Why do we need special days to celebrate? Why can’t we celebrate every day, every moment? The age-old adage taught to us in school: “Work while you work, play while you play”, is deeply ingrained in our minds. We have been taught to divide life in two parts. One, our day-to-day living, which is boring, and a burden to be carried and two, the special time that we have reserved to celebrate. Humans are part of the vast celebration of existence that is going on. From smallest molecules to the giant Milky Way, it is festivity all around. They don’t need a special time for celebrating. Then why does man need special days to be happy?
According to Osho it is a conspiracy of priests. They have investment in people’s misery. The more miserable they are, the more they like to find solace in religion: the religion of the miserable, for the miserable. This is not true religiousness. Happy people alone can be religious and festive. Religiousness means participating in the festivity of life. Feeling grateful for the immense gift called life. The material world has become so enjoyable, so colourful that people have developed an affinity with pleasure, fun. It is a welcome revival of hedonism. But celebration without the depth of meditation will be superficial. The capacity to celebrate stems from the space of meditation. When the mind is free, the heart is happy, the body is healthy and life energy bursts into celebration.
“We have a few festive days,” says Osho. “Once a year we observe Holi, once a year we celebrate Diwali, the festival of lights, and light many lamps in the darkness. But our life is dry and dull; and it is just because man had to create festivals. The birds, beasts, plants, rivers and waterfalls — they have neither Holi nor Diwali. It is because man is sick that he is satisfied with just one Diwali. One Diwali is just a consolation. So on that day new clothes, firecrackers and lights lamps — and afterwards we return to the same gloominess, same prison, same misery and same anxiety.
“But do you think that a river that flows for one day of the year is going to reach the ocean? Look at nature: there is existence enjoying Holi every day, and celebrating Diwali daily. In nature colours flow afresh every day, new flowers bloom each morning. Even before old leaves fall, new buds are bursting and new shoots are springing up. The festival does not stop even for a moment. Such will be the life of a religious person. He will be festive each moment — he is grateful that he is. His every breath is an expression of gratitude and benediction.”
