According to Osho, the root cause of the world’s frustration is expectation. Frustration is only a byproduct—the shadow that follows wanting results from love, work, spirituality, or others. When we bargain, demand returns, or impose ideals, we kill freshness and create bondage. Drop expectations, act and love as play and ends-in-themselves; then fulfillment, bliss, and effortless responses arise.
We get frustrated because we expect payoffs; if we stop demanding and just love and act freely, frustration fades.
From the Discourses
Passages where Osho speaks to this question — each links to the complete discourse.
Why is there so much frustration in the world?
Expectation is the poison. That's why there is frustration; it has to be so. Realize the falsity, the poisonousness of the expecting mind. By and by, if you can become aware of it, the expectations will drop and there will be no frustration. So don't ask the question, "Why is there so much frustration in the world?" Ask "Why am I so frustrated?" Then the whole dimension changes. When someone wonders why the world is so frustrated, there is again an expectation that the world could be less frustrated. But whether the world is frustrated or not, you will remain frustrated. The world is frustrated -- that is a fact. Then you go and try to find out why you are frustrated. You will find that it is because of your expectations. That is the seed, the root cause. Throw it out! Don't think about the world, think about yourself.…
Question: BELOVED MASTER, I FEEL SO FRUSTRATED! So what! You must be responsible for it. If you don't want to feel frustrated then there is no need. You must be creating it. Nobody else is responsible; if you feel frustrated, you must be reaping the crop which you go on sowing. But you don't see the relationship. If you expect too much, you will be frustrated. If you don't want to be frustrated, don't expect. Live without expectations and there will be no frustration. But people go on expecting; they know no ends to their expectation. Then frustration comes in -- frustration is the shadow of expectation. Frustration is never the problem, the problem is with expectation. When you feel frustrated you think that existence is doing something wrong to you. No -- you were asking too much. In fact, ask and you will be frustrated.
Beloved Osho, you seem to me the only person in the world who never disappoints me, never abandons me, never lies to me, never frustrates me. The love, joy, bliss and ecstasy I sometimes feel inside myself when I feel close to you, feels like the only real thing in the world. Why is it that I've always to be so frustrated with the outside world before I am ready to look inside?
But he must have been a man of sharp intelligence. He must have understood that he was carrying a wrong desire. You cannot demand anything from existence. You can only give. Existence returns a thousandfold, but not according to your expectation. He must have seen that there has been, in his unconscious, a demand. He dropped the demand at the last moment. At the very last moment he looked again at the sky and said, "Father, thy will be done, not mine." And a great serenity and silence descended upon the man, even though he was suffering on the cross. In a certain way, everybody is suffering. The only difference is that in the case of Jesus the cross was made by other people, and he was crucified. In your case, you are the cross, you are the crucifier, and you are the crucified. Except you, everything else is irrelevant.…
Osho, is it only disappointment that one finds in the world? Is it utterly futile to keep hope?
A little boy asks his old granny, “Granny, can you croak?” She says, “Yes, son, why not?” The boy says, “Then croak, please! Because mom was saying: ‘When that old woman croaks we’ll get lots of money.’” But the child can be forgiven; he understood as much as he could. He thinks it’s only a matter of saying “croak”—say it and we’ll get money. He doesn’t know what lies behind death. But even grown-ups behave the same way. Neither do you understand what is said to you, nor do you understand what you see. As long as mind is there, you deform everything. Only free of mind does truth begin to appear. Then this world is wondrous. Then it is not maya. Your mind has made it appear as maya. Your mind has cast the net of illusion upon it. Bhartrihari left palace and home for the forest to meditate.…
Because of that, a reaction happens. Yes, because of that. The cause is not that some man said I am the devil, and therefore a reaction arose. The reaction arose because I want to convince people that I am not the devil. Not because he said it. For all our suffering, we go on looking for other causes, which are not the real ones.
Suppose, in my mind, I take it that Ishwar Babu should go out into the world and declare that I am God, and then Mahipalji brings the news that he has been saying you are nothing at all. Then the trouble begins. The cause of the trouble is not Ishwar Babu. The cause of the trouble is me. Because I was assuming that this should be done; it was not done, in fact the opposite was being done—so I became miserable. But I have never held such a thing. I have never believed that. I am what I am. I have never kept accounts of who says what, nor have I desired to. So then, what suffering can be created by who is saying what? None at all. It is our expectations that cause our suffering, not the behavior of others. For example, I come here, and if I have…