Image by Jill Wellington from Pixabay 

There is everything to celebrate. Each moment is so immense, so fantastic, and brings such an ecstasy…. But we are asleep. The ecstasy comes, hovers around us, and goes. The breeze comes, dances around us, and goes. And we remain asleep. The flowers bloom and the fragrance comes but we are asleep. The divine goes on singing in a thousand and one ways; the divine dances around us; but we are asleep. Everything that one can imagine and desire is there. It is in abundance. Life is a luxury! We are missing something divine? Have we not seen a rainbow the sunrise or the sunset the green foliage of the trees and colors? How dull is our consciousness! And we have eyes and we say: "What is there to celebrate?" The rainbow is there, the sunset is there, the ocean, the clouds, all are there – but we are asleep. Life passes by; we are just there, not participating. We are not en rapport with life; we have eyes and yet we don't see; we have ears yet we don't hear; we have a heart yet we don't love – we are fast asleep. 

It is we who are reflected in existence: If we are dull and dead, there is nothing to celebrate, because existence simply shows our dull and dead face. If we are alive, flowering, singing, dancing, the mirror reflects a dance, a song – there is much to celebrate. When we celebrate there is much more to celebrate…and it goes on and on. There is no end to it. 

If we don't celebrate, by and by we become dead and more and more dull. There is less and less to celebrate. One day suddenly life is absolutely meaningless. There are many problems in life. They have to be encountered; they have to be transcended. And celebration is a way to encounter them. For every one rose, there exist one thousand thorns. But the way to get beyond the thorns is to celebrate life, celebrate that one flower. In fact, that one flower is more precious because there are one thousand thorns. If there were all flowers and flowers and no thorns, flowers would be meaningless. It is because of darkness that the morning is so beautiful; it is because of death that life has such joy; it is because of illness that health is significant. There are many problems, but there is no need to worry about them. They can be encountered without any worry; they can be encountered through celebration. There are only two ways to encounter them: one is the way of worry and the other is the way of celebration. We have to come out of our sleep out of our dead head. 

We have to let the heart pulsate, sing and dance. "Everybody knows what celebration is. Rejoice in your being, in this moment, this tremendous universe. We had not asked for it, we have simply been given a universe which is infinite, a consciousness which is eternal, which can become festive. If we allow it, it can make us the sanest, the most graceful, the most loving… A man of many seasons and many rainbows – there are so many dimensions of celebration. When we cry and weep, when we are miserable, we are alone. When we celebrate, the whole existence participates with us. Only in celebration do we go beyond the circle of birth and death. 

Our ecstasy is a movement towards the height and our meditation is a movement towards the depth. And once we have both, our life becomes a celebration. The Whole Existence Is a Celebration. Existence doesn’t want us to be serious. Have we seen a serious tree, a bird, a serious starry night? It seems they are all laughing and dancing in their own ways. We may not understand it, but there is a subtle feeling that the whole existence is a celebration. Laughter has certainly to be one of the major ingredients in this celebration. Anything that makes us festive, that makes us dance and sing to such an extent that we disappear in our dancing, in our singing, in our celebration…is the only true religion . No God is needed; no heaven and hell are needed. All that is needed is a simple understanding that mind is the source of negative thinking. All over the world, in every culture, in every society, there are a few days in the year for celebration? True celebration should come from our life, in our life. True celebration cannot be according to the calendar. Strange, the whole year we are miserable and only particular days of the year we come out of misery, dancing. Life should be a continual celebration, a festival of lights the whole year round. Only then can we grow up, can we blossom. God is not far away; if one is not able to celebrate life, then God does not exist for us. God appears only in deep celebration, when we are so full of joy that all misery and darkness has left us. When we are so full that there is no emptiness in us, that we have started feeling the significance of the ordinary, day-to-day existence, when moment to moment we live totally, intensely, passionately, then God is available. 

