You think that illness and health are opposites.

"You think that illness and health are opposites.

Youwish for a time when there will be no more illness inthe life of man, but the day this happens, there willbe no more health either.

It is possible only if allthe limbs of man are changed and replaced by plasticand stainless steel limbs, artificial limbs. Thensickness will disappear, but with it the experience ofhealth will also disappear. The joy of health andwell-being cannot be experienced with stainless steeland plastic limbs: health is connected with illness.

Now there are ways to replace the heart; parts of thebrain can also be replaced. Soon it will be possibleto replace all the parts of the human body which havethe possibility of getting sick. Plastic cannot becomesick, stainless steel will last for a long time.

Instead of bones, there can be stainless steel in yourhands. Nerves can be made of plastic and soon we canfind a better chemical than blood.

The whole body can be made like a machine, then it will not become sick -but the being which is hidden inside will never beable to experience health. Actually, health is a sort of balance between diseasesand disease is nothing but an imblance of health. Both are together:

eliminate one totally and the other willalso disappear. But you don't see it like this.

You think that if one is destroyed then the other will remain. This is the paradox of false appearances. Sowhatsoever appears to you as true, look deeply into itand think of the opposite: more is the possibilitythat the opposite will be true. Try to understand it in this way: wherever manexperiences happiness, in the end, what comes to hishands is just misery.

The mind says that happiness must be where it appears to be, but searching for it,in the end only misery is experienced. Many times inyour life you have experienced it: wherever there wasa promise of happiness, you ran towards it and have found only misery.

The sages have reversed this idea: they have said thatwherever there appears to be misery, try to enter intoit. When what appears to be happiness leads to misery,then wherever there appears to be misery, if you gointo it you will find happiness. It is this scientificprocess that is called tapa, discipline ofpurification. 'Tapa' means a search for happiness evenin misery.

Osho: The message beyond words, ch. 13.