According to Osho, our paramount ambition is to be accepted and respected by others. To secure love, approval, and cooperation, we conform, suppress inconvenient questions, and trade living wonder for a socially approved ego. Approval-seeking trains us to avoid rebellion and inquiry, so curiosity withers; humility—admitting 'I don’t know'—protects wonder from this compulsion.
We give up asking and wondering so people will like and accept us.
From the Discourses
Passages where Osho speaks to this question — each links to the complete discourse.
It has been asked: “Under the sway of what paramount ambition do we renounce our incomparable capacity for wonder?”
The paramount ambition is: to be accepted by people! A child wants the father to accept him, the mother to accept him—because he depends on them. He wants the mother to love him, the father to love him—so he thinks, let me not do anything that makes father angry or uneasy, otherwise the love will stop. Let me not ask anything that makes mother angry. Let me not ask anything that makes the teacher angry. Slowly, in order to get love, to get acceptance, so that others will cooperate in his life—on that basis, wonder dies. The child drops wonder and clutches at the ego. This is all the ego’s ambition: to be respected among people, not insulted; that everyone should accept me; that everyone should say, “What a good, quiet, gentle child!” The one who asks questions looks like a nuisance. The one who asks beyond the limit begins…
A sense of wonder is the foundation of yoga. To be established in oneself is strength. A transcendental logic is a means to self-realization. To enjoy the blissfulness of the existence is enlightenment. A sense of wonder is the foundation of yoga.
We are separated only at the circumference. 'You' and 'I' are separations of the body. As we leave the body and turn within, the distance gets smaller and smaller. The day you know the soul you will also have known God. The day you know your own self you will know the self of all creation, because at the center all is one. Distances only exist at the periphery. Shiva says: By attaining this existence within one's self, the joy of samadhi is attained. Samadhi-sukham, the 'bliss of samadhi'; these words should be understood. You have known many joys: the joy of a good dinner, the joy of good health and well-being. When you quench your thirst or enjoy sex -- such bodily joys you know fully, but understand well that all these joys carry complementary sorrows with them. If you are not thirsty, water will bring no joy. If…
I don't have any sense of wonder in me. Why?
It happens to almost everybody. The more knowledgeable you become, the less wonder is felt. And parents, schools, universities, society, they all go on forcing you to become knowledgeable. Their whole effort is to give you knowledge. Your inner space becomes so full of knowledge that wonder disappears, wonder has no space left to abide in you. A child has the yes of wonder. He feels awe, he is mystified by each and everything, small things surprise him. Hence his bubbling joy, because his life is a constant discovery. You become knowledgeable, the society wants you to become knowledgeable. Knowledge is very very needed, knowledge has much utility. And wonder is dangerous, because a person who wonders is bound to become either a philosopher or a poet or a mystic, and all these three kinds are useless for the society. Society needs machines, skillful machines. By giving you more and…
Better than a hundred years of mischief is one day spent in contemplation.
BETTER THAN A HUNDRED YEARS OF IGNORANCE IS ONE DAY SPENT IN REFLECTION. BETTER THAN A HUNDRED YEARS OF IDLENESS IS ONE DAY SPENT IN DETERMINATION. BETTER TO LIVE ONE DAY WONDERING HOW ALL THINGS ARISE AND PASS AWAY. BETTER TO LIVE ONE HOUR SEEING THE ONE LIFE BEYOND THE WAY. BETTER TO LIVE ONE MOMENT IN THE MOMENT OF THE WAY BEYOND THE WAY. Gautama the Buddha has raised the most important question for all those who are capable of inquiring into truth, into life, into existence. The most important question of all questions is: What is true happiness? And is there a possibility to achieve it? Is true happiness possible at all, or is all momentary? Is life only a dream, or is there something substantial in it too? Does life begin with birth and end with death, or is there something that transcends birth and death? Because…
Osho, why is there so much secrecy in the ashram?
The ashram is not a marketplace; it is not open to the crowd. Here I am available to those few who genuinely want to be transformed. Sightseers, passersby—there is no purpose in their coming here. The invitation is only for those who have truly come close to transformation, for that small number. Therefore there is privacy in every respect. And the privacy will increase. Because as I see that more of the unnecessary can be sifted out, I will sift them out—since they themselves gain nothing, and by their presence they do not let others gain either. I have remained open to all for a long time and have seen what happens. I found that the crowd of the pointless becomes so thick that the meaningful person gets no chance at all. The merely curious surround so much that the true inquirer is left standing at the back. The mumukshu—the…