Yoga Quotes

“When I say celebrate what do I mean? I mean that whatsoever you do, don't do it as a duty, do it from your love; don't do it as a burden, do it as a celebration. You can eat as if it is a duty: long-faced, dull, dead, insensitive. You can throw food inside yourself without ever tasting, without ever feeling for it. It is life; you live through it. Don't be so insensitive to it.

Indians have said, 'anam brahman,' food is Brahman. This is celebration: you are eating brahman, you are eating God through food, because only God exists. When you are taking a shower, it is God showering because only God exists. When you go for a morning walk, it is God on a morning walk. And the breeze is also God, and the trees are also God -- everything is so Divine. How can you be a long-face, dead and dull, moving in life as if you are carrying a burden?

When I say celebrate, I mean become more and more sensitive to everything. In life, dance should not be apart. The whole life should become a dance; it should be a dance. You can go for a walk and dance.

Allow life to enter into you, become more open and vulnerable, feel more, sense more. Small things filled with such wonders are lying all around.

Watch a small child. Leave him in the garden and just watch. That should be your way also; so wonderful, wonder-filled: running to catch this butterfly, running to catch that flower, playing with mud, rolling in the sand. From everywhere the Divine is touching the child.

If you can live in wonder you will be capable of celebration. Don't live in knowledge, live in wonder.

Life is surprising; everywhere, it is a continuous surprise. Live it as a surprise, an unpredictable phenomenon: every moment is new. Just try, give it a try! You will not lose anything if you give it a try, and you may gain everything. But you have become addicted to misery. You cling to your misery as if it is something very precious.

You become cruel because you don't know how to become compassionate. It is a negative state. The same energy that is cruelty will become compassion.
With an unalert mind the energy becomes violence; with an alert mind the same energy becomes compassion. In sleep the same energy becomes torture, either of yourself or of somebody else. When you are awake, the same energy becomes love, for yourself and for others also.

You are already where you need to be, you are already in that space which you are seeking. Just make a little effort to come out of your clinging to misery.

Don't invest in misery; invest in celebration. You take one step towards life and life takes one thousand towards you.”
― Osho, Yoga: The Alpha and the Omega Volume 4

“When you are sad, celebrate, and you are giving a new composition to sadness. You are bringing something to sadness which will transform it. You are bringing celebration to it. Angry? -- have a beautiful dance. In the beginning it will be angry. You will start dancing and the dance will be angry, aggressive, violent. By and by, it will become softer and softer and softer, when suddenly, you will have forgotten anger. The energy has changed into dancing.

But when you are angry, you can't think of dancing.

When you are sad, you can't think of singing. Why not make your sadness a song? Sing, play on your flute. In the beginning the notes will be sad, but nothing is wrong with a sad note. Have you heard, in the afternoon sometimes, when everything is hot, burning hot, fire all around, and suddenly from a mango grove you can hear a cuckoo start singing? In the beginning, the note is sad. She is calling her lover, her beloved, on a hot afternoon. Everything is fiery all around, and she is hankering for love. A very sad note, but beautiful. By and by, the sad note changes into a happy note.

The lover starts responding from another grove. Now it is no more a hot afternoon; everything is cooling down in the heart. Now the note is different.

When the lover responds, everything has changed. It is an alchemical change.

You are sad? -- start singing, praying, dancing. Whatsoever you can do, do, and by and by, the baser metal is changed into a higher metal -- gold. Once you know the key, your life will never be the same again. You can unlock any door. And this is the master key: to celebrate everything.

If you are sad, then I say celebrate, dance, sing. What are you to lose? At the most, sadness will be lost, nothing else. But you think it is impossible. And the very idea that it is impossible will not allow you to give it a try. And I say it is one of the most easy things in the world, because energy is neutral. The same energy becomes sadness; the same energy becomes anger; the same energy becomes sexuality; the same energy becomes com passion; the same energy becomes meditation. Energy is one. You don't have many types of energies. You don't have many separate pockets of energy where this energy is labelled 'sadness' and this energy is labelled 'happiness'. Energies are not pigeon-holed, they are not separated. There exists no watertight compartment in you. You are simply one. This one energy becomes sadness, this one energy becomes anger. It is up to you.

One has to learn the secret, the art of how to transform energies. You simply give a direction and the same energy starts moving. And when there is a possibility of transforming anger into bliss, greed into compassion, jealousy into love... you don't know what you are losing. You don't know what you are missing. You are missing the whole point of being here in this universe. Give it a try.”
― Osho, Yoga: The Alpha and the Omega Volume 4

“..life in its totality is good. And when you understand life in its totality, only then can you celebrate; otherwise not.

Celebration means: whatsoever happens is irrelevant -- I will celebrate.

Celebration is unconditional; I celebrate life. It brings unhappiness -- good, I celebrate it.
It brings happiness -- good, I celebrate it.

Celebration is my attitude, unconditional to what life brings.

When I say 'Celebrate', you think one has to be happy. How can one celebrate when one is sad? I am not saying that one has to be happy to celebrate.

Celebration is gratefulness for whatsoever life gives to you. Whatsoever God gives to you, celebration is a gratitude; it is a gratefulness.

