The Spiritual Life, Topic Eleven, Celebrate Life every day.

The Spiritual Life - Topic Eleven

Celebrate Life every day.

 From Maturity: The Responsibility For Being Oneself by Osho

Have you ever thought about why, all over the world, in every culture, in every society, there are a few days in the year for celebration? These few days for celebration are just a compensation—because these societies have taken away all the celebration of your life, and if nothing is given to you in compensation your life can become a danger to the culture. Every culture has to give some compensation to you so that you don’t feel completely lost in misery, in sadness. But these compensations are false. Firecrackers and colored lights cannot make you rejoice. They are only for children—for you they are just a nuisance. But in your inner world there can be a continuity of lights, songs, joys. Always remember that society compensates you when it feels that the repressed may explode into a dangerous situation if it is not compensated. The society finds some way of allowing you to let out the repressed—but this is not true celebration, and it cannot be true. True celebration should come from your life, in your life. P .xvii

Transform small things into celebration. P. xviii

Osho’s teaching is that every day should be a celebration. It reminds me of the Mad Hatter in Alice in Wonderland who celebrated every day as a very happy unbirthday.

If we celebrated every day the small things in our lives, and if we stopped continually to “smell the roses” what would be the point of  holidays when expectations of pleasure rise to unfulfillable heights?

Why do people get depressed at the Christmas Holidays? Do they ever measure up to the idealized expectations that we have for them? Same is true for birthday celebrations, Mothers’ and Fathers’ Day, anniversaries, and other “special” occasions.

Osho’s teaching is pointing out that the things on the path of the ego usually disappoint and if they satisfy somewhat providing momentary pleasure, it quickly dissipates and then we have to do the same thing all over again.

These artificial celebrations, done according to a calendar, are often less than satisfying and don’t compensate us for what we have lost to our socialization and conditioning to compliance with the norms and expectations on the path of the ego.

Jesus teaches a similar idea when He says in Matthew 6: 26 - 30

26 Look at the birds of the air; they do not sow or reap or store away in barns, and yet your heavenly Father feeds them. Are you not much more valuable than they? 27 Can any one of you by worrying add a single hour to your life?
28 “And why do you worry about clothes? See how the flowers of the field grow. They do not labor or spin. 29 Yet I tell you that not even Solomon in all his splendor was dressed like one of these. 30 If that is how God clothes the grass of the field, which is here today and tomorrow is thrown into the fire, will he not much more clothe you—you of little faith?

Jesus calls the worriers, the repressed, the socially conditioned, “you of little faith.”

Osho and Jesus are teaching a similar thing: that life is to be enjoyed and celebrated each and every day. There is no need to worry and wait for special times that the world of the ego holds out to us to relieve our tension, our boredom, our depression, our fears.

Take the time to savor the roses and a good cup of coffee or tea and the mystery of the people continually crossing your path. This is what Love would have us do - be happy and bask in the Love of the Creator and extend it to anyone and everything that crosses our path.