Stop trying to figure out why you’re walking; enjoy the walk and let the mystery sing to you.
From the Discourses
Passages where Osho speaks to this question — each links to the complete discourse.
Osho, what is the meaning of life? Life has no meaning by itself; we have to pour meaning into it. Life is an opportunity; if you infuse it, it becomes meaningful.
Life is like a blank canvas; paint upon it and meaning will appear. The meaning will depend on your skill. If a Picasso paints, it will be worth millions; if you paint, perhaps it won’t fetch millions. There is as much meaning in life as we put into it. Life in itself is empty; life is a bare opportunity. Possibility is all; actuality is nothing. That’s why people so often think: life is futile! What meaning? People come to me asking, “What is the meaning of life?” They are imagining that meaning is some ready‑made thing—lying around somewhere to be handed to you, like predigested food. No; meaning is born of creativity. Compose a few songs; make a sculpture; dance a little. Love a little; meditate a little. Explore; dive into inquiry. And you will find that meaning begins to arrive. And the more multidimensional your being, the more unending…
Osho, “For a thousand years I have crossed so many rivers and plains, yet still I have not understood the meaning of this walking! I am lost, I am lost.” In other words: over thousands of years of journeying I have crossed countless rivers and forests, yet even now I have not understood the meaning of this walking. Now I am defeated—utterly defeated! Osho, this refrain from a Bengali song often resounds within me. I too am defeated by my passions. Even after realizing the futility of desires, why do they not go?
Anil Bharti, whoever sets out to find the meaning of life is bound to be defeated, to fail. To seek the meaning of life is to assume that life is not a mystery but a mathematics—just a puzzle to be solved. But life is not a puzzle. That is precisely the difference between a puzzle and a mystery: a puzzle can be solved; a mystery remains unknown even when known—no matter how much becomes known, the unknown still remains. This is the difference between science and religion. Science divides existence into two parts—the known and the unknown. What was unknown yesterday is known today; what is unknown today will be known tomorrow. Between the known and the unknown there is no essential, qualitative difference; they are two sides of the same coin. And science says there is nothing beyond those two. That is its denial of consciousness. Religion divides existence…
Osho, what is the meaning of life? Life has no meaning by itself; we have to pour meaning into it. Life is an opportunity; if you infuse it, it becomes meaningful.
Life is like a blank canvas; paint upon it and meaning will appear. The meaning will depend on your skill. If a Picasso paints, it will be worth millions; if you paint, perhaps it won’t fetch millions. There is as much meaning in life as we put into it. Life in itself is empty; life is a bare opportunity. Possibility is all; actuality is nothing. That’s why people so often think: life is futile! What meaning? People come to me asking, “What is the meaning of life?” They are imagining that meaning is some ready‑made thing—lying around somewhere to be handed to you, like predigested food. No; meaning is born of creativity. Compose a few songs; make a sculpture; dance a little. Love a little; meditate a little. Explore; dive into inquiry. And you will find that meaning begins to arrive. And the more multidimensional your being, the more unending…
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.
Osho, to be very frank, let me raise this question of a purposeful way of life today. To me it is not very clear: as I see, everything is in constant transformation—whether in the mineral, vegetable, or animal kingdoms, including rational beings, and in natural phenomena. I see nature ever-changing; how can our ready-made formulas serve any purpose? In fact, the purpose of life is not very clear to me. May I expect a detailed account from you on this aspect of life?
Life is its own goal, its own joy, its own meaning, its own purpose. Whoever makes life a means to something else will fall into misery. Some make life a means to money. Money can be a means for life, but life cannot be a means for money. The man who thinks that by accumulating money he has fulfilled life’s meaning is mad. Wise is the one who uses money as a companion, a support in descending into life’s depths. Life is a means neither for wealth nor for religion. There are people who make life a means for religion—worship, ritual, renunciation, austerity, sannyas—and they pour their whole life into these. They commit the same mistake the money-chaser commits. Prayer, worship, sannyas—all of these are for life. There is nothing above life—there cannot be. There is nothing for which you should be ready to lose life. Such a thing cannot…