Osho on Isolation and Participation

I OFTEN DESIRE TO HAVE AN ISOLATED, SECURE PLACE TO ALLOW SURRENDER. MEDITATIONS SEVERAL HOURS A DAY GOING DEEPER AND DEEPER WITHOUT DISTRACTION. AS I UNDERSTAND, MOST YOGA MASTERS TEACH THAT WITHDRAWAL FROM THE WORLD IS NECESSARY FOR A PERIOD OF TIME, ONCE KUNDALINI STARTS RISING, UNTIL ONE IS FINALLY ESTABLISHED IN SAMADHI; AT WHICH TIME ONE CAN REALLY BE IN THE WORLD, BUT NOT OF IT. YOUR TEACHING SEEMS TO BE DIFFERENT: TO ENGAGE IN THE WORLD WHILE THE TRANSFORMATION IS OCCURRING. IF THIS IS SO, HOW DO I AVOID THE DISTRACTION OF MAYA BEFORE I CLEARLY SEE THE REALITY?

THE FIRST THING: the ego always seeks isolation, in a thousand and one ways. When you become very rich, you become isolated. When you become politically very powerful, you become isolated. An Adolf Hitler is alone, more alone than a yogi in the Himalayas. He has no friends, nobody equal to him; he has no relationships. A very rich man reaches to a Himalayan peak, where he is alone. Hence one seeks riches, hence one seeks political power. The ego is always in search of isolation, because when you are alone, only the ego remains; the ego becomes the whole world. Then there is nobody to fight with your ego; there is nobody to humiliate you; there is nobody with whom you can compare yourself. You become supreme in your own eyes. You can believe in your ego absolutely; there will be no distraction.

I am against isolation. In fact you have to dissolve the ego, not to isolate it. You are not to become an island, independent, separate from the whole: you have to become a part of the continent, one with it. How can you be one with reality in isolation? The reality needs participation, not isolation. That’s why the greatest SAMADHI occurs in love, not in isolation. And the greatest of yoga is love, because in love you have to dissolve yourself, in love you have to die, in love you have to melt, merge. I teach love, not isolation. Isolation is the way of the world, not the way of religion. But it happens: you have been seeking riches, political power, possessions; then you become frustrated; then you turn to the Himalayas — you renounce the world. You don’t renounce the ego, you renounce the world. I teach you: renounce the ego, don’t renounce the world.

The ego is very subtle. You could not attain to political power, then you try to attain to religious power. You call it KUNDALINI, but still it is power, still it is something that will make you separate, unique, independent, an island. If your religion is also a search for power, then isolation is needed. But religion is not a search for power; it is a search for silence. It is a search for peace; it is a search for inner poverty — what Jesus calls ‘poor in spirit’. It is a search to be, in such a way that there is no difference between to be and not to be. Non-being becomes your only being.

This is possible not through independence, this is possible only if you realize interdependence. These three words have to be remembered: dependence, independence, and interdependence. Dependent you are; independence you seek; interdependence I teach. Dependent you are, because everywhere you will feel you are dependent, everywhere a limitation comes in. If you love somebody you become dependent on him or on her. Everywhere life brings dependence. Then the idea arises that in the world you can never be independent. Escape from the world. You can escape, but independent you can never be: you can only be deceived. Even in the Himalayas you are not independent; you are still dependent on the sun. If the sun does not rise, you will be dead immediately. You will be dependent on the oxygen and air: if the oxygen disappears, you will be dead. You will be dependent on water; you will be dependent on a thousand and one things.

Dependence has to be understood, not to be avoided. If you understand dependence, you will understand immediately that hidden behind it is interdependence. Dependence is just a misinterpretation. Those who have known have also known that you are not dependent on the sun; the sun is also dependent on you. Without you the sun cannot be, as you cannot be without the sun. Even a small blade of grass will be missed from existence; the existence will never be complete without it. A gap, something missing, will be there. So don’t think that the stars are great, and a blade of grass is very small and tiny. In existence, nothing is great and nothing is small, because existence is one. This is what is meant by ecology: interdependence. And ecology is not only of this earth, it is of the totality. Ecology is a spiritual phenomenon.

You are misinterpreting. You are interpreting interdependence as dependence. That is a wrong notion, and because of that wrong notion, a wrong desire arises: how to be independent. Out of one error another error arises. You cannot be; and if somebody teaches you independence — there are people who teach this — they are teaching sheer stupidity. You are part, you are one with the whole, you are a wave in the ocean…

I don’t teach isolation, because I want you to leave the ego, and not the world. The world is not the problem. The world is tremendously beautiful; it is pure joy; nothing is wrong in it. Something is wrong in you, not in the world. Drop the wrongness in you; don’t renounce the world. I teach you to celebrate the world, not to renounce it. I affirm life, and affirm it unconditionally; and I say to you that those who tell you to renounce it are the poisoners, and that from the very beginning they are teaching you something absolutely wrong. They are saying something is wrong in the world: they call it MAYA. I call you MAYA — not the world. The ego is the only MAYA, the only illusion — not these trees, they are simply beautiful; not these flowers, not these birds, not this sky, not this sun, these stars — no, they are simply beautiful; they are divine and holy.

You are the MAYA. So, if you want to leave anything, leave yourself. If you want to renounce anything, renounce yourself. And the only way, the only way to renounce oneself is to celebrate. Because whenever you are happy, you are not; whenever you are sad, you are; whenever you are depressed, you are; whenever you are delighting, you are not. In bliss, in ecstasy, you disappear. In sadness and sorrow, you again appear. Watch. When you laugh, you are not. In real laughter, you simply are not. It comes out from somewhere you know not of. It comes from beyond you. You don’t laugh: when laughter is there, you are not. Dance, When the dance really possesses you, when there really is a dance, the dancer is no more, the dancer has disappeared; he doesn’t exist. The dance is so tremendously real that the unreal has to disappear before it. The unreal cannot face the real; the false cannot confront the real; the lie cannot face the truth; the darkness cannot encounter light. When the real arises — and the real is when you are part of the whole, whether in laughter, in dancing, in love — whenever you are part of the whole, the real is. Separate, you are MAYA. One with the whole, you are God.

Source:

Listen to complete discourse at mentioned below link.

Discourse Series: Come Follow To You, Vol 3 Chapter #8

Chapter title: I bring the greatest synthesis that is

18 December 1975 am in Buddha Hall

References:

Osho has spoken on ‘celebration, love, dance, laughter, participation’ in many of His discourses. More on the subject can be referred to in the following books/discourses:

1. The Fish in the Sea is Not Thirsty
2. A Sudden Clash of Thunder
3. The Dhammapada: The Way of the Buddha
4. The Book of Wisdom
5. Tantra: The Supreme Understanding
6. From Death to Deathlessness
7. The Razor’s Edge
8. I Celebrate Myself: God Is No Where, Life Is Now Here
9. The Rebellious Spirit
10. Tao: The Three Treasures