Osho – If you do not seek anything from without, you are complete, you are entire, you are perfect. The moment you start desiring something from outside, trouble starts. You have already descended from the throne of an emperor and become a beggar. And once you are a beggar, it will be very difficult to find the throne again. The world is vast and desires take you far away.
Whole lives are devoted to fulfill childish desires.
One of the richest men of his time, in 1940 … I was a small child and my father was sick, so I was with my father in the hospital. This rich man, Sir Seth Hukumchand, had created a really great hospital in Indore. He used to come, and by chance we became friends.
He was an old man but he used to come every day and I used to wait for him at the gate. I asked him, “You have so much …” Almost three-fourths of the houses of Indore were his property. And Indore is the next most beautiful and rich place to Bombay.
He said, “You are asking a strange question. Nobody ever asked me.”
I had asked him, “Why are you still creating new industries, creating new palaces? And you are becoming old. How is all this going to be of any help at the time of death?” He said, “I know, everything will remain here and I will be gone. But just a desire to be the most successful, rich man in the country keeps driving me. For no other reason, just that everything I have must be the best.”
He has the only Rolls Royce in the whole world made of solid gold. It was never driven, it was just for show, standing in front of his beautiful palace. He has the best horses in the world that you can imagine. I have never seen such beautiful horses. He had a whole palace filled with all kinds of exotic things.
I had asked him, “Why are you still creating new industries, creating new palaces? And you are becoming old. How is all this going to be of any help at the time of death?” He said, “I know, everything will remain here and I will be gone. But just a desire to be the most successful, rich man in the country keeps driving me. For no other reason, just that everything I have must be the best.”
He has the only Rolls Royce in the whole world made of solid gold. It was never driven, it was just for show, standing in front of his beautiful palace. He has the best horses in the world that you can imagine. I have never seen such beautiful horses. He had a whole palace filled with all kinds of exotic things.
And the reason was that he wanted to be the only owner of a certain thing. It was his absolute condition: whenever he purchases a thing, that thing should not be produced again; he should be the only owner. And he was ready to pay any money for it.
His only desire was — because Indore in those days was a state — to purchase all the houses in the state, even the palace of the king. And he almost succeeded — seventy-five percent of the houses of Indore belonged to him. Even the king had to borrow money from him, and he was giving to him very generously in order to finally settle that the whole of Indore …”He may be the king but it is my property.”
I asked him, “What will it do to you? What peace will it bring? You are always anxious, tense, coming to the hospital, asking the psychiatrist about your troubles. These houses cannot solve your troubles and this money cannot solve your troubles.”
And finally a time came when he captured all the gold of India, he became the gold king of India. He purchased all the gold, wherever it was possible. And once you have all the gold in your hands, you have the whole country in your hands. If you start selling it, the prices will go down.
His only desire was — because Indore in those days was a state — to purchase all the houses in the state, even the palace of the king. And he almost succeeded — seventy-five percent of the houses of Indore belonged to him. Even the king had to borrow money from him, and he was giving to him very generously in order to finally settle that the whole of Indore …”He may be the king but it is my property.”
I asked him, “What will it do to you? What peace will it bring? You are always anxious, tense, coming to the hospital, asking the psychiatrist about your troubles. These houses cannot solve your troubles and this money cannot solve your troubles.”
And finally a time came when he captured all the gold of India, he became the gold king of India. He purchased all the gold, wherever it was possible. And once you have all the gold in your hands, you have the whole country in your hands. If you start selling it, the prices will go down.
He kept the whole market dependent on him just because he was holding the gold. And I asked him, “What enjoyment are you getting out of it?”
He said, “I don’t know, just there is a tremendous desire to be the richest, to be the most powerful.”
The inward journey begins only when you understand it clearly that anything outside is not going to give you contentment.
Source – Osho Book “The Language of Existence”
He said, “I don’t know, just there is a tremendous desire to be the richest, to be the most powerful.”
The inward journey begins only when you understand it clearly that anything outside is not going to give you contentment.
Source – Osho Book “The Language of Existence”
Osho Quotes on Desires
Desire means the way to go out; desire is the path that leads you out. If your mind is still desiring, you cannot move within.
Needs can be fulfilled, desires never. Needs are natural, desires are perverted.
Misery has only one meaning, that things are not fitting with your desires -- and things never fit with your desires, they cannot. Things simply go on following their nature.
Buddha says: Life should be simple, not complex. Life should be based on needs, not on desires. Needs are perfectly okay: you need food, you need clothes, you need a shelter, you need love, you need relationship. Perfectly good, nothing wrong in it. Needs can be fulfilled; desires are basically unfulfillable. Desires create complexity. They create complexity because they can never be fulfilled. You go on and on working hard for them, and they remain unfulfilled, and you remain empty.
The more desires you have, the more misery you will create for yourself. Misery is a consequence of desiring -- and you go on desiring. In fact, you think that if your desires are fulfilled your miseries will disappear. In the first place they are never fulfilled; in the second place, if they are fulfilled, nothing is fulfilled by their fulfillment. You remain as empty as you have always been -- or even more, because up to now you were occupied with a certain desire; now even that is fulfilled. A deep deep emptiness comes to you.
You have to take the responsibility totally, that it is you who decides either to be in misery or to be in blessing. If you want misery, have more desires. If you want a blissfulness, then learn the art -- even for few moments -- of being desireless, and you will be surprised. Even for a few moments, if you are desireless, all anguish, all anxiety disappears. And you are so contented, so fulfilled, that you cannot ask for more. Your blessing is so much that you can only say that you bless the whole existence. Still it will be there. It is so much; it is overflowing.
