AGONY AND ECSTASY ARE TWO SIDES OF YOUR BEING -OSHO

AGONY AND ECSTASY ARE TWO SIDES OF YOUR BEING

<3 “Don't run away from yourself whatever the case may be.

A man's metal is judged by his entering into his own inner chaos.

You are worthy to call yourself human beings when you have reached to the center, and you can see from the center, around yourself.

You are blissful -- not only are you blissful, from the center the whole existence is blissful too…..”

Question: “ Beloved Osho,  What Is Agony And What Is Ecstasy...???”

OSHO :
“ The same.

They are not opposites as they are understood to be.

They are complementaries, intrinsic parts of one organic whole.

Neither can exist without the other.

It will be a little difficult to understand because they have always been thought to be polar opposites.

They are polar opposites, seen from the outside.

But all polar opposites are joined together from the inside.

The negative or positive poles of electricity, the body and soul -- from the outside they are not only different but antagonistic.

From the inside they are two aspects of one phenomenon.

Let us first try to understand their meaning.

What is agony...???

It is not ordinary suffering, misery, pain.

All these are very superficial things,

Just  like ripples on the surface of a pond.

They don't have any depth.

You have known many pains, many miseries, many moments of suffering,

And you know perfectly well they come and go.

They don't even leave a trace behind them, they don't leave scars behind.

Yes, while they are there you feel that you are engulfed completely in pain.

But when it is gone you know perfectly well that that was only a momentary emotional, sentimental, non-intelligent understanding of the thing.

When you were in the cloud, yes, you were engulfed.

But the cloud is gone with the wind and you are out of it, and now you know exactly that even in the cloud you were out of it, you were not it.

Note this difference, because that is the fundamental difference.

Agony is not separate from you, it is you.

Pain, suffering, misery, they are all separate from you;

Hence, momentarily they come and go.

They have causes; when the causes are removed they disappear. Mostly they are your creations.

You hope for something, and then it does not materialize:

Great frustration comes in.

You feel pain, hopelessness, as if you have been rejected by existence.

Nothing of the sort has happened -- it is all due to your expectation.

The bigger the expectation, the bigger is going to be the frustration.

It is within your hands to be frustrated in life or not.

Just your expectations should become smaller, smaller, smaller, and in the same proportion the frustration will become smaller.

A day will come when there will be no expectation; then you will never come across any frustration.

You think, you imagine, some moments of pleasure -- and they don't materialize,
Because existence has no obligation to materialize your imaginations.

It has never given you any promise that whatever you think is going to happen.

You have taken it for granted without any enquiry, as if the whole existence owes you something.

You owe everything to existence.

Existence owes you nothing.

So if you are running to catch shadows, you cannot catch them --

It is not in the nature of things.

Then there is pain, because you were so much absorbed in running after the shadows that you were feeling a kind of fulfillment.

A goal was there; although not in your hands but far away, still it was there.

And it was only a question of time, a little more effort. Be a little more American: try and try and try again -- and sooner or later existence is going to yield.

Existence does not care who you are, American or Russian.

It never yields to anybody -- it simply goes in its own way.

By making an effort to fulfill your desires, to force nature, existence, to come behind you, you are creating causes of pain, suffering.

The moment you understand, you drop these causes.

And the dropping of the causes is the disappearance of all your misery.

It was your projection.

There is a Sufi story about a very cunning fox .... All foxes are cunning,

But there are politician foxes too.

This happened to be a politician fox, very cunning.

One day she woke up, and finding herself very hungry, came out of her cave in search of some breakfast.

The sun was rising, and she saw her shadow so long she could not believe it.

She said, "My God! I am that big?

Now where am I going to get my breakfast?

I will need at least one camel; less than that won't do.

My shadow is so big, naturally I must be as big." It is logical, perfectly Aristotelian.

You cannot say she is wrong.

You also know yourself only in the mirror -- there is no other way.

Have you known yourself in any other way except through a shadow?

So don't laugh at the poor fox.

How can she conceive that a small thing can make such a big shadow..???

It is very natural to conclude that if the shadow is so big, you must be as big.

And when it comes to feeling oneself big, who wants to argue against it?

When anything gives you the sense of bigness, you don't want to go into details to find whether it is true or wrong, whether it is logically right, scientifically provable.

No, your whole being is so enchanted ....

The fox really felt that big.

You could see -- her walk changed.

But where can she find a camel for her breakfast?

And even if she can find a camel, it is going to be absolutely pointless; she cannot make a breakfast out of a camel.

She searches, she finds many small animals which would have been enough any other day, but today is different.

She does not bother about all those small creatures.

They will be lost just in her teeth.

She needs a camel, an elephant or something big.

But she finds nothing big.

The sun goes on rising higher and higher, and she goes on becoming hungrier and hungrier.

When the sun is just exactly above her head she looks again at her shadow: it has shrunken so small it is just underneath her.

She says, "My God! Hunger does things to people.

