Bliss Is the Path

…bliss is the path. To be blissful is to be prayerful, to be blissful is to be in meditation; to be blissful is to worship god. All else is a formality. If one is blissful then one need not go to any temple, to any mosque. In one’s very blissfulness one has prayed, one has offered oneself to god — and it is the true offering, because bliss is the flowering of your consciousness.

If one is blissful, one need not think of religion, of god; those things are irrelevant. They will happen on their own when the time is ripe.

So learn only one thing: how to remain constantly in bliss. Even though circumstances are not for it, even though there is a dark night all around you, even though things are going wrong, you can still remain blissful — because bliss does not depend on outer circumstances, it has nothing to do with outer circumstances.

Bliss depends on your capacity to be aware; it is a by-product of awareness. If you can witness whatsoever is happening, you will be blissful. If there is a headache and you can witness it, the headache will be there but you will be blissful. Even if one is dying, death will happen but one will die blissfully.

Bliss is not caused by outer things, so it cannot be taken away by outer things. It is something that depends on your witnessing — hence you can be blissful twenty-four hours every day. In misery one can be blissful, when ill one can be blissful, because all these things are just on the periphery. And at the centre, if one can remain alert, watchful, observing, then one doesn’t get identified with anything that is happening outside.

In that non-identification is bliss. And bliss is your path.

Osho, Zorba the Buddha, Ch 23 – 23 January 1979