The Dance of Life

The dance is: it always is… stones dance as surely as stars. A rock is a slow dance; a flower is a little faster… The choice is ours: to dance with the quick, or to join the procession of the dead. The way of the dead brings security, comfort, fame, so that there can be no good reason to join the dance. To give a motive to this way of life, which is the way of love, is to belittle it. The whole point is its pointlessness. One dances for no reason, as the rose opens in the morning and is for no reason red. There is no virtue in it.

The dance of life is God’s dance. You can participate in it or you can withhold yourself. There is every reason to withhold – the society is afraid of all those people who start dancing with God, because they become dangerous, they become rebellious, they become free. They are no more slaves, they throw their chains, they get out of all prisons. They dance in the streets, they dance under the stars, they participate in God’s dance. They are not afraid of death, so they cannot be reduced to slaves.

The fear of death is the root cause that you can be converted into a slave. Without fear, who can reduce you to a slave? A fearless man cannot be reduced to a slave, so society tries in every way to make you afraid. The society does not want you to know that you are life eternal. It does not want you to know that death is illusory, that it doesn’t happen really, that it only appears to happen – that death is utterly false, that it is a lie. The society does not want it, the society wants you to live in illusions. The truth is too much.

‘The choice is ours: to dance with the quick, or to join the procession of the dead.’ But the society is the procession of the dead. Corpses – walking around, moving around, manipulating each other, bossing each other about. The choice is ours. Remember: if you respect life you should not allow any death to settle in you, you should not allow any fear to settle in you. And you should not compromise – there is no need.

But ‘The way of the dead brings security, comfort, fame, so that there can be no good reason to join the dance.’ The society respects the crippled, the paralyzed, the dull, the stupid, the dead – they are good people, they are civilized people. It kills a Christ, it poisons a Socrates, it tries in every way to destroy a Buddha. But it respects the ordinary, the mediocre, the bourgeois, the middle-class – there is an investment in it. If you want to enjoy the dance of life – and without enjoying it you will be missing the whole opportunity, a great opportunity, a great benediction – if you want to enjoy the dance of life you will have to take this risk. You will have to drop all desire for fame, you will have to drop all desire for respectability.

Osho, The Revolution, Ch 3, Excerpt