If you feel lost even after trying hard, stop trying so hard—relax, and you’ll notice the answer was already here.
From the Discourses
Passages where Osho speaks to this question — each links to the complete discourse.
When the deep meaning of things is not understood the mind's essential peace is disturbed to no avail.
THE WAY IS PERFECT LIKE VAST SPACE WHERE NOTHING IS LACKING AND NOTHING IS IN EXCESS. INDEED, IT IS DUE TO OUR CHOOSING TO ACCEPT OR REJECT THAT WE DO NOT SEE THE TRUE NATURE OF THINGS. LIVE NEITHER IN THE ENTANGLEMENTS OF OUTER THINGS, NOR IN INNER FEELINGS OF EMPTINESS. BE SERENE WITHOUT STRIVING ACTIVITY IN THE ONENESS OF THINGS AND SUCH ERRONEOUS VIEWS WILL DISAPPEAR BY THEMSELVES. WHEN YOU TRY TO STOP ACTIVITY TO ACHIEVE PASSIVITY YOUR VERY EFFORT FILLS YOU WITH ACTIVITY. AS LONG AS YOU REMAIN IN ONE EXTREME OR THE OTHER YOU WILL NEVER KNOW ONENESS. THOSE WHO DO NOT LIVE IN THE SINGLE WAY FAIL IN BOTH ACTIVITY AND PASSIVITY, ASSERTION AND DENIAL. Logic will say something absolutely different. Logic will say, "Practice rest the whole day, so in the night you can rest beautifully." Mulla Nasruddin went to his doctor. Coughing, he entered.…
First, I have asked one question. And I have also asked one or two related questions. It is asked: Osho, the mind is restless. Without effort and without renunciation, how can it become steady?
No. I will say to you: it is not an effort. If I am clenching my fist and ask you, “How do I open this fist?” what will you say? You will say: “To open it, you need do nothing. Please stop doing what you are doing to clench it; the fist will open by itself.” Opening is not an effort; the moment you cease the effort that clenches, opening happens. Or if I pull down a branch and hold it, and ask how to return it to its place—what will you say? “Do nothing to return it. Just stop doing what holds it down; it will return by itself.” What are we doing continuously with the mind? We are doing something. If we stop that, the mind will quiet by itself. It will quiet by itself. As I said this morning, we are constantly engaged in resistance—twenty-four hours resisting.…
Osho, you say that getting lost in bhajan is an intoxication. You also say that if we seek joy in swimming, in play, in meditation, joy is lost—and that when we dissolve in them, joy itself finds us. Please clarify immersion, and the boundary-lines between awareness and unawareness.
Doing bhajan in order to get lost is intoxication; getting lost while doing bhajan is not intoxication. Let me repeat. It is a little intricate, subtle—but you will understand. To do bhajan so that you can get lost—only to get lost—is intoxication. There is anxiety in life, sorrow, pain, tension, restlessness, anguish. One wants to escape it, to forget it, to keep oneself busy anywhere so it is forgotten. Someone goes to the cinema and forgets for two hours; someone sits in a bar and forgets for two hours; someone goes to the temple and begins kirtan and forgets there. These are different methods of forgetting, but all three have the same aim—to forget anxiety. But when you return home, anxiety is waiting. You are the same as before; those two hours have gone to waste; nothing of substance has happened. Those two hours will not dissolve anxiety. Seeking to…
Osho, the journey so far has been hard, but with your hint and support I have passed through it. I feel blessed to have received what I had never even imagined! Whatever I experienced, I kept explaining to others as well. But the journey ahead seems not only difficult, it feels absolutely impossible. You say, “You are at the destination; drop the very idea of journey.” It seems somewhat understandable, yet the resolution doesn’t stay. Osho, why does this complaint arise? Am I expecting the impossible before its time? Is waiting an even harder practice than practice itself? Osho, what is this r
You get a glimpse that the teaching is right; but the ancient mind won’t let the glimpse stay. It protests, “How can this be right? What will happen to me? Where will I go? If you are already God, then what is the point of religion? What meaning has practice? If you are God, then who is saint and who sinner? Who is Ravana and who Rama?” The mind creates a thousand disturbances. “Then what difference between a drunkard and a devotee—if all are God?” It becomes hard to answer such questions. And the truth is: between saint and sinner there is no difference—only on the surface, in the mind; within, the same One resides. Between Rama and Ravana there is no difference. Have you ever gone behind the stage of a Ramlila? There the reality is revealed. The curtain lifts: Rama and Ravana stand with bows and arrows aimed,…
Osho, where to go—we can’t see! We set out but there is no path! What are we seeking—we’ve no idea! We keep weaving dreams, breath by breath.
All peace, meditation—forgotten. Such bad company!” Religious leaders give blessings at marriages. Whenever there is a wedding, the guru blesses. It is a whole conspiracy. He blesses: “Live long, may your sorrows end now.” Three months later the young man returns: “Master, we don’t want to live long! Take back your blessing! And what was that you said—that now our sorrows will end—what did it mean? I wasn’t suffering before!” The priest said, “Child, I didn’t say which end. Sorrows have two ends. One where they begin, and one where they end. Two extremities. I never said which end had come. Now you know which end arrived.” And the priest said, “Don’t worry—however soon you die, it will feel as if you lived for ages.” For a married man, life feels long indeed. It just doesn’t pass. He devises ways to kill time—playing cards, reciting ballads of Alha-Udal, as if…