Joy is light

Beloved Osho,

You are the well. All the time when I came there was fresh water waiting for me, cleaning and purifying me, taking me apart and putting me together in a different, more beautiful way. Now, for the first time, I feel the courage to be so close that I can see my face mirrored in your water. I’m afraid, Osho, and also full of joy.

Chitbodhi, man is accustomed to misery; hence, he is never afraid of misery. However great, when misery happens, he knows it.

But man is absolutely unacquainted with joy. He has forgotten the very language of joy. His mind is full of tensions, anxieties, anguishes, anger, violence, jealousy. Nothing makes him afraid – they are all old companions, he knows them perfectly well. He has lived with them, although it has been a suffering, it has been a hell. But this is one of the significant factors to be understood about man: he can adapt himself to any conditions.

It happened in Egypt nearabout three thousand years ago: There was a monastery, and the monastery had an underground graveyard. Whenever any monk died, the great stone that was covering the way to the graveyard underneath was removed, and the monk’s body was lowered down in deep darkness. The tunnel was miles long – a natural tunnel.

Thousands of monks have been lowered into that tunnel, and according to the Egyptian convention every monk was given some money, some clothes, and some food, because he was going for a pilgrimage. It was sixty feet deep and miles long.

It happened that a monk had not died, but was in a coma. Others thought that he had died, and they opened the graveyard, lowered the monk, closed the graveyard… and after a few hours the monk came to consciousness. He could not believe where he was – immense darkness, darkness so deep, as he had never seen, because not even a ray of light had ever entered into that tunnel. And such a stink, because so many dead bodies had become rotten – all around there were bodies and bodies, and they were all dead.

He shouted as much as he could, although he knew deep down that his voice would not reach to the monks in the monastery because it was sixty feet deep and then a huge rock always closed…. He had himself closed that rock many times. But as a last resort, he tried shouting with all his might, “I am alive!” But nobody heard it.

And you will be surprised to know the immense adaptability of man. You may think that he must have committed suicide – you are wrong. He lived in the hope that someday some monk will die, and the rock will be removed – then he can shout.

But meanwhile there was a little food that he has been sent with, and after that food, he started eating rotten food sent with other dead bodies which had become just skeletons.

It took ten years for another monk to die, although this monk was praying every day to God, “There are so many old monks….” But God has never heard anybody. Over the time of ten years he became a cannibal; he started eating the flesh of dead bodies. Not only that, he started collecting the money that had been given to each monk when he died, and the clothes – in the hope that when he would be rescued, he would take all these clothes and all this money.

And slowly, slowly he forgot that the graveyard was stinking; he forgot that he was living the ugliest life possible. For water, there was nothing else than the water that was coming from the rocks, and he knew that the water was from the gutters of the monastery. He started drinking that water; he could not have even touched it before, but there was no other way. The lust for life is so tremendous that man can manage…. That water which was coming was so dirty, but for him it was almost nectar; it was life-giving. And he was the only living man in that miles-long tunnel.

As he was moving around in the darkness, slowly, slowly his eyes became accustomed to seeing a little bit in the darkness. And dead people, just skeletons – nobody was there to prevent him, so he was searching everybody, finding money, clothes.

And when after ten years the rock was removed, he shouted back up. People had completely forgotten about him. They pulled him out, but he said, “First you pull up my clothes” – he had a big pile of clothes. People could not believe that…. Then he said, “Now pull up my money.” So they pulled up his money – he had collected the money from thousands of people. After all his treasures were taken out, he came out.

It was difficult for him to open his eyes in the sunlight. He had grown such a long beard that it was touching the floor, and he was looking so healthy. People could not believe it and said, “How have you managed? You used to be very thin, and you have collected so much weight!” And when they heard his story they could not believe that a man can do this. When you think about it, putting yourself in his place…. First it is shocking, but soon you will understand that what he did, you would have done also.

He lived twenty years more. And again his eyes became accustomed to light. Now he himself could not believe that those ten years – it seemed almost like a nightmare that is ended.

Chitbodhi, you are afraid because you are feeling the first stirrings of joy. It is unknown territory. Your heart you are feeling for the first time. The heart is not just what the medical people say, or the physiologists say – a pumping station. The heart that the mystics and the poets talk about has nothing to do with the heart that medical science talks about.

Behind almost every physical organ there is a parallel to it – just behind it, a spiritual receptivity. Behind your eyes, there are eyes which see things, which these eyes cannot see. And behind your ears, there are ears which can hear music, that these ears cannot hear. And behind your physical heart, there is a spiritual heart which knows love – which this heart has no idea about – which knows joy.

