Nostalgia is when your mind misses ‘the good old days,’ forgetting they weren’t really that good, and it pulls you away from the present.
From the Discourses
Passages where Osho speaks to this question — each links to the complete discourse.
Osho, can you throw some light on the feeling of nostalgia? Freud called it regressive and a seeking of the womb. This does not satisfy me. Sometimes the perfume of a flower, sounds, a place or an incident from childhood, can evoke a few seconds of feeling and yearning that are so sad and so sweet, it can choke me with its intensity. My childhood was not so happy, nor is the womb so appealing that mere sentimentality for 'the old days' can explain it. Could you help with some indications?
This is somehow very significant for each of you. A part of you fell when you were four years of age and that part has remained there, another part fell somewhere else... you are spread out all over the way. You are not one piece, you are a multiplicity -- multi-psychic many minds. And one part of may be very grown-up and another may be very childish. A scientist may be a very grown-up man as far as his science is concerned. When he goes into his lab he is a very skilful, intelligent person, he works with great acumen, talent, genius, but another part of his life may be very childish, almost stupid. When he is out of his lab he is a totally different person. It is said about Karl Marx that one day he brought many boxes of cigarettes to his home. The wife was a little…
Oh, the religion! The adoration of the past! The beauty and sentimentality af the past!
SINCE I WAS A LITTLE CHILD, I HAVE ALWAYS FELT LIKE THINKING ABOUT THE PAST AND GETTING A FEELING OF SWEET PAIN, THAT THE PAST IS GONE, AND CRYING SWEET AND WARM TEARS AND REALLY ENJOYING THE WHOLE THING VERY MUCH -- THIS WHOLE THING CALLED NOSTALGIA. SOMETIMES I REALLY LOVE MY PAST. HAVING A PAST TO PLAY WITH, I FEEL BLESSED. AM I A FOOL? SO I HEAR YOU AND AGREE WITH YOU, INTELLECTUAL, THAT THE PAST IS NONEXISTENTIAL AND UNREAL, BUT I SEEM TO FEEL DIFFERENT ABOUT IT. WHAT IS GOING ON? IF NOSTALGIA IS JUST A TRICK OF THE EGO, WHICH IT MUST BE, THEN WHY DOES IT COMES AS A GOOD WARM FEELING? HOW CAN THE DEVIL BE SWEET? OR HOW CAN MY FEELINGS BE UNREAL? OR IF MY FEELINGS ARE UNREAL, WHAT IS LEFT? Beauty needs life, because beauty needs heartbeat, beauty needs pulsation, streaming,…
Osho, I keep turning back to look at the past. It’s futile, yet the habit doesn’t drop. What could be the reason?
Even to a dry tree the vine clings. Support! No other support seems visible. Ahead, only darkness; within, only darkness. The one bright thing seems to be the line of the past along which you have come—this path that is over, that will never be again, that has already happened. You sit arranging these preserved blossoms, these dried flowers. You cling to them. The creeper has twined round a lifeless tree— how much the past coddles the unborn It’s all dead, a corpse. Sometimes it happens: a she-monkey goes on carrying her baby pressed to her chest. Even when the baby dies, she keeps carrying it. It takes days—only when it rots and starts to stink does she drop it in a fright. Otherwise she goes on clutching the corpse—old habit. The past is a corpse—gone, done. Dust. Ash; the ember is out. Don’t keep lying on this ash, don’t…
Osho, you have earlier said, “Live moment to moment, live in the present.” Now you are saying, “Return to the past.” What should we do?
So it is with the mind—there are ruts. The past means endless grooves. However much you understand, your intellect agrees, you make decisions, you resolve—at the moment of resolve you feel something is going to change. But not even an hour passes before your decision breaks. Then only self-condemnation is produced, nothing else. Your saints, your fakirs, your priests and pundits—most of the time they only succeed in producing self-condemnation in you, nothing else. Their words are logically correct. You cannot even say they are wrong; you have to admit they are right. In that admission you take a decision. But against what are you deciding? Inside are grooves carved since who knows when, deep tracks. Walking in them has become a habit. It is easy to walk in them. They will pull you again and again. The meaning of returning into the past is: these grooves must be erased.…
Osho, I have heard that a seeker has to pass through four stages of sadhana: tariqat, shari’at, marifat, and haqiqat. The last is haqiqat, where the seeker meets his beloved and comes face to face with Truth. Osho, please explain the first three states.
These words are from the Sufis—very significant, and very straightforward. The first is tariqat. Tariqat means: the way, the method, the discipline, the means, the yoga. Tariqat means: something has to be done; only then will you attain—without doing, you will not receive. One has to walk a path; find the way; make a footpath. One has to bring some discipline into life, give it an order. Tariqat means learning the way to become worthy of it. When you go to have an audience with an emperor, you learn the etiquette of his court. You don’t just walk in. If you do, you will not be accepted. You learn how to sit there, how to stand there, how to bow there. If you are going to meet an emperor, you must taste something of the flavor of the emperor’s way of life. If you are going to meet the Divine,…