According to Osho, life has no external goal; life itself is the goal. Any future-oriented aim pulls you out of the only reality—the present—and makes you sacrifice today for a tomorrow that never arrives. Drop borrowed ideals and metaphysical promises; listen to life’s intrinsic urge to live intensely and totally, here and now. Freedom, joy, and authenticity flower only in this immediate moment.
Stop chasing future prizes; be fully alive right now, because life is already the treasure.
From the Discourses
Passages where Osho speaks to this question — each links to the complete discourse.
Beloved Osho, what is the goal of life? Why is there a desire to continue to live forever?
They said, "Wait. This is not a simple question and we have to consult ancient scriptures. We have to find some precedent, and we have to come to an agreement. The astrologer is saying something, the priest is saying something else. If we give you fifteen answers, what help are they going to be? So let us come to one conclusion." The king's old servant was standing by his side. He whispered in his ear, "I am an old man, and I am not supposed to interfere in this great conference of big shots; I am just a poor servant. But I am old, I am just the same age as your father, and I have brought you up from your very childhood. Just listen to me: these people will never come to any conclusion. "These people have been arguing for centuries and they have never come to any conclusion.…
Question: BELOVED OSHO, WHAT IS THE GOAL OF LIFE AND HOW CAN IT BE ACHIEVED? The camels are very difficult people! Whatever you do to them, somehow or other they will express their camelhood. My whole life I have been telling you there is no goal! Life is its own goal. There is nothing outside life that you have to achieve. All achievement is the projection of the ego. The very idea of achievement is ambition. What you achieve does not matter -- money, power, knowledge; these are not in any way going to give you life. In fact, in achieving power, in achieving money, in achieving prestige, in achieving any other ambition, you are losing your life, you are sacrificing your life. You are involved in stupid things, and by the side life goes on slipping out of your hands.
Question: Osho, since life and death follow each other, there must surely be some gap in their timing. People say the life that follows death is just a change of dress—the clothing changes, the soul remains the same. The “dress” we receive—do we get it by our own choice, with our consent, or is it forced upon us? Birth seems to be given to us without our consent. If so, does it mean that at that time we had some intention about what we would do with this dress? And have we now forgotten what that intention was—what our goal is? And if it is given to us, surely it must be given with some thought—“Go, and do this.” So what is our goal now? If all of us share the same goal, why then are our environments and “dresses” not the same?
You have said that there are no goals in life, no purpose. And yet we are all here with enlightenment as our goal. Please speak on this.
Then you start a totally different way of life. You start being playful, you start being alive moment to moment with nowhere to go -- whatsoever the life gives, you accept it with deep gratitude. Grace happens to you. This is what I call: to become a god. The moment you start playing, living in the moment, you have become a god. I am here to persuade you that you are already gods. You may be here to become gods -- that's your trip, I'm not concerned with it. I know what I am here for: just to persuade you to look at your own face once again; to search within and not to go without, searching for something which doesn't exist. Life is a purposeless play, a play of infinite forces -- beautiful if you don't have an achiever's mind, ugly if you have ambition to become something, to…
It is not a difficult process because the process of looking is the same, just the object changes: you start turning your consciousness upon yourself. You may have seen many pictures of snakes swallowing their own tails. Those pictures are very ancient symbols of mystery schools; they represent this inner transformation. When your consciousness starts turning upon itself you become a circle, and the moment you are a circle you are no more the same old person. Your life starts having a new grace, a new beauty, a new beatitude. You become golden, you become precious. For the first time you have a contact with god, and that contact is a magical transformation. It is sheer magic and a miracle. Enjoy the trip, don't be too fixated on the target, Osho said in conclusion. Bliss is not a pond, it is a river. It is not static.