According to Osho, the sense that there is nothing to attain is not a mind’s trick—it is the very essence of his message: there is nowhere to go; the Divine is here, now. The real trick is postponement—chasing future methods, heavens, or ‘tomorrow.’ God is presence, not a goal; awakening happens only in this moment: either now, or never.
It’s not your mind fooling you—stop waiting for later; what you seek is already here if you pay attention right now.
From the Discourses
Passages where Osho speaks to this question — each links to the complete discourse.
Osho, time and again it feels as if there is nothing to attain, nowhere to go; there is life, to be lived. O Satguru, O Supreme Guru! Is this a trick of the mind or…? Protect your disciple at every step. Where I am today, as I am, is the fruit of your grace!
No, it is not a befooling by the mind. Not the mind’s trick. This is not coming from the mind. This is precisely my message. This has reached you from me. This is what I am saying to you, continuously—through a thousand ways, in a thousand styles, by a thousand devices—only this: there is nowhere to go; the Divine is here, right here, now. Do not postpone to tomorrow—It is today, this very moment. God is not a goal, God is a presence. Present now, in these trees, in the birds’ calls, in the movement of the wind. But for centuries you have been taught that God is up there in the heavens, to be found after death. And I tell you: what cannot be found in life will not be found after death. And what can be found after death can only be found in life—because life and death…
It is difficult to understand. The first difficulty is to understand that there is nowhere to go. Even this much is hard to grasp. The whole arrangement of our chitta, our mind, keeps saying: move, go somewhere; here there is nothing. The entire mind is woven out of this tension — go somewhere, somewhere far lies the goal. The very base of mind is that the goal be far; otherwise the mind disappears. Because if the goal is far, one has to try to attain, to think, to plan, to find devices. And if the goal is far, it will not be attained today, it will be attained tomorrow. So the strain from today toward tomorrow has to be maintained. The mind lives in tension. And every tension, deep down, is the tension of reaching somewhere — whether it be wealth, fame, religion, or moksha.
Osho, tell us of some lure that would set us moving toward God—some temptation that would engage our mind in God-realization.
Difficult today, difficult tomorrow; the day after, not so difficult—if you persist and don’t jump up, “Oh, a bad thought—get rid of it!” The witness has nothing to do with good or bad. Thorns have the same worth as flowers. We label; the witness does not. Soon, an amazing thing begins: now and then a gap appears—an interval. A thought comes, then the next does not; a space remains. In that empty space, the first glimpses begin. In that emptiness, even you are not—there is only emptiness. That is the door. Keep at it, and thoughts lessen; spaces grow. It’s like a road where a person passes, then for an hour no one—emptiness. A thought appears on the screen, then none for a long while; the screen is blank. From that blankness, your first contacts with God begin—because in that moment you are present. Thought can take you to past…
Osho, for the attainment of the supreme state, how helpful are ochre robes, a mala, and the Guru? And after attaining the supreme state, what need remains for them?
So, in the final phase the complication is not that the disciple wants to leave and the Guru wants to hold. The final complication is this: the Guru says, “Leave now,” and the disciple will not. A disciple means one who has loved so totally—how will he leave! There is great pain. He is even ready to let liberation lie where it is; only let him lie at the Guru’s feet—that is enough. At the Guru’s feet he has found so much that the thought does not even arise that liberation could give more; and even if it could, no true disciple can be so ungrateful as to agree to leave in an instant. In the beginning, it was hard for the Guru to hold the disciple’s hand because the disciple kept pulling away. Now it is this same gentleman who is pulling away. I, too, would like to hold…
Beloved Osho, it has always been the observation of seekers that the realization of godliness is a very arduous phenomenon. But enlightened ones like you always emphasize that it can happen right here, right now. Is saying this again and again a provocation? And a method or device to arouse thirst in us?
Don't laugh, because most people are just like Chinmaya. Don't think that your laughing proves that you are different than Chinmaya. Chinmaya at least got up the courage to ask -- you didn't even ask. This is the only difference. You are just like him. If you haven't become God by the time the Ashtavakra Gita discourses are over, then know: there is no difference, you are just like him. But if while listening you wake up and become God, then just the shadow of the whip has worked. "It has always been the observation of seekers that the realization of God is a very arduous phenomenon." The seeker is off track from the very beginning. The very meaning of seeker assumes that God has to be sought, that he has lost God somewhere. The seeker accepts that he has lost the divine somewhere. What a strange idea. He has…