Ordinary music can be the most extraordinary

Everybody wants to be extraordinary, that is very ordinary. But to be ordinary and just relax in being ordinary, that is superbly extraordinary. One who cannot accept his ordinariness without any grudge, any grumbling - with joy, because this is how the whole existence is - then nobody can destroy his bliss. Nobody can steal it, nobody can take it away. Then wherever you are you will be in bliss.

I was in New Delhi, and after I had spoken a man stood up and asked me, 'What do you think about yourself? Will you be going to heaven or hell?

I said, 'As far as I know, there is no such thing. But if by chance they are there, I can only hope for hell.'

He said, 'What!'

I said, 'In hell you will find all the colourful people - ordinary people, but all colourful. In heaven you will find great scholars, theologians, saints, philosophers - but all serious, all quarreling, all against each other, disputing continuously. It must be a quarrelsome place, where you cannot find a moment of silence. As far as I understand, if God had any intelligence, he must have escaped to hell, because this is the only place where nobody is going to argue about stupid, silly things, where people will be simply enjoying, dancing, singing, eating, sleeping, working.'

I said to him, 'To me, the ordinary is the most extraordinary phenomenon in existence'.
That quote comes from Osho (Bhagwan Shree Rajneesh)*. Like Wagner and many other seminal free thinkers, Osho carried a lot of baggage. But for those who can see beyond the baggage there is much wisdom. I suspect that the soundtrack in hell includes ordinary but extraordinary music such as Howard Hanson's Second Symphony 'The Romantic'. And I also suspect that hell has no internet connection.

* Source of quote is Osho: Living Dangerously. No review samples used. Any copyrighted material is included as "fair use" for critical analysis only, and will be removed at the request of copyright owner(s). Also on Facebook and Twitter.

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