According to Osho, the longing for gratification is desire’s trick of placing conditions on happiness, creating pain so that its removal feels like joy. Fulfillment brings only brief relief, which then breeds new conditions and fresh cravings. Real well-being is unconditional—so seamless you hardly notice it. Understanding this mechanism lets you stop manufacturing obstacles and rest in contentment instead of chasing peaks of temporary relief.
It’s like wearing tight shoes just to enjoy taking them off—desire makes us create pain for a moment of relief, but we can drop the shoes and be okay now.
From the Discourses
Passages where Osho speaks to this question — each links to the complete discourse.
Osho, I have always felt the need for little rewards at the end of the day -- a few beers, cigarettes or drugs. Now none of these things bring any satisfaction, yet the desire for something, some form of gratification, continues. What is this longing and what will satisfy it?
You have heard Jesus' story that he turned water into wine? Christians have missed it. They think he really turned it into wine. That is not true. He must have taught the secret that I am teaching you to his disciples. He must have told them, "Drink it so joyously that water becomes wine." You can drink water so joyously that it almost intoxicates you. Try! Just water can intoxicate you. It depends on you. It does not depend on the beer or the wine. And if you don't understand it, ask some hypnotist, ask our Santosh. He knows. Even if water is given to somebody who has been hypnotized and told under hypnosis that this is wine, he will become intoxicated -- with water. Now doctors know about placeboes, and sometimes the results are very puzzling. In one hospital they were doing some experiments. To one group of twenty…
Question: First question: Osho, isn’t it right to live with contentment? In the first contentment there is suppression of longing; in the second there is the dissolution of longing. The second does not come by practice; it comes by understanding. The first comes by practice. The first turns a man into a “holy” man; the second turns him into an awakened one. Avoid becoming a pious ascetic; don’t stop short of being a buddha—that is your ultimate potential. Contentment should come like the shadow of truth. Be wary of patching yourself up, dusting off your clothes after a beating, and somehow persuading yourself—such impotent, flabby contentment! It is this limp contentment that has poisoned the life‑breath of this country. It is this limp contentment that has bound the so‑called religious of the whole world in a hollow religion.
Osho, everyone here is a slave to gratification, yet there is one peculiar thing here: by drinking, the thirst grows! Osho, please give a simple path to be free of craving!
Krishnananda, the path is hidden within craving itself. Understand the very mystery of craving and you are beyond it. Understand craving, and craving disappears. The relation between craving and understanding is the same as between light and darkness. Light a lamp and suddenly the darkness in your room vanishes—just so! There is no other way to escape craving; understand craving—what is it? Why is it? You say: “Here everyone is a slave to gratification, yet one thing is peculiar here: by drinking, the thirst grows!” If even this much becomes clear to you, you have the path in your hands—you have its first sutra: “Here, drinking increases thirst!” The more you try to fulfill craving, the more you will find: craving is insatiable. Its very nature is to be unfillable; it cannot be filled. A young man once went to a Sufi fakir and said, “Will you explain to me…
Osho, why does every desire come carrying its opposite? Is its dividedness inevitable? And is no whole and undivided desire possible? What is desire?
One day, by mistake, he wandered into the camp of a Muslim chieftain. He was going along in ecstasy, dancing; the camp happened to be in the way—that was all. The women, frightened, screamed. A naked man, dancing in ecstasy, had walked in—they thought he was mad. Seeing a naked sadhu intrude, the chieftain, too, grew angry. He drew his sword and struck. One of Sadashiva’s hands was cut off and fell to the ground. But Sadashiva’s joy suffered no interruption. The hand fell, blood began to flow, yet the dance continued. Just as he had been dancing, he turned and kept dancing as he walked away. The chieftain was astonished, and also pained—he had never seen such ecstasy. And that a hand could be cut off and he would not even notice—such ecstasy! The man was in some other realm. Looking into his eyes, it was as if he…
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…