I Celebrate Myself: God is No Where, Life is Now Here



I Celebrate Myself: God is No Where, Life is Now Here

In mid-February 1989, Osho begins a new series: I Celebrate Myself: God is No Where, Life is Now Here

Good evening. And good news...!
This evening we are starting a new series of talks: I Celebrate Myself: God is No where, Life is Now Here
The statement of Friedrich Nietzsche that God is dead, is only symbolic because God has never been in the first place--not even born. How can he be dead? But it was a tremendously powerful symbol to declare that God is dead....
Hence, I celebrate myself and I celebrate you.
Friedrich Nietzsche's statement also includes another part: "God is dead, therefore man is free." God was the slavery of man, he was the bondage. He was the prison that did not allow humanity to rise to its ultimate heights. He was keeping the whole of humanity reduced to subhuman beings, sinners. His death is a great moment to celebrate....
I have chosen this title, I Celebrate Myself from one of the most important poets of America, Walt Whitman. celebr01

In the three hundred years of America, there have not been many men who can be compared to the great mystics of the world. Only one man, a poet, comes very close to the mystics, Walt Whitman. One of his beautiful songs is: I Celebrate Myself. America has not paid much attention to Walt Whitman, but he is the only one in the three hundred years of America's life who has reached the highest peak possible.
When he says, "I celebrate myself," he is saying everything about love. "And if you can rejoice in my celebration, you are welcome. If you can be my guest, I invite you to celebrate." Love celebrates, it is not a responsibility at all. chit30

I love the pagan.
I want the world back in the hands of the pagans.
All the religions have destroyed the pagans because they were the people without any judgment, without any God, without any morality--just simple, innocent, flowing with nature, in a deep let-go. So whatever was spontaneous they were doing, whatever was coming from their nature they were following. There was no question of guilt, there was no situation like a no-win situation.
The pagan was always victorious. Whatever he was doing or not doing, he had his dignity, his honor. I want you to be pagans, that is the first step to being a buddha. I have chosen Zorba as an example of a pagan, and that is the very foundation. On that foundation you can make a shrine for the buddha. But without the foundation, the buddha is hanging in the air like a balloon. You can worship it, but you cannot be nourished by it unless your roots are deep into the earth. Your branches cannot grow into the sky, you cannot touch the stars without deep roots in the earth. First you have to be very earthly, earthbound, then only will you start growing towards the stars.
Without roots in the earth you become simply a star gazer, you don't grow towards stars. You simply look at the buddha, you worship, you pray. But neither is worship going to help nor is prayer going to help. What is going to help is a real foundation, and that real foundation is to be without God, to be without scriptures, to be without discipline, to be without any commandments. Be a free man, don't be a spiritually enslaved person....
People cannot accept themselves because they cannot accept others as they are. I have never judged in my life. I have loved all kinds of people; just their uniqueness makes them more loveable. And because I have loved all kinds of people without discrimination, I have no way of feeling guilt, I have no way of rejecting myself. I have loved myself immensely....
Don't postpone. Don't ask me how long it is going to take--it depends on you. If you are miserable and feeling caught in a no-win situation, then why carry it? If I could drop it, why can you not drop? I am not a messiah, or a prophet, or an incarnation of God. I don't have any miracle powers with me, I am just as human as you are. If I could do it, who is preventing you? celebr03

I celebrate myself, and I hope soon the day will come you will be celebrating yourself. And when thousands and thousands of people around the earth are celebrating, singing, dancing, ecstatic, drunk with the divine, there is no possibility of any global suicide. With such festivity and with such laughter, with such sanity and health, with such naturalness and spontaneity, how can there be a war?
The third world war is not going to happen! I predict it! It is not going to happen, because of you, because of my people around the earth! They are the only hope. Only millions of buddhas are capable of creating the atmosphere for peace, for love, for compassion, for celebration.
Life is not given to you to murder, to destroy. Life has been given to you to create, and to rejoice, and to celebrate...
I want you to live intensely, totally, because only those who live intensely and totally are transformed. Only they know what is the ultimate secret of life. celebr04

I am trying in every possible way to make you nonserious, non-tense. Laugh, dance, sing, celebrate, because these are the people who will find immense power arising in themselves which is dormant. These are the people who will have power but will not harm anybody with their power. Their power will be a blessing to the world. It will not be the power that destroys, it will be the power that creates. These will be the creators.
And these will be the people who know. These will be the people who have disappeared in joy, in dance, and are no more. Only a consciousness, a pure consciousness remains. That pure consciousness we have called the awakened consciousness, the enlightened consciousness; we have called it samadhi or satori...Gautam Buddha is just a name, representative of this ultimate blossoming. celebr07

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