When you feel like running even though things are good, it’s just your busy mind; quietly watch the itch and it will fade.
From the Discourses
Passages where Osho speaks to this question — each links to the complete discourse.
Beloved Osho, for the last six years I've lived in your communes. You are here, all my friends are here; everything I love and value is here. And yet, I often think of leaving. What's wrong?
In Buddhism there is a strange story -- but worth understanding, because it is the story of each of you. When Buddha was born, the great astrologers said to the king, "We are afraid, but you have to be made aware of it: this newborn baby is either going to become a chakravartin" -- a chakravartin means one who rules over the whole world -- "or he is going to become a beggar who owns nothing." ... two extremes. The king was old and this was his only son, born in his old age. He asked the astrologers how to prevent him from becoming a beggar and renouncing the world. Those astrologers had no idea of mind and psychology. Astrologers may have ideas about faraway stars, whose light takes millions of light years to reach the earth.... And what a foolishness, that man thinks his fate, his destiny, is determined…
Osho, the joy I have found in coming to you is something I had never known before. Yet I am so ungrateful that again and again the wicked thought arises to leave you and go away. And still, some unseen thread keeps me bound to you. Am I worthy of forgiveness?
If a husband does not love his wife, the wife will start being ill. Because when she is ill the husband comes and sits, puts his hand on her head—even if unwilling, irritated inside: “I came home tired from the office, I thought I would sit and watch television, or listen to the radio, or read the paper, or lie down and rest—but that’s not in my fate. The wife is already in bed.” If the wife is fine, no need to fuss. But if she is ill, the husband must at least show some humanity. He will put a hand on her head, ask after her… And the wife’s deepest longing was love! If there were love in the world, seventy percent of diseases would disappear—at least seventy percent. But society is against love, the state is against love… love is a sin. We cut love at the root.…
Osho, for a few days my heart settles into meditation; then for a few days worship and bhajans flow. But I cannot concentrate anywhere. I am troubled by this state. Kindly guide and train me.
About three years later he was found in Paris learning painting. Reduced to a beggar’s state. His friends rushed there. “What have you done? You had everything—everything was fine.” He said, “That was the obstacle—everything was fine. But there was no exhilaration. Nowhere any surge. Everything ran fine, and I ran it fine—but no stream of rasa was flowing. “All my life I longed to be a painter. I never wanted to be a broker. That success was accidental. Now I am happy. I have nothing. I paint; if paintings sell, I manage food and clothes. I have not even a roof of my own. I live in a friend’s room. But I am not going back. I am happy.” And the friends saw that the man was filled with a strange energy, a strange aura. His body had thinned, but there was a light. He said, “Tell my wife…
Beloved Osho, while listening to the discourse yesterday, I felt I was not of this earth, but was a small particle of light in the free and infinite sky. After discourse, an experience of lightness and aloneness continued and I wanted to keep wandering in this sky. I do not know what knowledge, karma, and devotion are, but in aloneness I wish to remain immersed in this state. Still, the feeling sometimes arises that this may be madness, that this may be a trick of the ego. Kindly shed light on my path.
We are on this earth, but in fact we cannot be on this earth, and we are not. We feel it: we are strangers to this earth. We have made a home in our body, but our body is not our home. It is as if someone settles abroad and forgets his homeland. Suddenly in the market one day he meets someone who reminds him of home, who speaks his own language. For a moment the foreign country will vanish and his homeland will be present. This is the significance of scriptures. This is the real purpose of the words of the masters. After listening to them, for a moment we are no longer here. We go where we belong. We flow in their music. The situations which had completely involved us vanish, and that which was very far away comes near. Ashtavakra's words are absolutely unique. Hearing them, it…
[A sannyasin, who is leaving, says he feels afraid to leave and more afraid to stay... he feels far away. Osho checks his energy.] Just come close to me. Let me see how far away you are! It is strange but it is beautiful. It is not a confused state at all; it is very clear. You are feeling confusion because it is beyond your expectations. It is incomprehensible to you, that's why you are feeling confused. You cannot figure it out because you don't have any past experience of this space. But it is not confusion: it is something new. Whenever something new happens it takes time to settle with you and you take time to settle with it. It is just a settling confusion. But it is not at all harmful or negative; it is very positive and very creative.