I have told you and I will tell you again....

A Sufi mystic was very poor, hungry, rejected, tired of the journey. He went to a village in the night and the village wouldn't accept him. The village belonged to the orthodox people...
They wouldn't even give him shelter in the town. The night was cold and he was hungry, tired, shivering with not enough clothes. He was sitting outside the town under a tree. His disciples were sitting there with great sadness, depression, even anger. And then he started praying and he said to God, 'You are wonderful! You always give me whatsoever I need.' This was too much. A disciple said, 'Wait, now you are going too far, particularly on this night. These words are false. We are hungry, tired, with no clothes, and a cold night is descending. There are wild animals all around and we are rejected by the town, we are without shelter. For what are you giving your thankfulness to God?

What do you mean when you say, "You always give me whatsoever I need?"' The mystic said, 'Yes, I repeat it again: God gives me whatsoever I need. Tonight I need poverty, tonight I need being rejected, tonight I need to be hungry, in danger. Otherwise, why should He give it to me? It must be a need. It is needed and I have to be grateful. He looks after my needs so beautifully. He is really wonderful!'

This is an attitude that is unconcerned with the situation. The situation is not relevant.

Celebrate, whatsoever the case. If you are sad, then celebrate because you are sad. Try it. Just give it a try and you will be surprised -- it happens.

You are sad? -- start dancing because sadness is so beautiful, such a silent flower of being.
Dance, enjoy, and suddenly you will feel that the sadness is disappearing, a distance is created. By and by, you will forget sadness and you will be celebrating. You have transformed the energy.”
― Osho, Yoga: The Alpha and the Omega Volume 4

“When I say celebrate, I mean become more and more sensitive to everything. In life, dance should not be apart. The whole life should become a dance; it should be a dance. You can go for a walk and dance.

Allow life to enter into you, become more open and vulnerable, feel more, sense more. Small things filled with such wonders are lying all around.

Watch a small child. Leave him in the garden and just watch. That should be your way also; so wonderful, wonder-filled: running to catch this butterfly, running to catch that flower, playing with mud, rolling in the sand. From everywhere the Divine is touching the child.

If you can live in wonder you will be capable of celebration. Don't live in knowledge, live in wonder.

Life is surprising; everywhere, it is a continuous surprise. Live it as a surprise, an unpredictable phenomenon: every moment is new. Just try, give it a try! You will not lose anything if you give it a try, and you may gain everything. But you have become addicted to misery. You cling to your misery as if it is something very precious.

You become cruel because you don't know how to become compassionate. It is a negative state. The same energy that is cruelty will become compassion.
With an unalert mind the energy becomes violence; with an alert mind the same energy becomes compassion. In sleep the same energy becomes torture, either of yourself or of somebody else. When you are awake, the same energy becomes love, for yourself and for others also.

You are already where you need to be, you are already in that space which you are seeking. Just make a little effort to come out of your clinging to misery.

Don't invest in misery; invest in celebration. You take one step towards life and life takes one thousand towards you. Just take one step out of your clinging to misery. The mind will go on pulling you backwards. Just be indifferent to the mind and tell the mind, 'Wait, I have lived enough with you, now let me live without mind.' That's what a child is: living without mind, or, living with no mind.”
― Osho, Yoga: The Alpha and the Omega Volume 4

“No death is death, because every death opens a new door -- it is a beginning.

There is no end to life, there is always a new beginning, a resurrection.”
― Osho, Yoga: The Alpha and the Omega Volume 4

“Time is not running short. Time is eternal; there is no hurry. Existence moves in a very lethargic way. Existence moves very slowly, just like the Ganges flows in the plains -- slow, as if not flowing at all. Still it reaches the ocean.

Time is not short, don't be in a panic. Time is enough. You relax. If you relax, even the longest path will become the short est. If you are in a panic, even the short path will become very long -- because in panic, meditation is impossible.

When you are in a panic, in a hurry, the very hurry is the barrier. When I say, 'Take the jump' -- and you can take the jump immediately -- I am not talking about shortcuts or longcuts. I am not talking about the way at all, because a jump is not a way. A jump is a courageous moment -- it is a sudden phenomenon.

But I don't mean that you can do it right now. I will go on insisting, 'Take the jump immediately, as soon as possible.' This insistence is just to help you to prepare for it. Some day you may be ready. Somebody may be ready right now -- because you are not new; for many lives you have already been working. When I say, 'Take the immediate jump,' there may be someone who has been working for many lives, and just standing on the brink, on the abyss, and afraid. He may gather courage and take the jump. Somebody who is very far away, thinking that the immediate jump is possible, will gather hope and start walking.

When I say something, it is a device to help many sorts of people in many sorts of situations. But my path is not a short cut, because no path can be a shortcut.

The very word is deceptive. Life knows no shortcuts because life has no beginning. God knows no shortcuts. God is not in a hurry -- eternity is there.

You can work it out slowly. And the more patiently, the more slowly, the more unhurriedly you work, the sooner you will reach.

If you can be so patient, so infinitely patient that you are not worried about reaching at all, you may reach right now.”
― Osho, Yoga: The Alpha and the Omega Volume 4