Being Happy Is Up to You

Being happy is up to you. It’s a choice you make, and it really is that simple. No one but you is responsible for your happiness, and no one but you can choose to be happy.

“Happiness is man's nature. You need not worry about happiness at all, it is already there. It is in your heart – you just have to stop being unhappy, you have to stop the mechanism functioning which creates unhappiness.”

Osho, Zen: The Path of Paradox, Vol. 2, Talk #6

I keep searching for happiness but not finding it

“Seeking, you will never find it. Finding, or the effort to find it, is a serious thing. It is here! – you need not find it. Start enjoying it! Start being cheerful this very moment! Don't try to find it, because if you try to find it you will remain serious. How can a seeker be non-serious?

“You are searching for happiness and laughter and joy – you have to be serious, otherwise how will you search? Meanwhile you will remain serious, and the seriousness is getting stronger every moment. Tomorrow again you will search; but one day has passed – twenty-four hours' more conditioning of seriousness is on you. You will find less laughter tomorrow; the day after tomorrow it will become even more difficult…and so on and so forth. And you will always be searching and seeking and trying to find.

“Just be cheerful this moment! Just see the point of it! Don't postpone it – these are tricks of postponing. You don't want to be happy; you still want to remain unhappy. You still want some new excuse to be unhappy. Now this is the excuse: ‘I am searching for happiness, I am searching for joy. Right now I am unhappy. I will be happy when I have found – but how can I be happy right now? I will have to find, and the journey is long and the path is arduous, an uphill task.’ So you can be happy with your unhappiness right now, and tomorrow we will see…and tomorrow never comes.”

Osho, Walk without Feet, Fly without Wings, and Think without Mind, Talk #5

It’s so frustrating – the more I search for happiness the further away it seems

“The more you ask for happiness, the more you will be in suffering. The suffering is a shadow. The greater the desire for happiness, the greater will be the shadow. Ask for happiness and you will never get it. You will suffer frustration. Why? – because there is only one way to be happy, and that is to be happy here.

“Happiness is not a result, happiness is a way of life.

“Happiness is not the end result of desire. Happiness is an attitude, not a desire. You can be happy here if you know how to be, and you will never be happy if you don't know how to be and you go on desiring it. Happiness is an art. It is a way of life. If you can be silent and aware of the life that is around you and within you this very moment, you will be happy. The birds are singing, the wind is blowing… The trees are happy, the sky is happy; everything in existence is happy except you.

“Existence is happiness. It is an eternal celebration, a festivity.

“Look at existence! Every tree is in a festive mood, every bird is in a festive mood. Except man, everything is in a festive mood. The whole of existence is a festival, a constant, continuous festival. No sadness, no death, no misery exists anywhere, except in the human mind. Something is wrong with the mind, not with existence. Something is wrong with you, not with the situation.

“Why is man unhappy? No animal is so unhappy, no bird is so unhappy, no fish is as unhappy as man. Why is man so unhappy? – because man desires happiness, and the birds are happy right now, the trees are happy right now. Man desires happiness – he is never happy here and now. He always desires it, and goes on missing it, because happiness is here. It is happening all around you. Allow it to enter within. Be part of existence. Don't move into the future. Existence never moves into the future, only the mind does.”

Osho, The New Alchemy: To Turn You On, Talk #2

I didn’t realize being happy is simply a choice

“The essential religion is taking the whole responsibility for whatsoever you are. And immediately an insight arises: ‘If I am responsible for my suffering, then it is simple, I can drop it. It is my choice. I will not choose it anymore.’

“A Sufi mystic who had always remained happy was asked…. For seventy years people had watched him, he had never been found sad. One day they asked him, ‘What is the secret of your happiness?’ He said, ‘There is no secret. Every morning when I wake up, I meditate for five minutes and I say to myself, ‘Listen, now there are two possibilities: you can be miserable, or you can be blissful. Choose.’ And I always choose to be blissful.’

“All alternatives are open. Choose to be blissful. And then there are people who can be blissful even when they are imprisoned, and there are people who remain miserable even when they are living in marble palaces. It all depends on you.”

Osho, Unio Mystica, Vol. 2, Talk #10

“But a seeker takes responsibility upon himself. In fact, to be a seeker means to hold no one but oneself responsible for everything. If there is sorrow in my life I am responsible, and if there is happiness in my life I am responsible. If I am tranquil it is I who am responsible; if I am restless it is my own making. There is no one but myself who is responsible for whatsoever state I am in. If I fall and break my leg it is my own fault and I cannot blame gravity. If this is the attitude of the mind, then you will have understood rightly. Then the meaning of a mishap will be different.

“For this reason, I say that grace is beneficial and it is a blessing to a person who is well prepared for it. In fact there is a time for everything. There is a special moment for each event, and to miss this moment is a great tragedy.”

Osho, In Search of the Miraculous, Talk #14

“Try it. This is a magic formula. In each situation, look before you become unhappy or happy – look. Is there a possibility of being happy? And you will always find that the possibility is there. There is always something to be happy about. If you want to be unhappy then there is always something to be unhappy about.

“The world is full of thorns and full of flowers. It is neither a rose-bed nor a thorn-bed – it is full of both. It depends on you. You can choose flowers and you can make a bed of flowers and sleep on the bed of roses. Or you can choose thorns and suffer. Hell is your creation, so is heaven.”

Osho, Sufis: The People of the Path, Vol. 2, Talk #10

“Now people want happiness – but just by wanting, you cannot get it. Wanting is not enough. You will have to see into the phenomenon of your misery, how you create it – how in the first place you became miserable, how you go on becoming miserable every day – what is your technique? Because happiness is a natural phenomenon – if somebody is happy there is no skill in it, if somebody is happy it needs no expertise to be happy.

“Animals are happy, trees are happy, birds are happy. The whole existence is happy, except man. Only man is so clever as to create unhappiness – nobody else seems to be so skillful. So when you are happy it is simple, it is innocent, it is nothing to brag about. But when you are unhappy you are doing great things to yourself; you are doing something really hard.”

Osho, Zen: The Path of Paradox, Vol. 2, Talk #6

Can I really be the cause of my own happiness?

“Meditation is enjoying oneself, just sitting silently doing nothing: happy, joyous without any reason, because all reasons come from outside. You meet a beautiful woman and you are happy, or you meet a beautiful man and you are happy – but the meditator is simply happy. His happiness has no reason from the outside world; his happiness wells up within himself.

“Relationship is happiness coming from the other, but have you watched, when happiness is coming from the other it must be welling up in the other, otherwise how will it reach you? And your happiness is reaching the other, you are both enjoying each other’s happiness; you are drinking out of each other’s well. And the well is there, otherwise how can you drink? But the woman that you love thinks she is enjoying your happiness – you are making her happy, you are the cause of her happiness. And you are thinking she is the cause of your happiness. But if you can both be causes to each other’s happiness, can’t you be a cause to your own happiness?”

Osho, Philosophia Perennis, Vol. 1, Talk #5

“This is what I call meditation: be here, don't move into the future. Be non-ambitious, kill all desire for life, don't desire happiness. And then you will be happy, and no one can destroy your happiness. Then it becomes impossible for you to be unhappy. Then you will be deathless and eternal life will have happened to you. It has already happened but you are not aware of it. Then you will be fulfilled. Non-ambitious, you will be fulfilled.”

Osho, The New Alchemy: To Turn You On, Talk #2