What should I do if God does not appear to me?

Osho, God does not appear to me anywhere. What should I do?

Anand! Open your eyes. You are trying to see with your eyes shut, trying to hear with your ears closed, with the doors of the heart barred—then it is impossible to see God. When the eye is open, there is light. The very opening of the eye is light. Keep the eye closed and even if not one but a thousand suns were to rise, there will still be darkness, a moonless night. But this is not only your mistake; it is almost everyone’s. When God does not appear, people conclude: perhaps there is no God—hence He is not seen. Rarely does someone wonder: perhaps my eyes are closed—hence I do not see. Those rare ones, sooner or later, become able to see the Divine. So the first and the last sutra is this: drop the search for God; learn the alchemy of opening your eyes. Eyes open in two…

Question: The first question: Osho, I want to find God. Where should I look? But the pundits and priests have no interest in this; because with “Who am I?” there will be no worship, no Satyanarayan katha, no Ramayana; no temple can be built around it, no mosque can stand, no Quran, no Gita, no Bible—nothing. “Who am I?” is a direct, existential question. You yourself will have to settle it. There is no scope for a mediator. Yes, if you want to search for God, you must go to a priest; you must ask him for explanations, the signs of God, the road to reach Him—What is God like? Where is God? Vidyadhar, I am not a pundit, not a priest. I am not here to teach you rituals of worship. You must have asked this question elsewhere too.

Osho, I want to be rich, I want a high position, and I want a beautiful woman too. What should I do?

A man once placed an advertisement—meant for people like you: “Send two rupees and learn the formula to become a millionaire overnight.” Now who wouldn’t want to become a millionaire for two rupees! Almost a hundred thousand people sent their money. A week later, everyone who had sent the two rupees received the reply: “Do exactly what I did.” He had indeed become a millionaire overnight! One lakh people sent two rupees each—two lakhs landed in his lap. This is how you’re being duped—through gambling, matka. And it’s not only people who run these scams; governments do it too. Governments that claim to be Gandhian run lotteries! A lottery is gambling—a cheat dressed up nicely. But the greedy get hooked: “Just one rupee for a chance at lakhs. If it comes once, that’s enough…!” But what will you do after getting lakhs? There’s a famous story by Tolstoy: A tailor…

Osho, should I rise higher or should I supplicate? I cannot figure it out—the tighter I clench my fist, the farther it goes away. What should I do, Lord? Show me the path.

Vishesh! The more you clench the fist, the more you miss. You cannot imprison the sky in a fist. If you want to receive the sky, you must keep the hand open. In an open hand the sky is; in a closed hand it is gone. The laws of the world and of the divine are opposite; their mathematics differs. In the world, if you open your fist, your wealth goes. In the world you must keep your fist tightly closed, only then can wealth be preserved—because here wealth is a matter of snatching and grabbing, of exploitation. Here your wealth is not truly yours; no one’s is. Here wealth is what is snatched. So you must clench the fist—and even then others are busy trying to pry it open. You sit on a chair; others are trying to push you off, so they can sit on the same chair.…

Osho, what is the fundamental anguish of human life?

There is only one anguish: that a human being cannot become what he was born to be. There is only one anguish: that the seed remains a seed and does not bloom like a flower; that it cannot scatter its fragrance to the infinite winds; cannot converse with the moon and stars; cannot offer its colors to the sky; cannot be expressed. If the poem within the poet cannot be revealed—anguish. If the painter cannot paint—anguish. If the dancer cannot dance—if chains lie on his feet—anguish. Anguish means only this: that what we are meant to be—our innate nature and destiny—does not come to fruition, and we are forced to be something else. Then anguish is born. Then melancholy gathers over life. And all those countless people you see burdened with sorrow, living in a kind of hell—the reason is only this: each has come carrying the seed of becoming…