Bliss and Wisdom

Anand means blissful, sudheer means wisdom. And I make it a condition that wisdom is significant only when it is blissful, and blissfulness is meaningful only when it has wisdom in it. Both can exist separately but then they are not meaningful.

A person can be very happy and foolish – maybe happy because he is foolish, maybe happy because he cannot understand the complexity of life, because he is below understanding so he is not aware that misery is implied in life. He is happy because he is ignorant… just like children or like animals.

Idiots are happy; there is no worry, there is no problem because they don’t have yet the mind to worry. To worry one needs intelligence. Animals don’t worry and don’t go crazy and don’t need the psychiatrist’s help; for that intelligence is needed. So a fool can be happy but his happiness is not of much worth.

On the other polarity is a so-called wise man – very knowledgeable, very serious, very intellectual, even intelligent, but now happy. Then what is the point of being wise? The whole point misses! Then your wisdom is far worse than the foolishness; at least the foolish are happy! What can one gain out of knowledge if there is no bliss in it? And this is what happens almost always.

My whole approach is to create a synthesis: one should be wise and happy and blissful, wise and dancing, wise and singing, wise and celebrating. Only then does one arrive home and can on feel real life, the fragrance of life… one can detect the presence of god.

Two things – happiness and wisdom – are needed to detect the presence of god. These two things balance each other.

So by making you a sannyasin I am putting this in your consciousness: on one hand try to become more and more alert, aware, more intelligent, more sensitive, so wisdom arises; on the other hand become more and more relaxed, more dancing, more playful, so blissfulness arises. And always keep balance….

It is very easy for the mind to move in one extreme direction; the mind is an extremist. When the mind has to choose between two polarities it is very ready to choose one. Never choose one: either don’t choose or choose both together. And that is how one goes beyond the mind – because that is very difficult for the mind to manage; it cannot manage. In the very nature of things it is impossible for the mind to manage two extremes together.

So Buddha has given one of the greatest methods of meditation – what he calls ‘the middle way’. Always keep in the middle: whenever there are two extremes keep in the middle, keep balanced, and you will go beyond the mind, because the mind exists only in extremity.

This polarity – anand and wisdom, bliss and wisdom, anand and sudheer. And you have to be just in the middle, just the gap between the two, the empty space between the two. On one hand is blissfulness, on one hand is wisdom, and you have to be just in the middle.

In the beginning it will be difficult but soon you will have the taste of it… and even a glimpse is a tremendous insight. When you are wise in any moment and yet blissful, you will suddenly see the beauty of it.

[The sannyasin says he is a crazy psychiatrist.]

Very good! Cannot be so crazy as me! I need all the psychiatrists… and they are coming. My greatest number of sannyasins are from the profession of psychology. They will be able to understand me more and they will be able to use me more also… for themselves and for others too.

[The sannyasin says that he has his own form of meditation: It works best for me if I think of some quality or something, something that I want to understand more.]

That’s my feeling…

So do one meditation…

Whenever you can find time – and at least once a day you have to find time…. Any time will do, but it is good to do it when the stomach is empty; the more energy is available when the stomach is empty. Not that one should be hungry – just that the stomach should not be too full; if you have eaten then after two, three hours. Just a cup of tea is good… a cup of tea is very helpful.

Buddhists have used tea for a long time. They have made almost a meditation of drinking tea. And it is helpful: it makes you a little alert, and good! So you can take a cup of tea but not anything else. Whenever you do it, early in the morning or in the night, the stomach should be empty.

The second thing: if you can take a bath before it that will be very helpful. Take a hot bath and a cold shower. First soak yourself in the hot bathtub and then just take a two minute cold shower, but end with a cold shower; that will prepare you perfectly.

Then take a cup of tea and sit; make yourself comfortable. If you can sit on the floor, you can have a pillow underneath, that will be good. If it feels difficult or the posture is difficult, you can sit on the chair.

Relax the whole body and just concentrate on the middle of your chest, just in the middle where the rib bones and the stomach starts. With closed eyes, imagine that a small buddha statue is there, just an outline of a buddha statue. You can have a picture of a small buddha statue so that you can figure it out. Just a two inch size buddha statue.

Visualise it as being made of light and that rays are spreading out from it. Get absorbed in it, and it will be work so you can go into it easily… rays spreading, filling your whole body.

If you can also sit in a buddha posture on the floor that will be very helpful, because that figure and your posture will fit together. The rays are spreading and the whole body becomes full of light. Then the rays start spreading outside the body – just a visualisation inside. The rays start touching the roof, the walls, and soon they are going outside the room; they go on spreading and they go on spreading.

Within fifteen minutes time let them cover the whole universe as far as you can conceive, and great peace will arise! Then remain in that state for at least for five to ten minutes: the whole universe full of rays and the centre of that is in your innermost heart.

Hold that state for ten minutes, go on contemplating it, go on feeling the rays; go on and on and on. The whole universe is full of those rays. Then start shrinking back, slowly; as slowly as you had gone before, slowly shrink back. Then come back to your inner buddha – again the two inch statue full of light.

Then suddenly let it disappear – abruptly; that is the point, the most significant point in the whole process. Abruptly let it disappear and there will be left a negative image. It is just as when you look into a window too long and then you close your eyes and you see the negative image of the window.

The buddha statue has been there, full of light; suddenly, abruptly, let it disappear. There will be a dark buddha statue, a negative statue, emptiness… the hole I have been talking about for these few days. Hold that for at least five to ten minutes – that hole, that emptiness.

In the first stage when the rays are spreading all over the universe, you will feel great peace like you may have never felt before and a great expansion… a feeling that you have become huge and that the whole universe is in you.

In the second stage, instead of peace you will feel blissfulness. When the buddha statue becomes negative and all light disappears and there is darkness and silence you will feel a great blissfulness… for no reason at all! A well-being arising in you – hold that.

So this whole process has to take not more than forty-five minutes, forty-five to sixty minutes. This will be very very helpful.

And if you can sometimes do the Dynamic also, both together will be of great importance, because the Dynamic is good for catharsis and this will be good for silence. If you do the Dynamic in the morning, do this in the evening. If you cannot do two, then this one. And this one can be done in bed at night when you are going to sleep; that is the most perfect time. Do it and then just fall into sleep so the same state will continue vibrating the whole night.

Many times in your dreams that buddha statue will appear, many times in your dreams those rays will be felt. In the morning you will feel that your sleep has been of a totally different quality. It was not just sleep: something more positive than sleep has been there, some presence has been there. You will come out more rejuvenated, more alert, more full of reverence for life.

Osho, The Zero Experience, Ch 6