What is the concept of the non-existence of problems?

Osho, what is a problem?

Always be ready to change your mind because life cannot be changed just because of your ideologies. And we have learned ways how to look at life, how to interpret life, and we become fixated in certain routines. Let me tell you one anecdote. A mousy little man used to be very frightened of his boss. One day he told a fellow worker that he was sick. His friend said, "Why don't you go home?" "Oh, I couldn't do that!" "Why not? Don't be silly, he will never know. He is not even here today." Finally the man was convinced and went home. When he got there, he looked in the window -- and there was his boss, kissing and hugging his wife. So he ran all the way back to the office. "A fine friend you are!" he said to his pal. "I nearly got caught." Just an old…

You spoke in several recent discourses on the no-problem, the non-existence of our problems. Having been brought up in a repressive catholic family, and having spent twenty-one years in an equally crazy educational system -- are you saying that all the coats of armour, all the conditionings and all the repressions do not exist, can be dropped immediately -- now? What about all the imprints left on the brain, on the musculature of the body?

Psychoanalysis and astrology: astrology tries somehow to make the future certain, and psychoanalysis tries to redo the past. Neither is a science. Both things are impossible, but both have millions of followers -- because man LIKES it that way. He wants to be certain about the future, so he goes to the astrologer, he consults the I CHING, he goes to a Tarot reader, and there are a thousand and one ways to fool oneself, to deceive oneself. And then there are people who say they can change the past -- he consults them also. Once these two things are dropped, you become free of all sorts of foolishnesses. Then you don't go to the psychoanalyst and you don't go to the astrologer. Then you know the past is finished... you also be finished with it. And the future has not happened; whenever it happens, we will see -- nothing…

Sometimes as I watch people playing the same old games over and over, my eyes feel ancient and jaded and my heart weary and cynical. I guess it's because I'm seeing more and more my own games and tricks and I hear your maddening voice between my ears saying,'that's okay -- just you have to accept and love yourself; and there is no problem.' just???! I think if you say this word again I will scream. Wasn't I happier when I thought there was a goal?

So it depends on you whether you create a problem or you don't create a problem but problems are not there. Problems are not in existence: they are in the psychology of man. Just look next time you are having some trip and riding a problem just watch. Just stand aside and look at the problem. Is it really there? or have you created it? Look deeply into it, and you will suddenly see it is not increasing, it is decreasing; it is becoming smaller and smaller. The more you put your energy into observation, the smaller it becomes. And a moment comes when suddenly it is not there... and you will have a good laugh. Whenever you are having a problem, just look at it. Problems are fictitious, they don't exist. Just go around the problem, look from every angle -- how can it be? It is a ghost!…

... And my problems change from day to day, and I get very frightened without any problems. This morning I felt very frightened because I couldn't see what my problem was! And I know I just invent them to shield myself from you.] It is good that you have become aware. Everybody is doing that. Problems don't exist, only people exist, but we create problems out of a certain neurosis because we are afraid to be left alone. We have become addicted to constant occupation: a problem leaves, and before it has left we create another. We immediately replace it so that we remain occupied. Otherwise life seems so empty and so vast that one feels lost. If you are not occupied in a problem, then the sheer vastness of existence overfloods you. You feel so tiny, almost nothing -- and that frightens you.

Can problems be solved through thinking?

You can take the explanation that the soul is immortal -- now this is a trick. Not that the soul is not immortal -- I am not saying that -- but for you this is a trick. You are trying to deceive yourself. You are in sorrow, and now you want to escape this sorrow, so this explanation will be helpful. Now you can console yourself that the soul is immortal, no one dies, only the body -- just as if one changes the clothes, or one changes the abode -- so from one house to another the soul has gone. You can go on thinking, but you don't know anything about it. You have heard, you have collected information; but through these explanations you will be at ease. You can forget the death. Really this is no solution to the problem. Nothing has been solved. The next day someone…