Guilt trap of happiness

[1]

Amrit Sadhana [1]

Everybody wants to be happy, but the moment happiness arises it is shadowed by guilt. It is a common experience, maybe not so overt, but covertly guilt creeps in with the feeling of happiness. So people try to hide it. They are almost embarrassed that in the world full of misery they dare to be happy. They miss the ecstasy that happiness brings along with it.

This paradox is the residue of the life-negative religions. And it is not so only in India, it is the same conditioning all over the world.
I happen to meet people from around the globe at the Osho International Meditation Resort.
When they start sharing their deeper feelings, one feels that the barriers of nationalities are literally skin-deep.
All human beings are just human.
The ethical and religious conditioning, which is part of the collective unconscious, exists at the bottom like a fortress. Georg, a tall, lean and warm physician from Austria is a fresh example of this.
While chatting over a cup of cappuccino, Georg shared, “I never understood why tears welled up when I was happy. I always felt guilty about it. I was confused whether the guilt is about feeling happy or getting tearful. This confusion smothered my happiness.”
“By chance I received an Osho book in Austrian language from a friend, called Fears. I devoured it like a hungry man coming out of famine. The book has one full chapter on the guilt of happiness. I was impressed by the fact that how complicated topics could be solved simply. My confusion was cleared like magic.”
“When I was a child and I would be happy and wild, I was told to be quiet. Not only me but all the happy kids were scolded by their elders. I felt that there must be something wrong with my happiness, I shouldn’t be happy and still I kept feeling happy. As a contrast, when I was sick with high fever, in misery, everybody came around me saying, ‘Oh, poor Georg, you are sick, what do you need?’ Everybody was caring and loving towards me. So I learnt, better be sick and get everybody’s sympathy than be happy and get scolded.”
This repression went so deep in Georg that when he felt good inside, tears came out as if he was doing something wrong. When a child is not allowed to express joy, the suppressed energy becomes tears.
Strangely enough this guilt does not arise when you are sad, when you are depressed. As if the whole humanity has been conditioned to be unhappy.

Amrit Sadhana is in the management team of Osho International Meditation Resort, Pune. She facilitates meditation workshops around the country and abroad.