People are always ready to throw the responsibility on others’ shoulders. Nobody wants to say, “I don’t know how to live – that’s why I am suffering.” Everybody would like to shirk the responsibility. And this was a beautiful way, and very logical, very appealing, very rational: that life itself is suffering. Buddha says, “Life is suffering, birth is suffering, death is suffering, everything is suffering.” And it corresponded with the people’s experiences. But the reason is not that life is suffering, the reason is that you don’t know how to play the game, you don’t know the art of living it.
Of course it is a suffering if you don’t know how to play the flute; it will be a suffering to you and to the neighbors and to everybody. And sooner or later you will get fed up and you will want to renounce this flute because it is simply creating trouble for you and for others. But the flute is not at fault. It is simply that you don’t know how to play, otherwise it is capable of creating beautiful music. It can nourish you and others.
Life is a very complex phenomenon, far more complex than a flute. Life is the whole orchestra, thousands of musical instruments together. And you have to learn to play all of them in such a way that you can create a harmony. That’s the whole art…and life is an opportunity to learn it. It is not to be renounced, it is to be rejoiced.
I belong to the Upanishadic world, the Upanishads belong to me. Their vision is my vision too. I would like to destroy this life-negative approach, to uproot it completely. It has made you suffer and it has helped you to rationalize your suffering – then the only way is to escape. But do you know the people who have escaped? Are they really blissful? Just look at your so-called saints and mahatmas. Are they really blissful? They look so sad, so serious, so dead. They talk about bliss; that does not mean that they are blissful. In fact, whenever a person talks too much about bliss that simply shows that he is trying to compensate. He is suffering deep down; talking about bliss he is trying to create an illusion for himself.
It is almost always the people who have failed in love who write poetry about love; otherwise, who has time to write poetry about love? One should love, rather. When you know how to cook, you cook; you don’t go on writing about how to cook beautiful foods. You simply prepare beautiful food, nourishing food. It is always the people who have missed the train who talk about love and who talk about bliss and who talk about truth. Otherwise there is no need – one simply lives it. One’s life becomes a message! And that is the only true message.
Just look at your saints. They cannot be blissful, they are so egoistic. Their whole mind is full of nothing but ego. If you look into their eyes you will find only one message written in thousands of ways: holier-than-thou, a deep condemnation for you, a deep condemnation for all people, a deep condemnation for everything that exists.
“What a dust I raise!” said the fly on the chariot wheel.