed suicide in their tribe. And if sometimes murder has happened then the person goes to the court himself and reports to the court: 'I have murdered. So whatsoever is the punishment, give it to me.' He goes to the police station. Maybe he has to walk two hundred miles, because the police station is very far away from those jungles -- and good that it is far
away. Two hundred miles the man who has murdered will walk and will go to the police station and surrender. And nobody was asking him and nobody was after him. Beautiful people. And they love immensely. And you will be surprised, and they are called 'backward' -- they have for their children a small hall in the center of the town, their village. They have a small hall for their children -- once the children are getting interested in sex, the whole community's children sleep in that hall. They are allowed to make love, but nobody is allowed to move with any girl more than three days. So all the boys and all the girls become acquainted with all other boys and all other girls of the whole tribe. And they learn non-possessiveness. And love is just a play. And they are given all freedom there is no taboo, there is no repression. There is no possibility -- the moment a child becomes sexually capable or interested in sex, he is immediately moved to sleep in the common hall and he has to find partners.
Masturbation is not known, there is no need. Only very advanced countries know it, it is part of an advanced country. Homosexuality is not known -- that too is part of a very affluent society. Those are poor people, they don't know anything about homosexuality, there is no NEED. And they become acquainted -- all the boys become acquainted with all the girls, all the girls become acquainted with all the boys. And only then they choose. And once they get married, their marriage has an immense beauty. It is so intimate, because it depends on a kind of atonement. The boy has been moving with all the girls, then he has chosen the girl who goes deepest into his heart and with her he goes deepest into oblivion. He knows with whom he can have the greatest orgasm; now it is not guess-work. And he does not decide by the size of the nose and the color of the hair, those are just stupid things, and he does not decide by the height and the weight. And he does not decide by clothes, because they are naked people. He simply decides by the innermost experience of orgasm -- with whom he has the greatest experience, the greatest ecstasy. The decision comes out of that ecstasy. And these are 'backward' people. These are the most liberated people. And then naturally there is no divorce -- there is no need. Because he has found the woman and the woman has found her man; they have found the
right partner, as if they were made for each other. And it is not poetic, it is not vague fantasy. It is not a head thing, it is a great experience. And once that experience has settled.... And there is no hurry -- the society leaves them unless they decide, unless they find a partner with whom they really go into the other world, into the other dimension, with whom sex is no more sex but becomes prayer. Once they have found that partner, only then. And even then, the society tells them to wait at least one or two years -- to go with the partner, wait two years after the decision before you get married. Because once you get married then you have settled; then there should be no need. So two years' time. If the honeymoon continues and continues and continues and after two years the boy is still going with the girl and the girl is still going with the boy and they both are still thinking of marriage, only then the society blesses them. They don't know any divorce. Now missionaries are very much disturbed by these ugly people -- they are ugly people because they allow sexual freedom. And these sexually obsessed and repressed missionaries, they think these are immoral people. They are not immoral. They are amoral, certainly, but not immoral. They don't know any morality. And they are more scientific and their approach is more practical and pragmatic.
How do you decide? How do you decide that you are going to be with this woman for your whole life?
you feel a grace arising in you. Slowly slowly, as the understanding grows and as the desirelessness grows, one becomes overfull of happiness. Not only that one becomes happy, one starts overflowing. One starts overreaching to other people, one starts sharing one's happiness with other people. So this is my suggestion: Don't be aggressive. Relax -- that's how happiness comes. Wait prayerfully, gratefully -- that's how happiness comes. Be receptive, be feminine, and happiness comes. Don't be male, aggressive. You can see it around the world -- countries which are too much after happiness are the most unhappy countries. For example, America -- too much after happiness. That very too-much hankering, that constant effort to be happy, is making Americans neurotic. Almost three out of four are neurotic. And about the fourth I cannot say that he is not neurotic -- he is just suspicious, ambiguous, vague. This has never happened in the history of man so many people in a kind of neurosis, as if neurosis has become the normal state of humanity. Because never before have people been so much after happiness, that's why. Go to a primitive tribe -- people who are still living without civilization, people who are called 'backward' by Americans -- just go and you will find them immensely happy. And they are backward, and sooner or later the missionaries will come and make them forward. And will educate them and will open schools and hospitals and will do great service to them, and soon they will all be unhappy and they will need psychiatrists and psychoanalysts. Then the missionaries are happy, they have done their job. Mm? How much they have served the people. And they do great work and they are really devoted people, but they don't know what exactly they are doing. America needs to become a little backward. And those people who are backward, please leave them alone, they are the only hope. But we cannot tolerate those happy people. Maybe there is some jealousy -- we cannot tolerate them.