Just one morning I have missed breakfast and look what has happened to my poor self!

In the morning I was so big; only half a day has passed and this is my situation.

Now even if I can get any small creature, that may be too much, I may not be able to digest it."

This Sufi story is significant.

It is our story.

This is our agony:

We are trying to become something which is not in the nature of things.

We are not allowing nature to take its course; that is our agony.

When I was leaving my parents to go to the hostel in the university, they were persistently asking,

"What do you want to become?"

And I was telling them,

"That question is utter nonsense.

How do I know what I am going to become? Only time will show."

They could not understand me.

They said, "Look at all your friends:

Somebody is going to become a doctor,

Somebody is going to become an engineer,

Somebody is going to be become this,

Somebody is going to become that.

You are the only person who is going to the university without any idea of what you want to become."

I said, "Becoming is not my number.

I want to let things take their course.

I would love to find what nature makes of me, but I don't have any program of my own.

To have a program of my own means suffering.

That means I am trying to impose something on nature and it is going to fail."

Man has been failing for thousands of years for the simple reason that he wants to conquer nature.

Someone has even written a book, CONQUEST OF NATURE.

Nature cannot be conquered.

Just look at the foolishness of the idea. You are part of nature, such a small, tiny part of such an infinite nature.

And the part is trying to conquer the whole -- as if your little finger is trying to conquer you.

How can you conquer nature?

Nature is your very soul.

Who is going to conquer whom?

Where is the separation?

I told my parents, "Please let me go.

I am not going to project anything for my future.

I want to keep it open so if nature desires anything of me, I am available.

If nothing is desired of me that too is perfectly good.

Who am I to expect that something should be desired of me?

 One day I was not, one day I will not be.

Just a few days in between -- why make much fuss about it?

Can't you pass silently across this little interval between birth and death without making noise, raising flags, and shouting slogans? Can't you simply pass?"

But they said, "This is not the way. Everybody has to have an ideal; otherwise he will be lost."

I said, "I would love to be lost but remain true to nature, to existence, rather than achieve a great ideal against nature, against existence.

In the first place, in which you say I will be lost, I will be blissfully lost.

In the second place, in which you think I would have achieved something,

I will be nothing but pain, suffering, and finally agony."

Agony is the deepest in you.

And it happens only to man.

All other animals are free of agony -- but they are also free of ecstasy.

Agony and ecstasy happen together; otherwise they don't happen at all.

Have you seen any animal in ecstasy or in agony? a buffalo in agony?

Just to think of it seems to be absurd.

A buffalo in agony?

For what reason should the buffalo be in agony?

The buffalo never tried to become the queen of England -- why should it be in agony?

 It simply allowed nature to make her whatsoever was the will of existence.

Yes, it will never know ecstasy either because both happen at the same depth.

Agony happens if you go on missing your self.

Ecstasy happens if you happen to find yourself.

Missing yourself or finding yourself:

Both happen at the same depth of your being.

Missing yourself means that you have been trying to become something, somebody.

You have an idea, and you are trying to fulfill that idea in your life.

All idealists live in agony.

It is not only the existentialist philosophers who are in agony.

Of course they have brought the word to great prominence for the simple reason that this century has come as far away from nature and existence as possible:

One step more and humanity disappears. This was the longest distance possible -- we have traveled it.

We have come as far away from ourselves as possible.

That's why in this century a philosophy like existentialism became possible.

You exist first, and then you have to find who you are.

The animals, the trees, the rocks, know first who they are, then they exist; hence there is no spiritual enquiry.

No animal bothers asking the questions: Who am I? What is the meaning of my life? He knows it already; there is no question, there is no doubt, no enquiry.

Man is a continuous enquiry, a continuous question.

To the very last breath he goes on growing.

To the very last breath he can change his whole life pattern.

He can take a quantum jump.

There is no necessity for him to just go on following the path that he has followed.

At the very last moment he simply can step aside.

There is nobody to prevent him, it is his freedom.

Man is the only animal in existence who has freedom -- and out of the freedom is agony."

Agony means: I don't know who I am.

I don't know where I am going and why I am going.

I don't know whether whatever I am doing I am supposed to do or not.

The question continuously remains; not even for a single moment does the question leave.

Whatever you do, the question is there: Are you sure?

Is it the thing for you to do?

Is this the place for you to be?

The question leaves not even for a single moment.

And this is as deep as anything can be in you, at the very core of your being.

This is the agony -- that the meaning is not known, that the purpose is not known, that the goal is not known.

It seems as if we are accidental, that by some accident we are born.

No other animal, no tree, no bird is accidental; they are planned.

Existence has a whole program for them. Man seems to be totally different.

Existence has left man utterly free.

Once you become aware of this situation then agony arises.

And it is fortunate to feel it.

That's why I say it is not ordinary pain, suffering, misery.

It is very extraordinary, and it is of tremendous value to your whole life,

its growth, that you should feel agony, that each fiber of your being should feel the questioning, that you should become simply a question. And naturally it is frightening. You are left in a chaos. But out of this very chaos the stars are born.

