Bliss has no opposite

Meditation is also an energy, possibly the subtlest energy. Even physicists feel that meditation must be a form of energy. Not only physiologists and psychologists but even physicists feel that meditation is an energy, because it is slowly becoming clear that if we look at something meditatively the object is transformed; just by observing the object it becomes transformed.

If we observe an atom, the atom does not behave the same way as it does when it is not observed; our observation changes its behavior. For instance, if a man is walking alone on the street he walks in a particular way, and if suddenly someone else comes along the street, then his gait changes immediately. The change may be subtle but it is there.

You are taking a bath in your bathroom and if suddenly you find someone peeping through the keyhole, your behavior changes. What has happened? This change in the behavior of human beings is understandable, but scientists say that change even takes place in objects; even objects move differently.

Experiments with meditation have been done on flowers in the de la Barr laboratory of Oxford. Someone lovingly meditates on one flower, while another flower of the same kind is left unattended. No one meditates on the second flower; although the flower is watered, the sun shines on it, every other arrangement is the same, but because of meditation the first flower grows and blooms much more and the second flower remains a dwarf. Seeds sown meditatively sprout faster than seeds sown without meditation. What has made the difference to the seeds? Is the flower influenced by the energy of meditation? There is no obvious connection, but there is definitely some energy working at some level.

Meditation is the food for the fourth body. The meditation we are doing is an attempt to awaken the fourth body. Beyond these four bodies exists the fifth body, which the sages call the bliss body. When one reaches to the awareness body and purifies it with meditation, then the most transparent body emerges.

The physical body can never be transparent because the very matter it is made of is so gross; howsoever you purify it, by its very nature it cannot become totally transparent. Prana energy is more transparent, but not totally. The mental body can be made more transparent than the energy body, but still not totally. The most transparent is the awareness body — completely transparent. It is so transparent that you can not only see through it, you can even walk through it. It is so transparent that it has no resistance.

Meditation is the purest energy, the most purified energy possible. If you pass through it you will not even feel it — no resistance, no obstruction. If you are in the purest energy of awareness, then you will not even know the fourth body. And it is interesting that as soon as you enter the awareness body you don’t feel this body, you feel the bliss body.

Try to understand this. The fourth body is so pure that it is not visible separately as the fourth. It is like the clearest glass, which seems to be invisible. If it is visible, that means there is still some impurity; if it is pure, only then is it totally invisible. But even glass is matter… it may not be visible, creating no obstruction for the eyes, but if you walk through it you will collide with it.

But awareness is the purest energy ever known, ever recognized. The subtlest energy available through yoga, through meditation is awareness, consciousness. So when you awaken totally you are not aware of this awakening, you become aware of being blissful; beyond the awareness body is the bliss body — only the bliss body is experienced. The fifth is the bliss body. And the sages have also called it a body; this is not the self, this is also a body. The sages say bliss is also a body.

Try to understand a few things about this. Firstly, as I told you, the fourth is the purest body, but it can also be impure; though it is the purest, it can become impure. In us it is impure, it is totally impure. It is purified through meditation, it becomes impure due to unawareness; it becomes pure by being conscious, it becomes impure due to unconsciousness. So all intoxicants basically harm the awareness body. They may harm the other bodies too, but that is another thing. It is also possible that intoxicants may be beneficial for the other bodies, but they are harmful for the awareness body. Alcohol may sometimes prove beneficial for the physical body, to some extent. And it can also happen that alcohol can strongly activate your vital energy. So often the joy and strength you feel after drinking alcohol belongs to your vital energy.

Alcohol can be beneficial to the thinking process too in some ways. It appears to be a help to people who live in thoughts — poets, writers, painters, sculptors — people who live by imagination, giving form to their thoughts, here it may be beneficial to some extent. But it certainly harms the fourth body and is never beneficial for it, because unconsciousness is the impurity, and consciousness is the purity for the fourth body. Every kind of unconsciousness is harmful to it. The fourth body can be the purest of all, but it can become impure as well; both possibilities exist.

The special thing about the fifth body is that it is the purest. It cannot become impure. That is why there is no word as an opposite to bliss. Joy is opposite to sorrow, peace is opposite to disturbance, love is opposite to hate, consciousness is opposite to unconsciousness; but bliss has no opposite. Bliss is the only word which has no opposite. If someone were to say ‘no-bliss’, that would only be the absence of bliss, it is not the opposite of bliss. ‘No-bliss’ has no form, no place, no existence.

There is no energy opposite to bliss; hence, the fifth body is pure. So nothing needs to be done with the fifth body. When the fourth is purified, the fifth is available. The fifth is always present. And that is why everyone feels that bliss is his birthright, that you must have bliss — that’s why you seek it. Nobody asks why one seeks bliss: “What need is there for bliss? What is the purpose of it?” Every search can be questioned with, “What’s the point?” The search for bliss is the only thing which cannot be questioned. Questioning seems meaningless.

People come and ask me, “Why should we seek the divine? Why seek the truth? What is the aim of life?” But nobody comes and asks me, “Why should I seek bliss? What is the aim of bliss?” Bliss is taken for granted. Even the search for the divine is ultimately the search for bliss: there is no other purpose. The search for truth is ultimately the search for bliss. If you knew for certain that there was no bliss after attaining the truth you would sink in sorrow, you would stop your search at once. You would have nothing to do with such a futile search.

Nietzsche raised a question. He often raised profound questions which even a buddha would have had trouble in answering. Nietzsche asked: “If bliss is the goal of life, and if you are feeling happiness while lying, in being untrue, then what is bad about it? If bliss is the aim of life, and if you are finding it in your dreams, then why seek any further for truth or reality? If bliss is the aim of life, then put God aside. If bliss is attained through illusions, then what is there to worry about? There is just one decision to make: whether or not bliss is the aim of life.”

Moralists and theologians are at a loss to give an answer to Nietzsche’s question. And Nietzsche asked: “Can you be sure that the truth will not bring sorrow? How can you be sure that truth will not bring sorrow?”

“Because,” Nietzsche says, “our experience says that the truth is very bitter and that it creates a lot of trouble. Have you totally decided that delusion will always bring trouble and suffering? Our daily experience is that delusion is very pleasant! Why are you trying to destroy people’s dreams? — because these dreams can also be beautiful and pleasant. Of course there are nightmares, but you can always get rid of nightmares and make your joyful dreams eternal, never to be broken. Then what would be the need for any search?”

This creates problems for theologians — theologians, not the man of wisdom. The man of wisdom says: “Dreams are things which can never be made eternal. Where there are pleasures they will be followed by sorrow, they are interlinked. If you sometimes get joy from the false, it is because the false gives you the illusion of being the reality. If you sometimes get glimpses of happiness from the false, it is because the false claims to be true. That is the reason why no liar admits to being a liar, he will always claim to be truthful. In fact only a liar claims to be truthful, while truth needs no claim.” Lies have to use the mask of truth. If dreams are to survive, then they have to create the illusion of being the reality and claim that they are not dreams.

Osho, The Way Beyond Any Way: Talks on Sarvasar Upanishad , Ch 7 (translated from Hindi)

A quote published in The Book: An Introduction to the Teachings of Bhagwan Shree Rajneesh
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