Celebration Is a Natural State. Celebration is not because some desire is fulfilled – because no desire is ever fulfilled. Desire is only a way to avoid the present moment. Desire creates the future and takes us far away. Desire is a drug; it keeps us stoned, it does not allow us to see the reality – that which is here now. When becoming disappears, all the smoke of becoming disappears, there is the flame of being, and that very flame is celebration. Celebration is without any cause. Celebration is simply because we are. We are made out of the stuff called celebration. 

That’s our natural state – to celebrate – as natural as it is for the trees to bloom, for birds to sing, for rivers to flow to the ocean. Celebration has got nothing to do with our desires, with our hopes and their fulfillment.. But to see the celebration that is already happening at the deepest core of our being we will have to drop becoming. Whenever we Are Total in Something There Is Celebration With the disappearance of the future, the only thing that remains in our hands is now. Then we can go deep into this now – whatsoever we are doing. Celebration and being total mean the same thing. We celebrate only when we are total in something, and when we are total in something we celebrate it. We Should Be Joyous and Happy In this Moment We need not worry about the future. We should be joyous and happy in this moment, and the next moment will be coming out of this moment. It will be suffused with the celebration of this moment, and naturally it will lead us into a higher celebration. The future is going to come out of this present. Our whole effort should be how to beautify this present moment, how to make people more celebrating, how to make people more joyous, how to give them a little glimpse of blissfulness, how to bring laughter to their life. Then the future takes care of itself. We need not think of the tomorrow, it comes. It comes out of this moment. Let this moment be of great celebration. 

Image by Sasin Tipchai from Pixabay 

Whatsoever we can be we are. There is no goal. And we are not going anywhere. We are simply celebrating here. Existence is not a journey; it is a celebration, a delight, a joy! Don’t turn it into a suffering; don’t turn it into a duty, a work. Let it be play. Let there be no guilt, no ego, and no trip of any kind…just be here now…be with the trees and the birds and the rivers and the mountains and the stars. Celebration Is Unconditional. Life in its totality is good. And when we understand life in its totality, only then can we celebrate; otherwise not. Celebration means: whatsoever happens is irrelevant – I celebrate. Celebration is not conditional on certain things: Celebration is unconditional; Celebration is my attitude, unconditional to what life brings. Celebration is gratefulness for whatsoever life gives to us. A Really Celebrating Person Has No Future People who are not enjoying their lives in the present have lust for life in the future. Lust for life is always in the future. It is a postponement. They are saying, ‘We cannot enjoy today so we will enjoy tomorrow.’ They are saying, ‘Right this moment we cannot celebrate, so let there be a tomorrow so that we can celebrate. Future arises out of our misery, not out of our celebration. A really celebrating person has no future; he lives this moment, he lives it totally. Out of that total living arises the next moment, but it is not out of any lust. Of course, when out of celebration the next moment arises, it has more capacity to bless us. When out of celebration the future arises, it goes on becoming more and richer. And a moment comes when the moment is so total, so whole, that time completely disappears. Time is a need of the miserable mind. Time is a creation of misery. If we are happy there is no time – time disappears. Who is a god? A god is one who has learned the secret of being happy with the whole universe, with every flower and with every river and with every rock and every star; who has become one with this continuous eternal celebration; who celebrates, who doesn’t bother whose celebration this is. And wherever there is a celebration, he participates. This art of participating in happiness is one of the foundations if we want to be happy. 

Only Silence Can Laugh, Our inner silence – the silence so deep that there is no vibration in our being. We are, but there are no waves, our whole being silent, still at the center and on the periphery celebration and laughter. And only silence can laugh, because only silence can understand the cosmic joke. Only then our life becomes a vital celebration, our relationship becomes a festive thing. Whatsoever we do, every moment is a festival. Eating, taking a bath, talking, and relationships all become a celebration. Our outer life becomes festive; there is no sadness in it. How can sadness exist with silence? The Whole Universe Is Celebrating. Only we are not part of it. We have detached ourselves and are in misery. Man is in misery because of the mind. The flowers, the moon, the stars, the earth, the oceans, the air and the clouds – everything is participating in that continuous, eternal celebration. Only man has become an outsider. On our own, we have separated ourselves from existence. Doing it is not that important; what is important is being. Being is primary and doing is secondary.  

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