Contenment and Satisfaction

 

 

There is a great difference between satisfaction and contentment, not only is there a difference, in fact they are opposite to each other.

 

Satisfaction is pseudo. It is just an effort to cover up your wounds. The wounds are not healed, they are there, but only covered. And they go on growing, they go on becoming bigger, they go on collecting more pus; they can become cancerous.

 

Contentment is healed wounds. One has become whole. It is authentic. Satisfaction is only a consolation because we cannot create bliss we are miserable, so we create many methods console ourselves. Contentment is not a consolation, it is bliss itself.

 

Once your bliss starts functioning contentment is follows it like a shadow. So I don't teach contentment, teach bliss. For centuries the other religions have been teaching contentment, but if you try to be contented it will be only satisfaction, a consolation, a false coin. That's why this pseudo humanity has come into being.

 

I start with bliss. The old religious approach was to start with contentment, and they used to say -- and it has been said in many scriptures of the world -- that the contented person is blissful. I say just the opposite is true, the blissful person is contented. And one who is not blissful, his contentment is bogus.

 

So start by being blissful. And it will not be very difficult for you. It will be very simple and very easy. You are almost ready to take the jump!

 

-Osho, "The Old Pond ... Plop, #12"

 

 

 ⯎

 

 

 

Satisfaction is not contentment, satisfaction is again a false coin. Just as knowledge is a false coin compared to wisdom, satisfaction is a false coin compared to contentment. Contentment arises in your own understanding, satisfaction is given by others.

 

Always beware of the borrowed; the borrowed is always false. But that is the fool’s mind, how it works. The fool’s mind is more interested in consolation than in wisdom.

 

-Osho, "Unio Mystica, Vol. 1, #9“

 

 

 ⯎

 

 

There is a vast difference between satisfaction and contentment.

 

Satisfaction is something invented. In the old fable of Aesop, the fox says that the grapes are sour, because he can't reach those grapes -- that is finding some consolation.

 

When people cannot reach they have to create a certain consolation around themselves. That consolation is satisfaction, that consolation functions like buffers.

 

Between two compartments in a train there are buffers so that if some accident happens the compartments don't crash into each other. Those buffers are shock absorbers.

 

Or just like in a car, there are springs so that you don't feel the bumps -- particularly on an Indian road -- those springs help; they absorb the shocks. A little bit of it reaches to you end if you are also using an Indian car, then much of it reaches to you! Indian cars are made especially for Indian roads; they fit together.

 

But with good buffers, imported buffers, you can avoid many bumps on the road. Exactly the same is the case with our inner world: there are so many shocks in life.

 

You want money and you cannot get it, and you want power and you cannot get it -- because there is always a power shortage, (laughter)... gas shortage... everything is in shortage. There are many more consumers and everything is in shortage. And how many people can be prime ministers and presidents? Now this country has seven hundred million people and only one person can be the president. So seven hundred million people minus one are going to be shocked! (laughter) They have to find some consolation, they have to create some satisfaction. They can say, 'Who cares? I am not interested in power politics. I don't want to become a politician. All these dirty politicians... I am a simple man, a humble man, and I am perfectly satisfied with my life. These are creating buffers.

 

This helps you to carry on the routine life but this is not contentment; there is no joy in it, because deep down you know that it is only a deception. You can deceive others but how can you deceive yourself? You can go on hypnotizing yourself just as Christian Scientists do: they are ill, they know they are ill, but they go on saying I am not ill, illness is all false, that illness is only of the mind. They can go on repeating morning evening, day in day out, but in fact the very fact that they are repeating again and again 'I am not sick,' is enough proof that they know they are sick. [....]

 

People don't want to accept facts. They create fictions around themselves. Even if a person dies, people don't say directly that he is dead; they say 'he has gone to the heavenly abode', or that 'he has become god's beloved'... So what was he before that? People want to avoid facts, and they create smoke around themselves. That is not contentment.

 

Contentment is a totally different phenomenon. It happens only to the meditator, only the meditator becomes so blissful, so peaceful, because he has arrived! There is nowhere to go. He has found his home! He has experienced the ultimate significance of there is nothing, more than that. He has touched the optimum, and out of that bliss is contentment.

 

So contentment is not something one can cultivate; it is a by-product of meditation. And one should not cultivate satisfaction, because that will keep you away from contentment. It is better to destroy all satisfaction and all consolations; it is better to realise facts as they ares illness is illness and death is death. And if you cannot reach the grapes, better to say 'I cannot reach,' because then some way can be found to reach. Don't go on deceiving others and yourself that they are sour.

 

So I am all for reality. My approach is pragmatic.

 

I am a realist, not an idealist. I don't believe in all that hocus-pocus. And to be my sannyasin means to be utterly realistic, pragmatic, grounded in the Earth. And because one is grounded one starts growing like a tree into the sky towards the stars, and then there is immense contentment.

 

Meditation is a process of rebirth. The first birth is only physiological, biological material. Don't think that that's all there is to life. Coming out of the womb of the mother is only an opportunity for a second birth, for the real birth. The day you come out of the womb of your psychology, you are really born.

 

-Osho, "The Old Pond ... Plop, #17"