Question 5:

Day by Day, Near you, I find myself liking my sadness. What is happening to me, Osho?

 

 

That’s how it should be. If you can like your sadness also, then the sadness is no longer sad. The sadness is sad because you dislike it. The sadness is sad because you would not like to be in it. The sadness is sad because you reject it. Even sadness becomes a flowering of tremendous beauty, of silence, of depth, if you like it.

 

Nothing is wrong; that’s what I want you to be: to like everything that happens, even sadness. Even death has to be loved; only then will you transcend death. If you can accept death, love and welcome it, now death cannot kill you; you have transcended it. When sadness comes, accept it. Listen to its song. It has something to give to you. It has a gift which no happiness can give to you, only sadness can give it.

 

Happiness is always shallow; sadness, always deep. Happiness is like a wave, sadness is like the innermost depth of an ocean. In sadness you remain with yourself, left alone. In happiness you start moving with people, you start sharing In sadness you close your eyes; you delve deep within yourself. Sadness has a song — a very deep phenomenon is sadness. Accept it. Enjoy it. Taste it without any rejection, and you will see that it brings many gifts to you which no happiness can ever bring.

 

And if you can accept sadness, it is no more sadness. You have brought a new quality to it. You will grow through it. Now it will not be a stone, a rock on the path blocking the way; it will become a step. And remember always: a person who has not known deep sadness is a poor person. He will never have an inner richness. A person who has lived always happy, smiling, shallow, has not entered into the innermost temple of his being. He has missed the innermost shrine.

 

Remain capable of moving with all the polarities. When sadness comes, be REALLY sad. Don’t try to escape from it — allow it, cooperate with it. Let it dissolve in you and you be dissolved in it. Become one with it. Be really sad: no resistance, no conflict, no struggle. When happiness comes, be happy: dance, be ecstatic. When happiness comes, don’t try to cling to it. Don’t say that it should remain always and always; that is the way to miss it. When sadness comes, don’t say,’Don’t come to me,’ or,’If you have come, please go soon.’ That is the way to miss it.

 

Don’t reject sadness and don’t cling to happiness. and soon you will understand that happiness and sadness are two aspects of the same coin. Then you will see that happiness also has a sadness in it, and sadness also has a happiness in it. Then your inner being is enriched. Then you can enjoy everything: the morning and the evening also, the sunlight and the dark night also, the day and the night, the summer and the winter, life and death — you can enjoy all.

 

When you don’t have a choice, you are already transcendental. You have transcended. Then the duality doesn’t divide you. You remain undivided. And this is ADWAIT; this is what Shankara means when he says ‘non-dualism’; this is what the Upanishads teach: to be non-dual, to be one.

 

To be one means not to choose, because once you choose your choice divides you. You say,’I would like to be happy, and I don’t want to be unhappy’; you are divided. You simply say,’Whatsoever happens, everything is welcome. My doors are open. Sadness comes; come be my guest. Happiness comes; come be my guest. I will be a host to everything, with no rejection, with no choice, with no like, no dislike.’

 

Suddenly, nobody can divide you. You have attained to an inner unity, to an inner melody, to an inner music, an inner harmony.

 

- Osho, “Come Follow to You, Vol 4, #8, Q5”