A collection of quotes and teachings on the topic of happiness by Osho.
In life things are very mixed up. Like day and night, life and death, you have happiness and unhappiness. Life is rich because of polar opposites.
In life things are very mixed up. Like day and night, life and death, you have happiness and unhappiness. Life is rich because of polar opposites.
The very idea that one would like to be happy forever is stupid, and the idea will only create unhappiness. You will become more and more miserable in your greed for elusive eternal happiness.
The happy person is not one who is always happy. The happy person is one who is happy even when there is unhappiness. Try to understand it. The happy person is one who understands life and accepts its polarities. He knows success is possible only because failure is also possible. So when failure comes he accepts it.
If you can accept unhappiness as smoothly as you welcome happiness, you will transcend both. In that very acceptance is transcendence. Then unhappiness and happiness will not make much difference to you, you will remain the same.
Happiness has nothing to do with what you have or don’t have. Happiness is related to what you are. However many things you may collect, perhaps they may increase your worries, your troubles, but happiness will not increase because of them. Certainly unhappiness will increase with them, but they have no relation to an increase in your happiness.
Happiness has nothing to do with what you have or don’t have. Happiness is related to what you are. However many things you may collect, perhaps they may increase your worries, your troubles, but happiness will not increase because of them. Certainly unhappiness will increase with them, but they have no relation to an increase in your happiness.
If you are really feeling happy, you are feeling happy even
if the whole world contradicts you. If the whole world agrees that you are not
happy, then too it doesn’t matter. Your happiness is real. It cannot be
canceled by anybody’s opinion. But if your happiness is unreal, it can be
canceled by anybody. Even a small child can cancel it. You will be constantly
looking towards people. You will be smiling, trying to show that you are happy
so that they can say, ‘Yes. You are very happy. You look very happy.
The total absence of desire brings happiness. It also brings freedom and
liberation, because whenever something is lacking there are both limits
and dependency. Only when nothing at all is lacking is there the
possibility of total freedom. Freedom brings happiness. And happiness is
salvation.
My effort here is to create bliss, not happiness. Happiness
is worthless; it depends on unhappiness. Bliss is transcendence: one moves
beyond the duality of being happy and unhappy. One watches both; happiness
comes, one watches and does not become identified with it. One does not say, ‘I
am happy. Peace, it is wonderful.’ One simply watches, one says, ‘Yes, a white
cloud passing.’
“And then comes unhappiness, and one does not become unhappy
either. One says, ‘A black cloud passing. I am the witness, the watcher.’
Osho