Once a man came to me. For thirty years he had been educating aboriginal children in a jungle in Bastar; he devoted his whole life. He was thirty, then he came to Gandhi and since then he had been working. He devoted his whole life. He had come to me for some help -- he wanted some of my sannyasins to go and teach the aboriginals. I said, 'You have come to the last man. I cannot do such harm to people.' I know those Bastar people, I have been with them. They are some of the most beautiful people in the world, they should be preserved. They are the only happy people -- they still know how to dance and how to sing and how to love and how to enjoy life. They don't philosophize, they don't know arithmetic and they don't know history and they don't know geography and they cannot write. But they still have being, they still have grace. When they walk you can see, they still have vigour. Their eyes are so innocent.... For centuries nobody has committed a suicide, they don't know of anybody who has ever committed suicide in their tribe. And if sometimes murder has happened then the person goes to the court himself and reports to the court: 'I have murdered. So whatsoever is the punishment, give it to me.' He goes to the police station. Maybe he has to walk two hundred miles, because the police station is very far away from those jungles -- and good that it is far
away. Two hundred miles the man who has murdered will walk and will go to the police station and surrender. And nobody was asking him and nobody was after him. Beautiful people. And they love immensely. And you will be surprised, and they are called 'backward' -- they have for their children a small hall in the center of the town, their village. They have a small hall for their children -- once the children are getting interested in sex, the whole community's children sleep in that hall. They are allowed to make love, but nobody is allowed to move with any girl more than three days. So all the boys and all the girls become acquainted with all other boys and all other girls of the whole tribe. And they learn non-possessiveness. And love is just a play. And they are given all freedom there is no taboo, there is no repression. There is no possibility -- the moment a child becomes sexually capable or interested in sex, he is immediately moved to sleep in the common hall and he has to find partners.
Masturbation is not known, there is no need. Only very advanced countries know it, it is part of an advanced country. Homosexuality is not known -- that too is part of a very affluent society. Those are poor people, they don't know anything about homosexuality, there is no NEED. And they become acquainted -- all the boys become acquainted with all the girls, all the girls become acquainted with all the boys. And only then they choose. And once they get married, their marriage has an immense beauty. It is so intimate, because it depends on a kind of atonement. The boy has been moving with all the girls, then he has chosen the girl who goes deepest into his heart and with her he goes deepest into oblivion. He knows with whom he can have the greatest orgasm; now it is not guess-work. And he does not decide by the size of the nose and the color of the hair, those are just stupid things, and he does not decide by the height and the weight. And he does not decide by clothes, because they are naked people. He simply decides by the innermost experience of orgasm -- with whom he has the greatest experience, the greatest ecstasy. The decision comes out of that ecstasy. And these are 'backward' people. These are the most liberated people. And then naturally there is no divorce -- there is no need. Because he has found the woman and the woman has found her man; they have found the
right partner, as if they were made for each other. And it is not poetic, it is not vague fantasy. It is not a head thing, it is a great experience. And once that experience has settled.... And there is no hurry -- the society leaves them unless they decide, unless they find a partner with whom they really go into the other world, into the other dimension, with whom sex is no more sex but becomes prayer. Once they have found that partner, only then. And even then, the society tells them to wait at least one or two years -- to go with the partner, wait two years after the decision before you get married. Because once you get married then you have settled; then there should be no need. So two years' time. If the honeymoon continues and continues and continues and after two years the boy is still going with the girl and the girl is still going with the boy and they both are still thinking of marriage, only then the society blesses them. They don't know any divorce. Now missionaries are very much disturbed by these ugly people -- they are ugly people because they allow sexual freedom. And these sexually obsessed and repressed missionaries, they think these are immoral people. They are not immoral. They are amoral, certainly, but not immoral. They don't know any morality. And they are more scientific and their approach is more practical and pragmatic.
How do you decide? How do you decide that you are going to be with this woman for your whole life?
