Why do I have no thirst to know God?

Osho, with birth there is hunger, sleep, thirst—but not the thirst for God!

A religion-opposed, benumbed society That thirst, that hunger, is within all of us from birth, yet it does not awaken. There are many reasons. The biggest reason is simply this: the vast crowd around us has no such thirst. And if it arises in someone, he suppresses it, because it feels like madness. Where everyone around is consumed by the thirst for wealth and fame, the thirst for religion looks like insanity. Those around become suspicious: “Has he gone off his head?” The person presses it down. It cannot rise, it cannot wake; suppression comes from all sides. And the world we have made leaves no place for God—for, as I said, it is dangerous to leave room for God; we have left no room for him. A wife fears that God might enter her husband’s life—for with God’s arrival the wife may be eclipsed. The husband fears God might…

Osho, you say the same thing in countless ways. But when I listen to you, it feels as if I am hearing it for the first time. And I feel so much joy that I don’t feel like going back home. What should I do—what can I do—so that I can just keep listening to you!

You will feel as if you have been made to rise out of season, before time—as if you were not yet to go and yet had to go. And if you go in that way, your home will become even more desolate than before. I do not want to make your home desolate; I want to make your home a temple. I want that when you go home, your home’s new form is revealed. I do not want to tear you away from home, from the world, from family life. That is the newness of my sannyas: I do not want to sever you from the world; I want to join you to the world in such a way that your connection with the world becomes a connection with the Divine. Let the world no longer be a barrier between you and the Divine; let it become a means. If…

Question: Fifth question: Osho, People drink and they stagger; in your refuge they find so much. As for us, in your gathering we come thirsty, and thirsty we go! Then that thirst is not really thirst. Right now it is only an idea, not actual. Otherwise, who is stopping you from drinking? If you return thirsty from the very shore of the lake, then your thirst was not thirst. When thirst truly seizes someone, he will drink even from a foul puddle. What is needed is thirst. And when there is no thirst, even if the pristine Lake Manasarovar is before you, what will you do? Look for the thirst. Seek it. Otherwise the “thirst” will be false. Many people feel a false thirst. By hearing talk about thirst, real thirst does not arise; instead a greed takes hold within—“one should have thirst.

A friend asks: we are born with hunger, sleep and thirst, but not with the thirst for god. Why?

When a thing becomes fashionable and popular, it is difficult to see through its stupidity. When thousands of people follow it, when a whole crowd is behind it, you don't judge it, evaluate it. When a whole society was making its women wear steel shoes, all the women took to it. And if someone did not conform to the practice she was condemned as a mad woman, she was looked down upon as a poor and degraded woman. She would not get a good and handsome husband; she would not be married into a well-to-do family. A woman with large feet was considered vulgar, uneducated and uncultured. It was thought that only peasant women had large feet; the feet of the elite had to be small. This concept had crippled the women of China for thousands of years, and they had no idea that it was sheer madness to wear…

Osho, I have heard that Narad had an intense thirst to meet Krishna. Whenever he heard news of Krishna’s presence somewhere, he would rush there—only to find that Krishna had already moved on. Thus, until his death he did not meet Krishna. On one side is the state of Narad, brimming with endless thirst; and on the other side am I, in whom the thirst has not even arisen yet. Then isn’t my effort to attain the Divine meaningless?

There are two kinds of people who remain deprived of the Divine. First, those whose thirst is genuine, but whose direction of search is wrong. Second, those in whom there is no thirst at all; for them the question of direction does not arise. Narad did have thirst, but he was traveling in the wrong direction. Whoever goes outward to search for Krishna will go astray. If you want to find Krishna, you must go within. Krishna is not an external entity; Krishna is an inner state. Narad missed because he understood Krishna to be outside. Whoever takes the Divine to be outside will keep missing. You will arrive and find that the Divine has already moved on. This will happen every time—because the Divine was never there. From afar it appears so; when you reach near you discover it has receded. It was a mirage. In the desert, from…