Osho on Mystic

Voltaire writes in his memoirs that once he was not famous – as everybody was one day not famous – and he desired and desired and he worked hard, and he became one of the most famous men in France. His fame increased so much that it became almost dangerous for him to go out of his room, because in those superstitious days people used to think that if you can get a piece of the clothes of a very great man, it becomes a protection; it has tremendous value, protective value. It protects you against ghosts, against bad accidents and things like that.

So if he had to go to the station to catch a train, he would go under police escort, otherwise people would tear his clothes. Not only that – his skin would be torn, and he would come home with blood flowing. He became so fed up with this fame – that he could not even get out of his house; people were always there like wolves to jump upon him – and he started praying to god, ‘Finished! I have known this. I don’t want it. I have become almost a dead person.’ And then it happened. The angel came, must have come, and he said, ‘Okay.’ By and by his fame disappeared.

People’s opinions change very easily; they don’t have any integrity. Just like fashion, things change. You can be famous one day, the next day you can become the most notorious man. One day you are at the top of your fame, the next day people completely forget about you. One day you are the president, the next day you are just citizen Richard Nixon. Nobody bothers.

It happened that people’s minds changed, the opinion, the climate changed, and people completely forgot about him. He would come to the station and he would long that at least someone, at least one person must be waiting there to receive him. And nobody would come to receive him – only his dog. When he died, there were only four persons giving him the last goodbye; three were men and the fourth was his dog. He must have died in misery, again hankering for fame. What to do? This is how things go on.

Mind will never allow you to be happy. Whatsoever the condition, the mind will always find something to be unhappy about. Let me say it in this way: mind is a mechanism to create unhappiness. Its whole function is to create unhappiness. If you drop the mind, suddenly you become happy… for no reason at all. Then happiness is just natural, as you breathe.

For breathing, you need not be even aware. You simply go on breathing. Conscious, unconscious, awake, asleep, you go on breathing. Happiness is exactly like that. That’s why in the East we say that happiness is your innermost nature. It needs no outside condition; it is simply there, it is you. Bliss is your natural state; it is not an achievement. If you simply get out of the mechanism of the mind, you start feeling blissful.

That’s why you will see that mad people are more happy than so-called sane people. What happens to mad people? They also get out of the mind – of course in a wrong way, but they get out of the mind. A madman is one who has fallen below the mind. He’s out of the mind. That’s why you can see that mad people are so happy. You can feel jealous. You can even daydream, ‘When will this blessing happen to us?’ He is condemned, but he is happy. What has happened to a madman? He is no more thinking of the past and no more thinking of the future. He has dropped out of time. He has started living in eternity.

It happens the same way to the mystic also, because he goes above mind. I am not telling you to become mad, but I am telling you that there is a similarity between the madman and the mystic. That’s why all great mystics look a little mad and all great mad people look a little like mystics. Watch a madman’s eyes and you will find his eyes very mystic… a glow, some otherworldly glow, as if he has some inner door from where he reaches to the very core of life. He is relaxed. He may have nothing, but he is simply happy. He has no desires, no ambitions. He is not going anywhere. He is simply there… enjoying, delighting.

Yes, madmen and mystics have something similar. That similarity is because both are out of the mind. The madman has fallen below it, the mystic has gone beyond it. The mystic is also mad but with a method; his madness has a method in it. The madman has simply fallen below.

I am not saying become mad. I am saying become mystics. The mystic is as happy as the mad and as sane as the sane. The mystic is as reasonable, even more reasonable, than so-called rationalist people, and yet so happy, just like mad people. The mystic has the most beautiful synthesis. He is in a harmony. He has all that a reasonable man has. He has both. He is complete. He is whole.

Source:

Listen to complete discourse at mentioned below link.

Discourse series: The Discipline of Transcendence, Vol 2 Chapter #2

Chapter title: Happy for no reason

1 September 1976 am in Buddha Hall

References:

Osho has spoken on ‘mystic, harmony, happiness’ in many of His discourses. More on the subject can be referred to in the following books/discourses:

1. The Book of Wisdom
2. I Am That
3. The Messiah
4. The New Dawn
5. Satyam Shivam Sundram
6. Socrates Poisoned Again After 25 Centuries
7. Sufis: The People of the Path
8. Tao: The Three Treasures, Vol 1
9. Theologia Mystica
10. Zarathustra: The Laughing Prophet