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of the world. The word "suf" also means clean, absolutely clean, with no dirt, a mirror without any dirt, so that it can reflect God. But I am not certain whether these meanings are really applicable to yusuf or not, hence I say: be blissful! My message is bliss, and bliss brings cleanliness, bliss brings clarity, bliss brings the kind of heart that becomes beloved of God. It creates Jesus in you.
But the whole alchemy depends on the process of being blissful, then all else follows. People have a very deep misunderstanding of bliss; they think it is a goal. It is not a goal, it is a discipline. If you think of bliss as a goal, then how can you be blissful right now? First you have to prepare yourself, you have to go through many austerities, fasts, prayers, rituals, then one day maybe sometime in the future -- maybe in this life or in other lives -- you will be capable of being blissful. To think of bliss as a goal helps you to postpone it. That's not my idea of bliss. Bliss is not a goal but a discipline in itself. You can be blissful this very moment, it is only a decision on your part.
It is our choice to be miserable or to be blissful. If we choose to be blissful no power can make us miserable, and I say it through my own experience, and through the experience of thousands of my sannyasins that it is only a question of decisiveness. If you decide to be blissful nobody can make you miserable. Even if you are thrown into hell you will remain blissful. You will enjoy hell too; it will be really a fantastic trip and you will meet beautiful people there!
Hell and heaven are not something outside you; they exist in your eyes. The man who knows how to be miserable will be miserable even if he is with God; he will find ways and means of being miserable. Even in paradise he will count the thorns on the rosebushes, and the man who knows how to be blissful, even in hell, will count the roses.
So let it become a fundamental rule of your life, that at each moment you have to decide. The alternatives are always open, both alternatives, we are always on the crossroads. You can move in the direction of misery, you can move in the direction of bliss;
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