According to Osho, the goal of life is not desire-fulfillment but desirelessness—arrived at by passing consciously through desires until their futility ripens into understanding. Do not repress or borrow conclusions; mature by experiencing fully, so the heart becomes a still lake. In that stillness, life-energy meets existence, tension ends, and the ultimate mystery reflects within—you become a mirror, tasting supreme blessedness beyond all craving.
Live your desires with awareness until you see they don’t truly satisfy, and a natural, peaceful stillness arises where real joy and clarity appear.
From the Discourses
Passages where Osho speaks to this question — each links to the complete discourse.
Another friend has asked: If one has to drop all desires, then what is the goal of life?
Perhaps he thinks that fulfilling desires is the goal of life! Desires are never fulfilled. No desire is ever fulfilled. One desire seems to be fulfilled, and it gives birth to ten more. No one has ever been able to say that a desire was fulfilled. Even before one is fulfilled, a new progeny appears and the chain starts again. The goal of life is not the fulfillment of desires. The goal of life is to attain desirelessness from amidst desires. The goal of life is to pass through desires and rise beyond them. For the moment one rises beyond all desires, one comes to know that life’s supreme blessedness was not in desires. Desires created tension, a pull and strain. Because of desires the mind would run, tire, fall, become distressed. With desirelessness, your very life-energy meets existence. There is no race left, no running about. As when a…
Another friend has asked: Osho, what is the relationship between the method of meditation and jati-smaran (recollection of past lives)?
But the one who becomes skilled in this—who can fully awaken any day’s memory up to the age of five—will find that the memories begin to awaken completely. And you should test it. As today passes, note down some events and lock them up. After two years, try to recall today. Most of it will have been forgotten. Then remember—and after remembering, break the lock and compare whether what you recalled matches what you had written. You will be amazed—astonished—that besides what you wrote, many more details have come back which you did not even note at the time. They will all be there in memory. Buddha called this alaya-vijnana. There is a corner of the human mind he called the storehouse of consciousness. Like a junk room in the house where we keep all the odds and ends, there is a storehouse that collects memories—where everything from birth after…
You tell us to be herenow, without goals and without purpose, but then you allure us also by talking about ecstasy, enlightenment, freedom, and the possible fulfillment. It looks contradictory. Please explain.
It is not contradictory at all; it is a simple fact. But the mind tends to create problems where they don't exist. Mind is a problem-creating mechanism. When I say that ecstasy is beautiful, when I say that enlightenment is blissful, I'm not talking about the future, I'm not alluring you -- I'm simply stating a fact. When I say be herenow without any purpose and goal, I'm showing you the way how enlightenment can happen right now. Enlightenment is not a distant goal. It is a present possibility. You can miss it. That doesn't mean that it is far away from you; that simply means that you are fast asleep. You can miss it. That doesn't mean that you have to work hard to attain it; it simply means that you are not aware of something which is already surrounding you. I will go on talking about enlightenment, because…
Osho, not a single aspiration or desire in life has been fulfilled. In every way, only failure has come to hand. I am sunk in despondency, and now I have only one wish left: that somehow the mind may become quiet. Please show the way.
The mind’s peace does not come by effort; the distilled essence of deep living is this: no desire leads to peace—desire agitates. So at least do not make this new desire. Do this much at least. Now just be still. Say, “All right—whatever will be, will be. If the mind is restless, let the mind be restless. What will we do! What has our doing ever changed? The outer didn’t get set right—how will the inner?” Now say, “Lord, Thy will. If You want to keep me restless, keep me restless. If You want to keep me mad, keep me mad. However You keep me, thus will I remain. I consent to Your will. ‘Jihi vidhi rakhain Ram, tihi vidhi rahiye’—however Ram keeps one, in that way remain. However You keep us—so shall we remain. If You want to keep me restless, surely You have some will in it. You…
Osho, can one not desire nothing but happiness in life?
What I am saying is: man is unhappy, therefore he wants to find happiness. And since he keeps seeking happiness but never sees that happiness and sorrow are two sides of the same coin, however much happiness he seeks he will remain unhappy—and keep seeking happiness. What I am saying is that fundamentally he fails to see that what he seeks is not happiness; a basic mistake is occurring. The mistake is that he is rejecting sorrow and seeking happiness, whereas happiness is a part of sorrow. That is, I am seeking birth and do not want to die; I am seeking youth and do not want to grow old. This is a great difficulty. If I want youth, old age is part of it; it is simply youth on the decline. When the flood has come, it must recede; when morning has happened, evening will be. Now I seek…