Pleasure

 

 

Man can create, at the most, pleasure. Bliss is beyond man's creativity. Bliss always comes as a gift from God. It is always divine; it is never human. Pleasure is human; that's why our world is so full of pleasures. But pleasures don't satisfy; they can't. The longing in the heart is for the bliss.

 

Pleasures are pleasant -- I am not against them -- but one thing has to be remembered: that they are playthings, toys. Man creates them -- just because man creates them, they cannot fulfill man. They remain below man. The creation always remains below the creator; the creation can never be bigger than the creator.

 

And the longing of the heart is something infinite, for something vast, for something tremendously powerful; something that will take you away from yourself, something that will come like a flood and will wash you and cleanse you and purify you, something that will shower on you from the beyond. Only that can become contentment. Bliss is divine.

 

And never be misguided by the pleasures. They are good in themselves, good games to play with. But games are games; one should not expect much from them. They keep you occupied. A beautiful house, a beautiful family, children, husband, wife, friends, good company -- these are games. Play them as skillfully as possible, play them as artfully as possible, but remember they will not fill your life with contentment. They will keep you superficially occupied, engaged, that's all.

 

So remaining amidst pleasures of all kinds, never forget for a single moment that life is not only to play games. It has to achieve something very definite: it has to achieve something of truth. And that is possible only when we move beyond the human mind, when we put the human mind aside and bow down before the beyond. That is surrender and that is sannyas. In that bowing down, in that surrender, the beyond enters in you.

 

-Osho, "Snap Your Fingers, Slap Your Face and Wake Up!, #20“