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Vigyan Bhairav Tantra - Meditation
Technique 58 "THIS
SO-CALLED UNIVERSE APPEARS AS A JUGGLING, A PICTURE SHOW. TO BE HAPPY
LOOK UPON IT SO."
Osho - This whole world is just like a drama, so don't be too
serious about it. Seriousness will force you into trouble, you will get
into trouble. Don't be serious about it. Nothing is serious; this whole
world is just a drama.
If you can look to the whole world as a drama you will regain your
original consciousness. The dust gathers because you are so serious.
That seriousness creates problems, and we are so serious that even while
seeing a drama we gather dust. Go to a picture house and look at the
spectators. Don't look at the screen, forget the picture; don't look at
the screen; just look at the spectators in the hall. Someone will be
weeping and tears will be rolling down, someone will be laughing,
someone will become sexually excited. Just look at people. What are they
doing? What is happening to them? And there is nothing on the screen,
just pictures -- pictures of light and shadow. The screen is vacant.
But how are they getting excited? They are weeping, crying, laughing.
The picture is not just a picture; the film is not just a film. They
have forgotten that it is just a story. They have taken it seriously. It
has "become alive"! It is "real"! And this is happening everywhere, not
only in a picture house. Look at the life that is all around you. What
is it?
Many people have lived on this earth. Where you are sitting, at least
ten dead bodies are buried in that place, and they too were serious like
you. Now they are no more. Where have their lives gone? Where have their
problems gone? They were fighting -- fighting for a single inch of
earth, and the earth is there and they are no more.
And I am not saying that their problems were not problems. They were --
as your problems are problems. They were "serious" -- problems of life
and death. But where are their problems? And if the whole humanity
should disappear anyday, the earth will be there, the trees will grow,
the rivers will flow and the sun will rise, and the earth will not feel
any absence or wonder where humanity is.
Look at the expanse: look backwards, look forwards, look to all
dimensions at what you are, what your life is. It looks like a long
dream, and everything that you take so seriously this moment becomes
useless the next moment. You may not even remember it.
Remember your first love, how serious it was. Life depended on it. Now
you don't remember it at all, it is forgotten. And whatsoever you are
thinking that your life depends on today will be forgotten. Life is a
flux, nothing remains. It is like a moving film, everything changing
into everything else. But in the moment you feel it is very serious, and
you get disturbed. This technique says, "THIS SO-CALLED UNIVERSE APPEARS
AS A JUGGLING, A PICTURE SHOW. TO BE HAPPY, LOOK UPON IT SO."
In India, we have called this world not a creation of God, but a play, a
game, a LEELA. This concept of LEELA is beautiful, because creation
seems serious. The Christian, the Jewish God is very serious. Even for a
single disobedience, Adam was thrown out of the Garden of Eden -- and
not only was he thrown out, because of him, the whole humanity. He was
our father, and we are suffering because of him. God seems to be so
serious. He should not be disobeyed. And if he is disobeyed, he is going
to take revenge, and the revenge has been so long.
The sin doesn't seem to be so serious. Really, Adam committed it because
of God's own foolishness. God the Father said to Adam, "Don't go near
the tree, the Tree of Knowledge, and don't eat its fruit." This
prohibition becomes an invitation, and this is psychological. In that
big garden, only that Tree of Knowledge became attractive. It was
prohibited. Any psychologist can say, God committed an error. If the
fruit of that tree was not to be eaten, it was good not to talk about it
at all. There was no possibility of Adam reaching to that tree, and the
whole humanity would have been in the garden. But this saying, this
order, "Don't eat," created the trouble; this "don't" created the whole
trouble.
Because Adam disobeyed he was thrown out of heaven, and the revenge
seems so long. And Christians say Jesus was crucified just to redeem us
-- to redeem us from that sin that Adam committed. So the whole
Christian concept of history hangs on two persons -- Adam and Jesus.
Adam committed the sin, and Jesus suffered to redeem us from it and
allowed himself to be crucified. He suffered so that Adam's sin may be
forgiven. But it doesn't seem that God has forgiven yet. Jesus was
crucified, but humanity goes on suffering in the same way.
The very concept of God as a father is ugly, serious. The Indian concept
is not of a creator. God is just a player; he is not serious. This is
just a game. Rules are there, but rules of a game. You need not be
serious about them. Nothing is sin -- only error, and you suffer because
of error, not because God punishes you. You suffer because of the rules
you don't follow. God is not punishing you. The whole concept of LEELA
gives life a dramatic color; it becomes a long drama. And this technique
is based on this concept: "THIS SO-CALLED UNIVERSE APPEARS AS A
JUGGLING, A PICTURE SHOW. TO BE HAPPY, LOOK UPON IT SO."
If you are unhappy, you have taken it too seriously. And don't try to
find any way how to be happy. Just change your attitude. You cannot be
happy with a serious mind. With a festive mind, you can be happy. Take
this whole life as a myth, as a story. It is one, but once you take it
this way you will not be unhappy. Unhappiness comes out of too much
seriousness. Try for seven days; for seven days remember only one thing
-- that the whole world is just a drama -- and you will not be the same
again. Just for seven days! You are not going to lose much because you
don't have anything to lose.
You can try it. For seven days take everything as a drama, just as a
show. These seven days will give you many glimpses of your buddha
nature, of your inner purity. And once you have the glimpse you cannot
be the same again. You will be happy, and you cannot conceive of what
type of happiness can happen to you because you have not known any
happiness. You have known only degrees of unhappiness: sometimes you
were more unhappy, sometimes less unhappy, and when you were less
unhappy you called it happiness. You don't know what happiness is
because you cannot know. When you have a concept of the world in which
you are taking it very seriously, you cannot know what happiness is.
Happiness happens only when you are grounded in this attitude, that the
world is just a play.
So try this, and do everything in a very festive way, celebrating, doing
an "act" -- not a real thing. If you are a husband, play, be a play
husband; if you are a wife, be a play wife. Make it just a game. And
there are rules, of course; any game to be played needs rules. Marriage
is a rule and divorce is a rule, but don't be serious about them. They
are rules, and one rule begets another. Divorce is bad; because marriage
is bad: one rule begets another! But don't take them seriously, and then
look how the quality of your life immediately changes.
Go to your home this night, and behave with your wife or husband or your
children as if you are doing a part in a drama, and see the beauty of
it. If you are playing a part you will try to be efficient, but you will
not get disturbed. There is no need. You will do the part and go to
sleep. But remember, it is a part, and for seven days continuously
follow this attitude. Then happiness can happen to you, and once you
know what happiness is you need not move into unhappiness, because it is
your choice.
You are unhappy because you have chosen a wrong attitude towards life.
You can be happy if you choose a right attitude. Buddha pays so much
attention to "right attitude." He makes it a base, a foundation --
"right attitude." What is right attitude? What is the criterion? To me
this is the criterion: the attitude that makes you happy is the right
attitude, and there is no objective criterion. The attitude that makes
you unhappy and miserable is the wrong attitude. The criterion is
subjective; your happiness is the criterion.
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