The society does not allow you experimentation. And you have not known other women, so you fall in love with one woman and immediately you get married. And another day you see another woman passing by on the road and you are interested and you become fascinated. Now what to do? Jealousy arises. Not a single illegal love affair is known in that small community of Bastar aboriginals. Once a person has settled with a woman, they have settled. There is no jealousy, there is no watching of each other, they don't become jealous of each other. They have settled out of their own heart experience; they have found their woman, their man. They don't know how to read -- but what is there to read? They know how to read nature, they know how to talk to trees, they know how to have a dialogue with the sky. They know REAL reading, because they read the book of life and nature. Yes, they will not accumulate much money. They will not become Fords and Andrew Carnegies and Morgans, they will not become so rich. There is no need for anybody to become so rich -- because if a man becomes so rich then millions of people become poor. Nobody is rich and nobody is poor. And they have a beautiful tradition that each year whatsoever you have accumulated you have to distribute. The first day of the year, they distribute their things. So nobody accumulates much. How can you accumulate when each year you have to give everything away? All that you have, you have to distribute. So nobody becomes too much attached to things; they are very non-possessive people. And they have enough to enjoy! They work hard, they are healthy people, and nature supplies them more than is needed. If you don't want to become rich, nature has enough to satisfy you. If you want to become rich then there is no way for you to ever have contentment, ever have happiness. Somebody has asked a question: 'Osho, you say that children should listen to the birds and not look at the black-board. Then what will happen?' Then beautiful things will happen, then great things will happen. If for one hundred years all the universities are closed, and all the colleges and all the schools, man will again become alive. Yes, I know there will not be so much money to grab, money will disappear. But there will be more life -- and that is what is needed. And you cannot purchase life with money, you cannot purchase love with money. Money you have. And the person who has asked has also asked how they will earn their living. Do you think that five thousand years ago when people were not educated they were not able to earn their bread and their butter? They were. Living was never a problem. And they had one thing more -- life. Now you have only living, but no life. You think only of a better standard of living, you don't think of a better kind of life. You have quantity but the quality has disappeared. Nature is abundant, it is enough to fulfill us. But if our desires go neurotic then naturally nature cannot fulfill those desires. And when we are after neurotic desires -- money, power, prestige -- then naturally there is poverty, starvation, war. The wars and the starvation and the poverty exist because of your schools. Your schools teach ambition. Your schools teach people to be jealous of each other, to be competitive of each other. What do we teach in our schools? For example, a teacher asks a question and the small boy cannot answer it. He may not have done his homework, maybe he fell asleep in the evening, maybe there was a beautiful film going on the TV, or a thousand and one things are there to distract. And beautiful things, good things. Or there were guests in the home and he enjoyed their company. He cannot answer. Mow he is standing there like a culprit, a criminal, condemned. He cannot answer a question. And another boy is waving his hand and jumping and wants to answer it. And of course the teacher is happy, and the other boy answers it. Now, what has the other boy done? He has exploited the suffering of the first boy. He has proved himself better than the other, he has exploited the situation. Now, this will not be so in a primitive aboriginal village, they don't exploit each others situations. Anthropologists have come across tribes -- they cannot understand this -- who would not forgive this second boy. Because the second boy is cruel, violent. When the first was suffering, in a primitive society no boy would answer, they would all keep quiet. This would be thought ugly, violent -- that when one is suffering, somebody exploits the situation and
answers and enjoys. These people are thought to be backward? They are not, they are the only hope.
And one thing more: the person has asked what will happen to people's life if they don't know arithmetic and if they don't know geography and history. How will they earn their living? And what kind of a society will it be?
Yes, there will not be much money. There may not be big palaces, there may not be rich gadgets, technology. But there will be joy. And the whole technology is not worth a single moment's joy. There will be love and dance and song and feeling. And people will again become part of nature. They will not be fighting with nature, struggling with nature, they will not be destroying nature. There will he no ecological problem. If schools continue, nature is going to die. And with nature WE are going to die.
And one thing more: I am not saying that all the boys would like, and all the girls would like, to listen to the song of the bird on the window. No, there will be boys who would like the blackboard more, who would like arithmetic more. Then it is for them. All do not need to be educated -- that is my approach. Only those who have an intrinsic feeling for it should he educated. And there are a few people who love arithmetic more than they love nature. There are people who love literature more than they will love trees. There are people who love engineering, technology, more than they love music, dance, song. Then these are the people to be educated. All are not alike. These people should be educated -- as far as they want, they should be helped. There should be no universal education, that is a crime. That means you are forcing people who don't want to be educated. That is undemocratic. Universal education is dictatorial. In a real democratic world, a boy who wants to be educated will be educated. But a boy who wants to go to the carpenter's will go to the carpenter's, and the boy who wants to become a fisherman will become a fisherman. And the woman who wants to cook will cook, and the woman who wants to dance will dance. And the woman who wants to become a scientist, a Madame Curie, she is welcome. But people should move according to their inner nature; nothing should be imposed on them. This universal education is destroying people. It is as if -- just think of another example -- a dictator comes who loves dancing and forces everybody to dance. That will be an ugly thing. There will be people who don't want to dance, and if you force them to dance what kind of dance will it be? If a dictator comes who wants everybody to become a poet, and opens schools and colleges to teach poetry and everybody has to compose poetry, what kind of world will that be? A very ugly world. Only a few people -- a Shakespeare, a Kalidas, a Milton, a Dante -- will enjoy it. But what about others? They will be simply miserable. And that is what is happening. When you force arithmetic on all, that is what you are doing. When you force geography on all, that is what you are doing. When you force ANYTHING on all, that is what you are doing. Nothing should be forced, a child should be allowed to find his own way. And if he wants to be a cobbler, perfectly good, there is no need for him to become a president. A cobbler is beautiful if he enjoys his work, if he is happy with his work, if he has found his work. No universal education. And missionaries are the most dangerous people. A world without missionaries will be a beautiful world -- it has become a hell.
