Traditions and Celebrations

I never understood these annual celebrations, like: Carnival, Christmas, Popular Saints ..where everybody is supposed to feel happy and have family and friends to celebrate with. It looked to me like a forced and superficial joy.

Today, these festivities are some of my best memories, part of my childhood, a piece of my culture, part of my life..

Today, I understand how important it is. It is a form to break the routine, the monotony of people's lives.

These celebrations are like a big party where all the people of the country are invited.

In that celebrations everybody forgets their problems, jobs and status and go to the adorned streets to celebrate, to eat, to drink, to play games and dance with the rest of the city's community.

• During the Carnival, people can be whoever they want;

• For the Valentine's day, each one will prepare something special for their sweetheart; 

• To celebrate their achievements, groups of woman gather together for diner and fun; 

• There's a day for the children to show love and appreciation for their fathers; 

• The mother also has her day, when their children express their love and gratitude; 

• Even the children have a special day for fun!; 

• The religious celebrations where people gather and commemorated with rituals, reflection, specific dishes and sweets; 

• The workers have a special day that is national holiday; 

• There are days for the commemorations of the country's achievements;

• In the day of the dead, families bring flowers, candles and pray for their loved deceased; 

• For Halloween people impersonate monsters and play with the fears of their childhood;

• With the winter, comes Christmas! All the families gather together to cook and eat specific dishes and sweets, and to exchange chocolates and presents!

• Finally, the New Year's Eve! Family and friends welcome the new year with food, drinks, wishes and hopes...

These annual festivities includes and celebrates every single individual of the society and their roles. 
These celebrations bring closer the lovers, the families, the friends and the society's community.

These days brings joy and fun to people's lives. They are traditions of many years and reflects the culture and the gastronomy of its people. 
Traditions are not necessary, but make the human experience more fascinating.

Brilliant Thoughts of Osho

• "If you love a flower, don't pick it up. Because if you do that, it dies and it ceases to be what you love. Love is not about possession but appreciation"

• "Be. Don't try to became."

• "Life begins when fears ends."

• "The higher the peak is, the deeper the valley will be."

• "Loneliness is absence of the other. Aloneness is the presence of oneself."

• "People say love is blind because they do not know what love is. I say unto you, only love has eyes, other than love, everything is blind."

• "Life is not a problem. To look at it as a problem is to take a wrong step. It is a mystery to be lived, loved, experienced."

• "If you suffer it is because of you, if you feel blissful it is because of you. Nobody else is responsible - only you and you alone. You are your hell and your heaven too."

• "Wherever you are afraid, try to explore and you will find death hiding somewhere behind. All fear is of death. Death is the only fear source."

• "Truth is not something outside to be discovered, it is something inside to be realized." 

• "Creativity is the greatest rebellion in existence."

• "To be a happy person, one has to drop all comparison. Drop all these stupid ideas of being superior and inferior. You are neither superior nor inferior. You are simply yourself. There exists no one like you, no one with whom you can be compared. Then, suddenly you are at home."

• "Tomorrow never comes, it is always today."

• "Courage is a love affair with the unknown."

• "The real question is not whether life exists after death. The real question is whether you are alive before death."

• "Whatever you feel, you become. It is your responsibility."

• "if you live with unhealthy people, to be healthy is dangerous. If you live with insane people, then to be sane is dangerous. If you live in a madhouse, even if you are not mad at least pretend, otherwise those mad people will kill you."

• "Love is the goal, life is the journey."

• "Your whole idea about yourself is borrowed. Borrowed from those who have no idea who they are themselves."

• "In love the other is important, in lust you are important."

• "It is not a question of learning much. it's a question of unlearning much."

• "When you say to a woman or a man " I love you", you are simply saying "I cannot be deceived by your body, I have seen you. Your body may become old but I have seen you, the core that is divine." Liking is superficial. Love penetrates and goes to the very core of the person, touches the very soul of the person."

• "Mind" a beautiful servant, a dangerous master."

• "Lovers never surrender to each other, lovers simply surrender to love."

• "How can you give something which you don't have? To give, the first basic requirement is to have it."

• "The greater fear in the world is the opinion of others, and the moment you are unafraid of the crowd, you are no longer a sheep, you become a lion. A great roar arises in your heart, the roar of freedom."

• "You feel good, you feel bad and these feelings are bubbling from your own unconsciousness, from your own past. Nobody is responsible, except you. Nobody can make you angry and nobody can make you happy." 

• "Never belong to a crowd; never belong to a nation; never belong to a religion; never belong to a race. Belong to the whole existence. Why limit yourself to small things when the whole is available."

• "The feminine is more powerful than the masculine, the soft is more powerful than the hard, the water is more powerful than the rock."

• "Sadness gives depth. Happiness gives height. Sadness gives roots. Happiness gives branches. Happiness is like a tree going into the sky and sadness is like the roots going down into the womb of the earth. Both are needed and the higher a tree goes, the deeper it goes, simultaneously. The bigger the tree, the bigger will be its roots. In fact. it is always in proportion. That is balance."

• "We are born alone, we die alone. Between these two realities, we create a thousand and one illusions of being together - all kind of relationships, friends and enemies loves and hates, nations, races, religions. We create all kinds of hallucinations just to avoid one fact: that we are alone. But whatsoever we do, the truth cannot be changed. It is so, and rather than trying to escape from it, the best way is to rejoice it." 

• "It was good of Nietzsche to declare God dead. I declare that he has never been born. It's a created fiction, an invention, not a discovery. It is man-manufactured fiction. Certainly, it has given consolation, but consolation is not the right thing! Consolation is opium. It keeps you unaware of the reality, and life is flowing past you so quickly - 70 years will be gone soon. Anybody who gives you a belief system is your enemy, because the belief system becomes a barrier for your eyes. you cannot see the truth.  The very desire to find the truth disappears. In the beginning, it is bitter if all your belief system is taken from you. The fear and the anxiety which you have been suppressing for millennia, which is there, very alive, will surface immediately. No God can destroy it, only the search for truth and the experience of truth - not a belief - is capable of healing all your wounds, of making you a whole being. And the whole person is the holy person to me."

 - Osho Rajneesh

Indian spiritual philosopher