According to Osho, we feel perpetually unsatisfied because conditioning diverts us from our own nature. Trained to imitate others, we chase money, status, or borrowed ideals, mistaking distant appearances and social masks for real joy—the 'greener grass' illusion. Rootlessness breeds endless competition and craving. Contentment arises only by being oneself, nurturing one’s own potential—the simple act of making our own grass greener.
We’re unhappy because we copy and compare; be yourself and grow your own garden to feel content.
From the Discourses
Passages where Osho speaks to this question — each links to the complete discourse.
Beloved Osho, why is it that we are never quite satisfied with who we are, and what existence has given us? We are always looking for something better to do, looking for someone else to be, always wanting what the other one has more than what we have been given. Like the saying goes, "the grass is always greener on the other side of the fence." why is this?
I am really enjoying that a single person who has no power can make these pygmy politicians just go out of their minds! I had just mentioned it, and immediately the European parliament tabled a resolution, which they will be discussing soon and passing, that I cannot land at any airport in Europe. But we will find some way... In Europe there are communist countries -- Yugoslavia, Czechoslovakia -- we can land at their airports. They cannot prevent me just landing. But we can have a big ship with thousands of sannyasins on it, and just live on the ship. And let them do what they can do -- bomb the ship or do whatsoever they want to do -- but one thing is certain, they cannot upset me. They tried in the American jails to upset me in such ways that anybody would have been upset. They would wake…
Osho, what is the relationship between meditation and patience?
If you sit to meditate to remove mental restlessness, you will keep looking back again and again: “Has it gone yet?” And the irony is that when you begin to meditate, restlessness will increase. Because what has been repressed will start surfacing; catharsis will begin. The rubbish you have kept hidden within and never allowed to express—meditation will break open those doors too. It will clean the house. Dust piled up for years, for births, will rise again; there will be gusts and storms. For a while even the little peace you had will be lost. Then you will panic: “I came for peace, and even what I had is gone.” Without patience, you could even become unhinged, because meditation brings such a great storm. The disease is not from a day or two; it’s from lifetimes. Meditation will break through all the layers to reach your innermost core. In…
Osho, I never want what I get; I reject it. I always want what is not given to me; this I try to get. I never feel satisfied with what I have, I always want something else. And I never say what I really want. L suffer much from this but, it seems, not enough as I still cling to it. Can you please say something about this?
THIS IS THE WAY THE WORLD IS MADE. The world is a great device of God. Just as Masters create small devices for the disciples, God creates the ultimate device for all beings. The world is a device. It was Christmas time and a professor, a professor of philosophy and logic, went to a toyshop with his wife to purchase something beautiful, a new toy, for their only child as a Christmas gift. They tried many toys but they were all old, a little bit modified here and there. The shopkeeper, seeing that they were not satisfied, went inside the store and brought out an absolutely new toy they had never seen before. It was a jigsaw puzzle. He said, "This is the latest and the best -- you MUST like it." They tried to fit the jigsaw puzzle together. First the wife tried -- ladies first. She failed, she…
A friend has asked: Osho, if a person feels he is adequately meeting his needs, does he also need to be discontent?
In this regard, two or three things must be understood. First, a person who thinks his needs are being met stops the process of growth—his own and others’. One who believes that what he has is sufficient stops moving forward. It may be that he himself does not suffer much from this, but the society of which he is a part certainly does. And he himself will also be harmed. Ordinarily we have been taught to arrest our needs at some point and to assume they are fulfilled. We have gone on defining the religious person as one who reduces his needs and becomes content. The truth is quite the opposite. In my view, the religious person is of a different kind altogether. I call religious the person whose needs begin to touch the sky beyond the earth. I call religious the one whose needs rise above the body and…
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…