You ask: HOW IS ONE TO BE HAPPY?
Forget about happiness, happiness cannot be achieved directly. Rather, think of what you enjoy, what you most enjoy doing, and get absorbed into it. And happiness will come on its own. If you enjoy swimming enjoy swimming, if you enjoy chopping wood chop wood. Whatsoever you like, do it and get absorbed into it. And suddenly when you are absorbed you will find that climate coming to you, that sunlit climate of happiness. Suddenly you find it is all around you. That's what I would like to create in our new commune. People have to get ABSORBED. Happiness is a by-product, it is not a goal. Doing the thing that you want to do, happiness comes.
answers and enjoys. These people are thought to be backward? They are not, they are the only hope.
And one thing more: the person has asked what will happen to people's life if they don't know arithmetic and if they don't know geography and history. How will they earn their living? And what kind of a society will it be?
Yes, there will not be much money. There may not be big palaces, there may not be rich gadgets, technology. But there will be joy. And the whole technology is not worth a single moment's joy. There will be love and dance and song and feeling. And people will again become part of nature. They will not be fighting with nature, struggling with nature, they will not be destroying nature. There will he no ecological problem. If schools continue, nature is going to die. And with nature WE are going to die.
And one thing more: I am not saying that all the boys would like, and all the girls would like, to listen to the song of the bird on the window. No, there will be boys who would like the blackboard more, who would like arithmetic more. Then it is for them. All do not need to be educated -- that is my approach. Only those who have an intrinsic feeling for it should he educated. And there are a few people who love arithmetic more than they love nature. There are people who love literature more than they will love trees. There are people who love engineering, technology, more than they love music, dance, song. Then these are the people to be educated. All are not alike. These people should be educated -- as far as they want, they should be helped. There should be no universal education, that is a crime. That means you are forcing people who don't want to be educated. That is undemocratic. Universal education is dictatorial. In a real democratic world, a boy who wants to be educated will be educated. But a boy who wants to go to the carpenter's will go to the carpenter's, and the boy who wants to become a fisherman will become a fisherman. And the woman who wants to cook will cook, and the woman who wants to dance will dance. And the woman who wants to become a scientist, a Madame Curie, she is welcome. But people should move according to their inner nature; nothing should be imposed on them. This universal education is destroying people. It is as if -- just think of another example -- a dictator comes who loves dancing and forces everybody to dance. That will be an ugly thing. There will be people who don't want to dance, and if you force them to dance what kind of dance will it be? If a dictator comes who wants everybody to become a poet, and opens schools and colleges to teach poetry and everybody has to compose poetry, what kind of world will that be? A very ugly world. Only a few people -- a Shakespeare, a Kalidas, a Milton, a Dante -- will enjoy it. But what about others? They will be simply miserable. And that is what is happening. When you force arithmetic on all, that is what you are doing. When you force geography on all, that is what you are doing. When you force ANYTHING on all, that is what you are doing. Nothing should be forced, a child should be allowed to find his own way. And if he wants to be a cobbler, perfectly good, there is no need for him to become a president. A cobbler is beautiful if he enjoys his work, if he is happy with his work, if he has found his work. No universal education. And missionaries are the most dangerous people. A world without missionaries will be a beautiful world -- it has become a hell.
You ask: HOW IS ONE TO BE HAPPY?
Forget about happiness, happiness cannot be achieved directly. Rather, think of what you enjoy, what you most enjoy doing, and get absorbed into it. And happiness will come on its own. If you enjoy swimming enjoy swimming, if you enjoy chopping wood chop wood. Whatsoever you like, do it and get absorbed into it. And suddenly when you are absorbed you will find that climate coming to you, that sunlit climate of happiness. Suddenly you find it is all around you. That's what I would like to create in our new commune. People have to get ABSORBED. Happiness is a by-product, it is not a goal. Doing the thing that you want to do, happiness comes.
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