If you don't start stuffing out of fear, if you don't start escaping from your agony .... Everybody is trying to escape, finding ways: falling in love, doing this, doing that -- somehow, somewhere engaged. One thing is not finished, and you start doing another thing because you are afraid. If there is a gap between the two and the question raises its head, and you start feeling agony, then it is better to continue, to go on running; don't stop. People start running from their birth till they die. They don't stop, they don't sit by the side of the road under a tree.

To me the statues of Buddha and Mahavira in the East, sitting in a lotus posture under a tree, do not mean anything historical. They mean something far more significant.

These are the people who have stopped running. These are the people who have stepped out of the road on which the whole procession of humanity is going.
[….]
Agony is the experience that you have come into the world a clean slate, a tabula rasa; nothing is written on it. This is your original face.

Now, you can do two things. One is, being afraid of this vacuum, you can start running after something or other -- earning money, power, learning, asceticism, becoming a sage, scholar, politician -- somehow to give you a feeling of identity, somehow to hide your own inner chaos.

But whatever you do the chaos is there and is going to remain there. It is an intrinsic part of you. So those who understand don't try in any way to escape from it. On the contrary, they try to enter into it.

These are the two ways: either run away from it as everybody else is doing, or run into it. Reach to its very center howsoever painful, fearful -- but reach to the center, because that is you. And it is good at least one time to be at the very exact center of your being.

The moment you reach that center then the second word becomes significant: ecstasy.

Ecstasy is the flower of agony.

Agony is not against ecstasy.

Agony is the way to ecstasy.

You just have to accept it -- what else can one do? It is there. You can close your eyes -- that does not mean that the sun has disappeared; it is still there. And everybody is trying to close his eyes; the sun is too glaring. Close your eyes, completely close your eyes. Forget about it, don't look at it ... as if it is not there. Believe it is not there.

These pseudo-religions are trying to teach you exactly that:

Try to reach to God, try to reach heaven, follow Jesus Christ.

But none of them says don't follow anybody and don't look for any paradise or heaven because this is all trying to deceive yourself.

Encounter yourself, face yourself.

Have a one hundred and eighty-degree turn.

Look into the chaos that is there, into the agony that is there. And if it is your nature, then howsoever painful it is, we have to become acquainted with it. And the miracle is, it is painful to pass through it but it is just the greatest bliss when you have passed and reached the center of your being.

Agony is all around the center, and the ecstasy is just in the center. Perhaps agony is just a protective shell -- ecstasy is so valuable it needs protection. And nature has created such a protective wall, what to say of others? -- even you start running away from it. Who is going to enter into your agony if you yourself are running away?

The moment you think of it, agony seems to be a tremendous gift of nature. It changes its whole color, its fragrance, its meaning. It is a protective wall, so protective that even you start running away from it.

Don't run away from yourself whatever the case may be. A man's mettle is judged by his entering into his own inner chaos. You are worthy to call yourself human beings when you have reached to the center, and you can see from the center, around yourself. You are blissful -- not only are you blissful, from the center the whole existence is blissful too.

Agony and ecstasy are two sides of your being. They both make you one organic unity, one whole.

So I am not telling you how to get rid of agony.

That's what pseudo-religions have been telling you for centuries.

I am telling you how to befriend agony, how to be in love with the chaos.

Once you are in love with the chaos, the freedom that chaos brings, the unbounded space that chaos brings, enter into it till you reach the center.

To find oneself is to find all.

Then there is nothing missing, then there is no question left. Then for the first time you have the answer. Although you cannot convey the answer to anybody else, you can convey the way you found it.

That's what the function of a Master is.

He does not give you the answer.

He does not make you more knowledgeable.

He simply shows you the method, how he found himself.

He encourages you to take a jump into your chaos, into your agony.

The Master is simply a proof that you don't need to be afraid.

If this man can find his center, passing through all the agony, there is no reason why you cannot do it too.

And once you know the taste of ecstasy, your whole life, for the first time, has something that can be called godliness.

A new quality arises in you, a new flare, a new flame.

But that is our nature, everybody's nature.

I have never tried in my life to become anybody.

I have simply allowed life to take me wherever it wanted.

One thing I can say to you, I have not been a loser; it was a great joy to be taken over by nature.

I have not at all interfered.

I have not even been swimming, because in swimming you are at least throwing your hands about.

I have been just going with the stream, floating with wherever the stream is going.

Fortunately all streams reach finally to the ocean.

The small, the big, somehow or other they all find their way to the oceanic.

And the oceanic feeling I call the religious feeling.

When your small drop drops into the ocean ....

In one sense you are no more.

In one sense you are for the first time.

On one hand there is death, and on the other hand there is rebirth.” <3

<3 OSHO
From Darkness to Light.
Chapter 8 - Agony is missing yourself, ecstasy is finding yourself
(7 March 1985 pm in Lao Tzu Grove) <3