According to Osho, despair arises only when your doing is tied to expectation and result: the moment work becomes a serious goal with desired outcomes, missed targets breed frustration and bondage. Drop the demand that others—or life—deliver. Turn work into playful sharing, fulfilled in the very act itself. Then whatever happens is beautiful, and despair cannot touch you.
If you expect your work to deliver results, you feel despair when it doesn’t; if you do it playfully for its own joy, you stay light and happy.
From the Discourses
Passages where Osho speaks to this question — each links to the complete discourse.
Do you ever despair of us and your work?
One of my teachers was a very rare being. He was a little eccentric as philosophers tend to be. He was one of the greatest philosophers of this century in India. Very rare, not much known -- a real philosopher, not simply a professor of philosophy. He was very much eccentric. Students had long dropped coming to his classes when I came across him. For many years nobody had entered into his class because sometimes he would talk continuously for three, four, five, six hours. And he used to say: 'The university can decide when the period starts, but the university cannot decide when it stops, because that depends on my flow. If something is incomplete, I cannot leave it. I have to complete it.' So it was very disturbing. He would take the whole time sometimes. And sometimes he would not say a single thing for weeks. He would…
Osho, I am drowning in despair; give me hope; give me support.
Evening descended from the sky, the forest turned dark. With an unfamiliar ache every corner filled. From cupped hands the fair, blooming, lovely form dripped away. Messages came from memories, the body recalled morning. Evening slipped into the room. Standing, silent, as if thinking, the corridors— on the fragrant mirror all the sun-colors were washed away, they themselves began to turn indigo-blue; the mind turned dark. Evening slipped into the room. One day or another the evening will come. The sooner it comes, the better. For all these mornings you see—the mornings of hope—are false mornings. The mornings in which you are deluded and wander are mirages. Evening has come to your life; despair has come. Evening has entered the inner chamber of your being. Don’t fear. Let those false mornings be extinguished—this is auspicious. After they go out, you will suddenly find the evening goes out too. You will…
Osho, why is there so much secrecy in the ashram?
The ashram is not a marketplace; it is not open to the crowd. Here I am available to those few who genuinely want to be transformed. Sightseers, passersby—there is no purpose in their coming here. The invitation is only for those who have truly come close to transformation, for that small number. Therefore there is privacy in every respect. And the privacy will increase. Because as I see that more of the unnecessary can be sifted out, I will sift them out—since they themselves gain nothing, and by their presence they do not let others gain either. I have remained open to all for a long time and have seen what happens. I found that the crowd of the pointless becomes so thick that the meaningful person gets no chance at all. The merely curious surround so much that the true inquirer is left standing at the back. The mumukshu—the…
Beloved Osho, when I took sannyas two years ago, I felt an ecstasy and joy that I had never imagined possible for me. But lately I feel much negativity, fear, resistance and "no" to everything, and my life is a constant chaos. I cannot go back and I cannot go forwards. Does that mean that the honeymoon is over now?
It does not matter whether the Catholic pope sucks your blood and you are a Catholic, or the Hindu shankaracharya sucks your blood and you are a Hindu. The real thing is: Hindu, Mohammedan, Christian, Jew -- whoever you are, somebody is sucking your blood. And the way to suck your blood is to deprive you of your nature, to make you perverted, to divert your potentiality into directions where you will never reach the goal. That brings despair. You go on and on, and it is just desert and desert; as far as you can see it is desert. All your yesterdays were a desert, your today is a desert, the future seems to be just the same. This is despair. You are not arriving at any oasis. You are thirsty, you are hungry.... Who has done this immense criminal act? All the religions have been teaching people to…
Osho, why am I extremely sad when there is no reason at all to be sad?
Perhaps for that very reason. When there is a reason for sadness, one can at least understand: well, there is a cause; at least there is a cause, so I am sad. There is a pretext. No one will call you mad. You can say: my wife died, my son went to jail, my shop collapsed, I went bankrupt. Then there is logic to your sadness. With logic, you feel safe. You can say it is perfectly natural to be sad. What else can I do? If your wife died, you too would be sad. If your business went bankrupt, you too would cry. So it isn’t only me who weeps. You can give reasons for your tears. The greatest sadness is when there is no reason at all. Then it becomes absurd. You cannot even say why you are sad. You cannot defend your sadness. You cannot gather arguments…