When life changes, it bursts our pretend safety and shows who we really are; if we accept that everything changes, it won’t scare us.
From the Discourses
Passages where Osho speaks to this question — each links to the complete discourse.
Osho, you relish the process of becoming; through it we can enter new situations with courage and joy. But what about the uncertainties that our actions will also generate?
Uncertainty is a very good thing. My point is: certainty is not a sign of life. Uncertainty—that very uncertainty—is the element of life. The glamour of uncertainty. Yes, that uncertainty is so juicy that we should create it. It becomes a mystique. Yes, absolutely a mystique. And we should create it. The simple truth is: security is absolutely false; life is insecurity. And the art of living depends on how much we can savor that insecurity.
Beloved Osho, in these times of uncertainty, the best -- and the worst -- seems to be coming out in those of us who are around you. Would you comment on this?
So many sannyasins will be in a state of defeatism, will find it very difficult to make another effort again. They will feel, "What is the point? We will put in our energy, our expectations, our hopes, and who knows? -- tomorrow everything is destroyed just by any small thing." They will feel it is better not to hope, it is better not to dream. It is better to get lost in ordinary life where people don't dream, where people don't hope, where people don't create, where people go on living a day-to-day life. In that life you don't come across such frustrations. Such frustrations come only when you try to reach the moon. And when you have almost reached, suddenly the moon disappears and you are further away from it than you have ever been: further away than before you had started the journey. I can see that it…
The moment you make anything sure, you have moved from it because life is movement, a continuous flux, river-like; it knows no limitation. So one can never be really certain. And to live with this uncertainty is really to live. To live at all is to live with uncertainty, with openness -- vague, nebulous; in a certain way, in chaos. And it is beautiful to be in a chaos. Order is always ugly because order is always petty. And order is always ugly because order is man-made, home-made. God is a chaos: stars disappearing, new stars being born... old people disappearing, new babies being born. It is a chaos! It is very un-economical.
Osho, the sense of insecurity in the inner life is quite difficult, yet perhaps one can manage it. How can that sense of insecurity be applied in practical or outer life? In business, in a job, in the external life—how can we use the feeling of insecurity?
I understand. In truth the question is not about outside and inside; the question is about knowing this truth that we are insecure. You don’t have to create a feeling of insecurity; it is a fact, simply a fact, that we are insecure. What is secure—outside or inside, anywhere? Are relationships secure? They are not. Is it certain that what was yours yesterday will still be yours today? That what is yours today will be yours tomorrow morning? Nothing is certain. Is respect secure? Not in the least. Yesterday a crowd stood behind someone—today you can’t even tell whether that man is alive or dead. What is secure? Is wealth secure? Insecurity is not a feeling; insecurity is the awareness of the truth that life is insecure. As life is, it is insecure. No guarantee of birth, of youth, of the body—no guarantee of anything. Awareness of this truth—and to…
Osho, I live in the world of the conditional -- could, should, would, may, might and is, are my dream operatives, which only my mind accomplishes, usually in the past tense. Why am I so secure in this illusion?
ONE can be secure only in an illusion, because security is the greatest illusion there is. Life is insecure. Love is insecure. To be is to be in insecurity. To be is to be in constant danger. Only the dead are secure because they cannot die any more; nothing can ever happen to them now. The more alive you are the more insecure you are. Hence many people have decided not to be alive, because a kind of deadness gives security, protection, armor. Many people have decided not to look into reality, because reality IS insecure. I cannot do anything, you cannot do anything about it -- it is how it is. Reality is insecure; one never knows what is going to happen in the next moment. I may be here, I may not be here; you may be here, you may not be here. The next breath may come…