If You Really Want To Change Your Misery You Have To Go To The Root Cause - OSHO

Only a qualitative difference is a difference that makes a difference, but that qualitative difference is possible only if you start dismantling the roots of your misery.

People only go on changing symptoms. You are miserable with one woman or with one man; you change. And you completely forget that you were very happy with this woman. You have completely forgotten the honeymoon days and again you will do the same foolish thing with some other woman again the same honeymoon and the same excitement and again the same depression, the same boredom.

You can go on changing the woman again and again but it will be just the same routine, the same vicious circle.

If you really want to change your misery you have to go to the root cause. The root cause is that you don't know what love is, so how can you be a lover? How can you share love when you don't know what it is? The root cause is that you are not blissful so when you relate with somebody, in the beginning you manage to act blissfully, but how long can you act? As things settle you start coming back to your normal self because one cannot live continuously acting. Those honeymoon days when you are smiling, when there are songs on your lips, are just days of acting but soon they disappear, you come back to your natural and normal pace. One has to, otherwise it is very tiring; one cannot go on putting on a face for long.

And the same is true about the woman you are in love with, she also settles. And then both are miserable persons; then the reality suddenly is there and has to be encountered. And remember, two miserable persons together do not only double the misery, they multiply it. And then everybody throws the responsibility on the other but the responsibility is basically one's self.

First we should find the root causes of our misery and destroy them, burn them. Before you start growing roses you have to pull out all the weeds, you have to prepare the ground, remove all the rocks.

One should go deep into the causes of misery -- and they are not many. Basically the main root is ego and then others are offshoots. A man with ego is bound to remain miserable because ego can never be fulfilled, its thirst is unquenchable. And because it can never be fulfilled it always brings frustration. And that frustration accumulates and becomes your misery. It becomes mountainous. It destroys all joy, all love, all truth. You simply become a black hole.

As I see people they are black holes moving around in the world searching for other black holes. And just think of the calamity when two black holes meet -- and they call it marriage, love. There are simply two black holes meeting, and there is nothing else, nothing to share, nothing to give. And everybody wants to suck the other, to get as much as possible. Both are beggars.

First destroy the root of misery, the ego, and its offshoots -- jealousy, possessiveness, the desire to dominate -- and then you will be surprised that bliss has not to be achieved; it is your intrinsic nature. Once misery is removed it is as if clouds have disappeared and the sun starts shining forth. And when you are blissful your life is a pilgrimage. It is no ordinary journey, it is sacred. Then each step is towards god.

A blissful person cannot go anywhere else other than to god. He cannot go astray, it is impossible to go astray. If he has fulfilled one thing, if he has allowed his blissful nature to be expressed, then there is no problem.
My sannyasins have to be pilgrims of bliss: dancing, singing, rejoicing. And then god is not far away. You need not bother about god; it comes in its own course, naturally.

Osho