Ego brings unnatural desires in you; it drives you crazy. Life is simple, but to be simple one has to be purposeless. Any goal, and you can't be simple. Any goal and you can't be herenow. Any goal and the desire will rock you. Any goal, and you are on the way, again moving -- you cannot enjoy this moment, the grace of this moment, the benediction of herenow.
See what your misery is, what desires are causing it, and why you are clinging to those desires. And it is not for the first time that you are clinging to those desires; this has been the pattern of your whole life and you have not arrived anywhere. You go on in circles, you never come to any real growth. You remain childish, stupid. And you are born with the intelligence that can make you a buddha, but it is lost in unnecessary things.
If you have desires, try to look -- are those desires the cause of your misery? Nobody wants misery, but nobody is willing to drop the desires -- and they are together, they cannot be separated. This is one of the greatest insights that has come from all the enlightened people in the world -- that desire is the root of all misery, and desirelessness is the cause of all that is beautiful and blissful.
And desires are never here and now -- they are non-existential. They are just mental, in the mind. And they cannot be fulfilled because their very nature is to move into the future.
Future is your projection of unfulfilled desires. The more unfulfilled you are, the bigger a future you have. The more unfulfilled is your being, the richer the dreams you have of the future. But it is just in your mind.
Your desires are immense, almost infinite. Because of your desires life becomes a competition, and wherever there is competition, there is anxiety and angst; and at the end everybody is aware deep down there is death.
That is Buddha's meaning of nirvana: to be free from life and death, to be free from desire. The moment you are free from all desires... remember, I repeat, ALL desires. The so-called religious, spiritual desires are included in it, nothing is excluded. All desires have to be dropped because every desire brings frustration, misery, boredom. If you succeed it brings boredom; if you fail it brings despair. If you are after money there are only two possibilities: either you will fail or you will succeed. If you succeed you will be bored with money.
The whole blame goes to the parents. They have lived as ambitious beings; they have destroyed themselves. Now they go on giving their heritage to their children -- their unfulfilled desires, their incomplete ambitions. In this way diseases pass on from one generation to another.
Every child is being destroyed by his own people. They don't know consciously what they are doing. Parents are projecting their own unfulfilled desires onto their children. The father wanted to be a doctor but could not; he ended up being something else. He could not pass the examinations and became just a chemist, but he imposes the desire to become a doctor onto his son. He sends him to school with great hope that his child will achieve what he could not achieve. He is doing it all out of his unconscious love, but unconscious love is not love -- it is blind. With all good intentions, it does harm. The child who is being forced to become a doctor, if he was left alone to grow according to his own nature... one never knows what kind of beauty or joy, what kind of individuality, he would have contributed to the world.
Why do you dream? -- because there are so many desires unfulfilled, and to live with unfulfilled desires is painful. In dream you try to fulfill them; in dream you create a false feeling of fulfillment. Hence your dreams show much about you: what your desires are, what you want to become. But if you want to become anything in life, you are asleep.
There are urges and urges; you are exploding with urges, desires. You don't have one desire, you have many desires. Not only that you have many desires, you have contradictory desires. If one is fulfilled, the other, which is its contradiction, remains unfulfilled and you are in misery. If the other is fulfilled, then something else remains unfulfilled.
Only those people are really sane who have transcended the mind, who have gone beyond it into silence where no thoughts, no desires, no emotions, nothing exists. Only in that peace is your real health.
Buddha says this is how one should be -- no desire, because all desires are futile. They are about the future; life is in the present. All desires distract you from the present, all desires distract you from life, all desires are destructive of life, all desires are postponements of life. Life is now and the desire takes you away, farther and farther away from now. And when we see that our life is misery we go on throwing the responsibility on others, and nobody is responsible except us.
This is a very fundamental reason why man cannot become meditative -- or why very few men have dared to become meditative. Our training is of the mind. Our education is for the mind. Our ambitions, our desires, can only be fulfilled by the mind. You can become president of a country, prime minister, not by being meditative but by cultivating a very cunning mind. The whole education is geared by your parents, by your society, so that you can fulfill your desires, your ambitions. You want to become somebody. Meditation can only make you a nobody.
The moment one starts sharing one's being without any motive life becomes a sweet fragrance. It is all honey. Then everything remains the same, yet nothing is the same any more. When your heart beats in harmony, in love, in joy, when you are no longer greedy, when there are no desires and no ambitions, and when there are no ego trips any more, one is simply, ordinary, but sweet. That taste is the taste of god.
Mind knows how to think; you will have to know how not to think. Mind knows how to go on creating, manufacturing more and more noise, words upon words, theories, philosophies, ideologies -- it is very skilful in that. It is a factory which goes on creating abstractions. You will have to learn how to stop this constant flow of words, thoughts, concepts, dreams, desires. Mind knows how to be ambitious; you will have to learn how not to be ambitious. Mind is always on some ego trip; you will have to learn how not to be on an ego trip. This is a great transformation. So much is involved in it that you will be born anew, you will have a new life if you go through all this transformation; that's the ultimate adventure. Getting out of the mind is the only challenge worth accepting. Getting beyond mind is the most arduous but the most beautiful journey too, because it is through this journey that you come back home.
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