According to Osho, changing places should never be an escape from difficulties; problems are the same everywhere. Stay, face the resistance, and let patience dissolve it; move only when the urge to flee is gone and the work in that place is complete. Shift to serve new seekers, not to avoid old thorns.
Don’t run away from problems; stay until they calm and your purpose there is done, then move on to help where you’re needed.
From the Discourses
Passages where Osho speaks to this question — each links to the complete discourse.
Osho, you say a sannyasin should not run away but wake up. How can this awakening happen while living in the world?
Patanjali, the author of the Yoga Sutras, who defined yoga itself: “Yoga: chitta-vritti-nirodhah”—when the modifications of the mind are stilled, one attains to yoga. Naturally, his disciple Chaitra fell into great doubt: Where is the Master going? The emperor’s celebration at night will have courtesans dancing. “Yoga: chitta-vritti-nirodhah!” And this Patanjali, who has taught us that yoga is the cessation of the mind’s waves, is going there? The thorn of doubt pierced deep. From that day his mind could not settle on the Mahabhashya and the Yoga Sutras. When doubt arises, how can the mind remain? The mind rests only in trust; in doubt, distance appears. From that day the link with the Guru snapped. He still stayed with him, still rose to touch his feet, still showed respect, but inside a snag had set in. At last, one day, when the great seer was speaking on the means to…
Osho, what is a problem?
Always be ready to change your mind because life cannot be changed just because of your ideologies. And we have learned ways how to look at life, how to interpret life, and we become fixated in certain routines. Let me tell you one anecdote. A mousy little man used to be very frightened of his boss. One day he told a fellow worker that he was sick. His friend said, "Why don't you go home?" "Oh, I couldn't do that!" "Why not? Don't be silly, he will never know. He is not even here today." Finally the man was convinced and went home. When he got there, he looked in the window -- and there was his boss, kissing and hugging his wife. So he ran all the way back to the office. "A fine friend you are!" he said to his pal. "I nearly got caught." Just an old…
Osho, should I understand that not accepting a challenge is a kind of escapism?
Yes, not accepting challenges is a kind of escape, an escapism. And until we accept challenges, our real birth cannot happen. The second birth I speak of will happen only when we accept all challenges. We accept them, we fight with them, we face them; in that very facing, the soul is born within us. In an escapist, the soul is never going to be born, because he runs away from the very occasions where the soul takes birth. Take a seed: the gardener plants it in the soil. If the seed gets frightened and says, “I am not going into the darkness of the earth; I was fine lying in a corner of the gardener’s house. I will not go into the earth, into the dark,” then the seed is refusing the challenge of descending into darkness—no sprout will ever arise in it. Or suppose the seed is placed…
Osho, since I took sannyas there is peace inside, but outside there is great upheaval. I am at ease, yet others are getting very uneasy. What should I do?
It came to this: I would be sitting in the house; my mother would be sitting in front of me and say, “There is no one around to send for vegetables.” And I would be right there! She’d say, “No one is to be seen.” I’d say, “I don’t see anyone either.” A dog would wander into the house; I’d be sitting there; my mother would say, “There’s no one in the house and the dog has come in!” And I would be sitting right in front of her. Slowly they accepted it. What could they do? There’s a limit. For a while they pulled this way and that, dragged me here and there, sent me; but there’s a limit. You have become a sannyasin; now remain absorbed in your own inner mood. People will say this and that, pull you here and there. Don’t create quarrels, and don’t try…
It will go -- that's the beginning part. If you really feel happy afterwards, how long can you resist the temptation? That happiness is waiting for you beyond the wall, so you have to go through the wall. After a few times you will see that nobody is in any way worried about you -- what you are doing and what you are expressing... not at least in my ashram. Everybody here is so mad -- nobody will take any notice. You can be completely at ease. In the next group simply relax, and just watch. You will be surprised -- nobody is reacting. That is the whole point -- to create a community of people who are of alike minds. That's what I am creating -- a small world of alike people. So they accept you, mm? They give you freedom to be yourself.