Watching Our Moods

 

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Watching Our Moods

Whenever we are happy, very happy, we are at a peak, and then something happens and immediately the valley follows. There are always valleys with peaks, we cannot be on the peak forever - soon we will fall into the valley, in a deep depression. If we are feeling very, very energetic, soon a tiredness will settle in.

The opposite is always round the corner. It has to be so, because the opposite is not the opposite, it is the complementary. If we are happy continuously for a long time it will be too much excitement, it will be moving to the extreme – and that can be dangerous to life. We have to be thrown back into sadness. Sadness is relaxing, it is not an excitement; it is like night following day - tired, we fall asleep.

It is not vicious, it is natural, and nature has its own economy. So, what should we do? Don’t disturb the circle. The only thing that we must do is that when we are high, don’t get identified with that highness. When we feel very, very happy, remember always that it is only a mood, not the self; an atmosphere that surrounds us, but not really us. When it is raining we don’t think that we are the rain. When the rains have stopped and the sun has come out and it is very sunny, we don’t think that we are the sun or the sunniness… it is something that is happening around us – and remember that it is the same inside.

Happiness is just like rains or the sunniness, it is a climate, a mood around us, an environment – but not us. We are the watchers; we are the witnesses who know that now everything is very beautiful. If we are the watchers, we will always remember that sooner or later the other opposite will follow. We are already ready for it.

If we are ready for it, it will not be so depressing - the height will not be such an excitement, and the sadness will not be so sad. And by and by, by and by, the peak and the valley will start coming nearer and nearer and nearer and a moment comes when the peak disappears, the valley disappears, and we are on plain ground. That plain ground is neither happiness nor unhappiness, it has a different name, that is bliss. It is not happiness. A man of bliss is not happy in the ordinary sense, because he is not excited at all. He is absolutely calm, and quiet without any excitement.

Don’t become the mood, remain a watcher because the watcher always knows the other is coming, following. Soon, we will see the day is disappearing and the night is coming. Remain a watcher. When we become sad, again go on watching. As the day has passed, the night will also pass, everything passes. After a few alert moments we will remember that we are completely separate – we are neither, neither this nor that. 

This is how for the first time we will feel blissful. Now we know unhappiness cannot disturb us, and happiness cannot disturb us. We have attained to an unperturbable state, the state of bliss.