The physical heart can be changed, and a plastic heart may be far better because a plastic heart cannot have a heart failure. There are, around the world, thousands of people moving about with an artificial heart. But that artificial heart cannot love. Just put two artificial hearts close to each other and see what kind of dialogue happens. Nothing will happen; there are just two dead things. They can do the function of purifying your blood, of taking in the oxygen, of throwing out the carbon dioxide; but love is neither oxygen nor carbon dioxide. Love is not a question of breathing – everybody is breathing.

So remember, whenever I talk about the heart, I am not talking about the heart medical science talks about – this is something behind it. Each of your senses has a parallel sense behind it.

If you hear me, you can hear in two ways. Either you can hear only with your outer ear, or you can hear with your inner ear too. When your outer and inner ear both hear, then it is listening; otherwise it is only hearing.

When your outer eyes and inner eyes both see, then the same existence becomes so psychedelic, so colorful…. The same tree is greener than it has ever been – and not only greener, each leaf has its own energy aura. The whole tree is surrounded by an energy aura, radiating rays.

In the Soviet Union one man has developed a new photography, Kirlian photography. He uses such sensitive plates that he can picture not only the trees in his plates, but trees with their energy aura surrounding them.

When your inner eyes are together with your outer eyes and there is a harmony, you will see this whole existence is a festival of lights, that everything is radiating light, is surrounded by beautiful light, soft… every man is surrounded.

And a man can be known by his aura. The ordinary man has only nearabout a one-inch aura all around his body, but as your meditation deepens your aura becomes bigger – two inches, three inches, four inches, five inches.

As your meditation deepens you are surrounded with more and more light coming from your inner being.

You have seen the pictures of Buddha or Jesus with a circle of light around their head, an aura, and people think that it is simply mythology. Now Kirlian photography proves it – it is not mythology. Kirlian photography says that that kind of round aura happens only when somebody has reached to his very innermost core, when somebody is awakened – a Gautam Buddha. Then his whole head radiates something of the eternal.

But when things start happening for the first time, one feels afraid. When a young boy, fourteen years old, becomes for the first time aware of his sexuality, he feels afraid, embarrassed, becomes very uptight, is worried: “What is happening? If somebody comes to know…. And what am I supposed to do with it?” A new energy has become available of which he was not aware at all up to now. And when spiritual energy becomes available to you, it is a million-times-bigger phenomenon…. You feel joy, you feel blissfulness, and at the same time a trembling, a fear – but this fear will disappear.

It is a natural process. As you become more and more accustomed to the new state of joyfulness, fear will be reduced. Soon you will find there is no fear at all. And to be fearless is a tremendously great achievement, because fear is part of your death. If you become fearless, you have tasted something which is deathless.

In your joy you have come close to the deathless, in your joy you have come to your immortality.

You are saying, Chitbodhi, “You are the well. All the time when I came there was fresh water waiting for me – cleaning and purifying me, taking me apart and putting me together in a different more beautiful way. Now, for the first time, I feel the courage to be so close that I can see my face mirrored in your water. I’m afraid, Osho, and also full of joy.”

Give all your energy to joy, and fear will disappear. Ignore fear, don’t pay any attention to fear, because the more attention you pay to it, the longer it will linger on. Pour yourself totally in the direction from where joy is arising, and fear will disappear just as darkness disappears when you bring light in.

Joy is light. And joy is the beginning of a great pilgrimage which ends in finding God. So go on – without any fear, because existence always protects those who trust it. Relax, give yourself to existence and allow the joy to overwhelm you. Let it become your wings, so that you can reach to the stars.

A joyful heart is very close to the stars.

It is only the sad and the sorrowful and the miserable who are going towards hell. They are creating their hell. The joyful and the singing and the dancing and the celebrating are creating their paradise by each of their songs, by each of their dances.

It is in your hands whether to create paradise or to fall into a darkness, into hellfire. These are not outside you; these both are within you. It all depends what you choose to be.

Choose to be divine, choose to be more and more a celebrant, choose to be festive, so more and more flowers can blossom in your being, and more and more fragrance can become available to you.

And this way will not only help you, Chitbodhi, it will help all those with whom you come in contact. Joy is as infectious as any disease. When you see a few people dancing, suddenly you feel your feet are ready. You may try to control them, because control has been taught to you, but your body wants to join the dance. Whenever you have an opportunity to laugh, join; whenever you have an opportunity to dance, join; whenever you have an opportunity to sing, sing – and one day you will find you have created your paradise.

It is not that one goes to paradise; paradise is not somewhere in the sky – it is something that one creates around himself.

It is a good beginning. With all my blessings, go deeper, in spite of any fear. Never listen to negative things, because if you listen to them they can poison you, they can destroy your joy – keep it pure, unpolluted. And here are people who will dance with you, who will celebrate, because you have taken the first step towards God.

And I want to remind you that the first step is almost half the journey.

Osho, The Razor’s Edge, Ch 7, Q 2