Whenever a person lives in misery, he would like to destroy everything. Misery is destructive, happiness is creative. There is only one creativity and that is of blissfulness, cheerfulness, delight. When you are delighted you want to create something, maybe a toy for a child, a poem, a painting – something. But when you are miserable, you want to crush and destroy something, create some situation in which you can be destructive.
That's why every now and then war erupts somewhere on the earth. All politicians go on talking about peace. They prepare for war. In fact, they say, ‘We are preparing for war to preserve peace.’ Most irrational. To preserve peace, one should prepare for peace.
That's why all over the world, the new generation is a great danger to the establishment. They are only interested in being happy. They are interested in love, meditation, music, and dance. They are not communists and they don't belong to any ‘ism’.
A happy person belongs to himself. Why should he belong to any organisation? That is the way of an unhappy person, to belong to some organisation, to belong to some crowd. He has no roots within himself, he does not belong, and that gives him anxiety that he should belong. He creates a substitute belonging. He becomes part of a political party, a revolutionary party, religion, or anything.
One should be rooted in oneself, because the way from oneself moves deep down to God, to existence. If you belong to a crowd, you belong to an impasse and no further growth is possible from there. There comes the end, a cul-de-sac.
But politicians depend on your sacrifice. They don't want you to be happy. They want you to be miserable, so miserable that you become destructive, angry, in a rage. Then you can be used for their ends. They teach you to be unselfish, to be martyrs. They teach you to ‘sacrifice your life for others’. And they are teaching the same thing to others too.
I don't teach you to be unselfish, because I know if you are selfish, you will be unselfish automatically, spontaneously. If you are not selfish, you have missed yourself and now you cannot be in contact with anyone else because the basic contact is missing. The first step has been missed.
Forget about the world, society, utopias, and Karl Marx. Forget about all this. You are just here for a few years, to be. Enjoy, delight, be happy, dance and love. Out of your love and dancing, out of your deep selfishness, an overflowing of energy will start, and you will be able to share with others.
Love is one of the most selfish things. If you want a still deeper selfish thing, then comes meditation and prayer. If you want a still more selfish thing, God. You cannot be related to God through someone else, there is no via media. You alone in your superb aloneness will encounter that supreme experience.
I teach selfishness, but if you understand my selfishness you will understand all that is beautiful, all that is unselfish.
Abridged from The Essence of Yoga, courtesy: Osho International Foundation, www.osho.com
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