Get enveloped by happiness

This is a wonderful centering meditation which Osho calls The Book of Secrets. The whole approach is on integrating your energies; when you are happy or unhappy, the focus is always on the outside. It is somebody who makes you happy or unhappy. The fact is that the feeling rises in your heart, the other is just an excuse.

The sutra is:

On joyously seeing a long absent friend, permeate this joy. When you see a friend and suddenly feel joy rising in your heart, concentrate on this joy. Usually people start talking, remembering things of the past and miss this joy. After the moment is gone this joy will wither away.

The sutra says, feel the joy and let it spread all over your being, get enveloped by the happiness. As if you have become it, and meet the friend while being aware and filled with your joy. Let the friend be on the periphery, and remain centered in your feeling of happiness. Let the emotion take precedence over thought.

Osho has given variations of this meditation. "This can be done in many other situations. The sun is rising, and suddenly you feel something rising within you. Then forget the sun; let it remain on the periphery. Be centered in your own feeling of rising energy. The moment you look at it, it will spread. It will become your whole body, your whole being. And don't just be an observer of it; merge into it.

There are a few moments when you feel joy, happiness, bliss, but you go on missing them because you become object-centered. And this is not only with joy, but with everything: with anger, with sadness, with misery, with happiness, with everything it is so. The difference between negative and positive emotions is: if you become aware of a certain emotion, and by your becoming aware the emotion dissolves, it is negative. If by your becoming aware of a certain emotion you become the emotion, if the emotion then spreads and becomes your being, it is positive. Awareness works differently in both cases."