According to Osho, “progress” is a false idol that sacrifices the living present to an ever-receding future. Accept life as it is, live totally now, and stop being a martyr for abstract causes. Real well-being isn’t in cars or palaces. If anything unfolds from your wholehearted living, let it; but don’t pursue progress—choose blissful presence instead.
Enjoy today fully and stop trading your life for tomorrow; if good changes come from that, great, but don’t chase them.
From the Discourses
Passages where Osho speaks to this question — each links to the complete discourse.
How is progress, whether in civilization, culture or religion, possible if we accept life as it is and do not seek to change it in any way?
There is no need for any progress. Progress is the most false god created by man. There is no need. What does progress mean? Progress means deep down to sacrifice the present for the future. You sacrifice today to live tomorrow; then tomorrow, again it is not tomorrow, it is today; again you sacrifice it for the tomorrow. The father sacrifices for the children, the children sacrifice for their children, and nobody lives life ever. One generation sacrifices for another because there has to be progress; and then nobody lives it ever. There is no need for progress. The very word 'progress' moves you into the future. And there can never be an end to it. You cannot come to a state when you can say: Now the progress has been achieved, because progress is not a thing to be achieved, it is a process. So the state: Now everybody…
Beloved Osho, if everything is simply happening, then can there be any ultimate purpose to it all, or is life just an accident? Can it be said that life is evolving towards some ultimate goal?
Buddha became a beggar. He was born a king, he became a beggar. Why? Just to live richly... because he came to understand that there are two ways to live: one is to die richly, the other is to live richly. And any man who has any understanding will choose to live richly, because dying a rich man doesn't mean anything; you simply wasted yourself for nothing. But this is possible only if you can conceive that the whole existence is purposeless; it is a cosmic play, a continuous beautiful game, a beautiful hide-and-seek -- not leading anywhere. Nowhere is the goal. If this is the background, then you need not be worried about individual purposes, evolution, progress. This word progress is the basic disease of the modern age. What is the need? All that can be enjoyed is available, all that you need to be happy is here and…
Improvement is not possible. Improvement is a very false notion. It has never happened... it cannot happen. By the nature of things it is not possible. Nobody ever improves, because everyone is already that which one can be, so one has to relax and accept it. If that is your pattern, then that is you. Once you accept it, things will start changing. And I don't say they will improve -- I say they will start changing. Change is a totally neutral concept. In improvement there is greed, in improvement there is ego. In change.... It is just like summer changes, and then it is rains, and rains change and it is winter, and seasons change -- but there is no improvement. The whole western mind is basically caught up with the concept of progress. Evolution is there, but there is no progress.
Beloved master, it is like driving a car in forward and reverse at the same time. I am not going anywhere. Is the ignition switched on or am I just a bad driver?
Ray Horton, the very idea of going somewhere is basically wrong. Nothing is going anywhere. Existence is now-here; it is not moving towards a particular destiny. There is no destiny, there is no ultimate purpose. But we have been taught for centuries that existence is moving towards a certain goal and we have been also taught to live ambitiously, to prove that you are something, somebody: "Reach somewhere." But existence is absolutely purposeless. I am not saying that it is not significant. Precisely because it is purposeless it is significant, but its significance is not that of the marketplace. It is a totally different kind of significance: the significance of a roseflower, the significance of a bird on the wing, the significance of poetry, music. It is an end unto itself. We are not to become something -- we are already it. This is the whole message of all the…
Osho, it feels as if life is passing moment by moment. I have even found a true master; still, why is the next step unclear?
There is no next step. Why are you thinking about a next step? To think of a next step means this step is not blissful; you want another. This moment is not enough; you want the next. Today is not sufficient; you want tomorrow. Somewhere there is pain in the present; you long for the future. The “next step” is the contemplation of a troubled mind. For the happy person, this very step is the last step. For the happy person, the path itself is the goal. If you are delighted with me, drop talking about the next step. There is no next step. The next step arises from a diseased, restless mind. When you are not happy today, you begin to think of tomorrow. To forget today’s misery you think of tomorrow, you spin hopes of tomorrow, you weave dreams of tomorrow, you become absorbed in tomorrow so that…