From the Vigyan Bhairav Tantra: “This so-called universe appears as a juggling, a picture show. To be happy, look upon it so.”
Osho says: “This whole world is just like a drama, so don’t be too serious about it. If you can look to the whole world as a drama you will regain your original consciousness. The dust gathers because you are so serious. That seriousness creates problems, and we are so serious that even while seeing a drama we gather dust.
Many people have lived on this earth. Where you are sitting, at least ten dead bodies are buried in that place, and they too were serious like you. Now they are no more. Where have their lives gone? Where have their problems gone? They were fighting – fighting for a single inch of earth, and the earth is there and they are no more.
And I am not saying that their problems were not problems. They were – as your problems are problems. They were “serious” – problems of life and death. But where are their problems? And if the whole humanity should disappear any day, the earth will be there, the trees will grow, the rivers will flow and the sun will rise, and the earth will not feel any absence or wonder where humanity is.
In India, we have called this world not a creation of God, but a play, a game, a LEELA. This concept of LEELA is beautiful, because creation seems serious. The Christian, the Jewish God is very serious. Even for a single disobedience, Adam was thrown out of the Garden of Eden – and not only was he thrown out, because of him, the whole humanity. He was our father, and we are suffering because of him. God seems to be so serious. He should not be disobeyed. And if he is disobeyed, he is going to take revenge, and the revenge has been so long.
The very concept of God as a father is ugly, serious. The Indian concept is not of a creator. God is just a player; he is not serious. This is just a game.
If you are unhappy, you have taken it too seriously. And don’t try to find any way how to be happy. Just change your attitude. You cannot be happy with a serious mind. With a festive mind, you can be happy. Take this whole life as a myth, as a story. It is one, but once you take it this way you will not be unhappy. Unhappiness comes out of too much seriousness. Try for seven days; for seven days remember only one thing – that the whole world is just a drama – and you will not be the same again. Just for seven days! You are not going to lose much because you don’t have anything to lose.
You can try it. For seven days take everything as a drama, just as a show. These seven days will give you many glimpses of your buddha nature, of your inner purity. And once you have the glimpse you cannot be the same again. You will be happy, and you cannot conceive of what type of happiness can happen to you because you have not known any happiness. You have known only degrees of unhappiness: sometimes you were more unhappy, sometimes less unhappy, and when you were less unhappy you called it happiness. You don’t know what happiness is because you cannot know. When you have a concept of the world in which you are taking it very seriously, you cannot know what happiness is. Happiness happens only when you are grounded in this attitude, that the world is just a play.
So try this, and do everything in a very festive way, celebrating, doing an “act” – not a real thing. If you are a husband, play, be a play husband; if you are a wife, be a play wife. Make it just a game. And there are rules, of course; any game to be played needs rules. Marriage is a rule and divorce is a rule, but don’t be serious about them. They are rules, and one rule begets another. Divorce is bad; because marriage is bad: one rule begets another! But don’t take them seriously, and then look how the quality of your life immediately changes.
You are unhappy because you have chosen a wrong attitude towards life. You can be happy if you choose a right attitude. Buddha pays so much attention to “right attitude.” He makes it a base, a foundation – “right attitude.” What is right attitude? What is the criterion? To me this is the criterion: the attitude that makes you happy is the right attitude, and there is no objective criterion. The attitude that makes you unhappy and miserable is the wrong attitude. The criterion is subjective; your happiness is the criterion.”
Enjoyed this meditation? Want to try more like it? Check out Sarita’s online Vigyan Bhairav Tantra club, or by email, or or see her book, Divine Sexuality.
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