Becoming

Osho, you relish the process of becoming; through it we can enter new situations with courage and joy. But what about the uncertainties that our actions will also generate?

Uncertainty is a very good thing. My point is: certainty is not a sign of life. Uncertainty—that very uncertainty—is the element of life. The glamour of uncertainty. Yes, that uncertainty is so juicy that we should create it. It becomes a mystique. Yes, absolutely a mystique. And we should create it. The simple truth is: security is absolutely false; life is insecurity. And the art of living depends on how much we can savor that insecurity.

Osho, there is a verse in the Yoga Vasistha: “As a person constantly strives, as he imagines with total absorption, and as he wishes to become—so he becomes; not otherwise.” Osho, is it really so?

About thirty to thirty-three percent of people are highly susceptible to hypnosis. They are easily hypnotized. These very people become your so-called religious people—your saints, your fakirs. For them, anything is easy. Having bound their own hands by imagination, they now try to open them and cannot. And there is a twist: the more they try and fail, the deeper their conviction that it is now impossible; their hands are bound and won’t open. They panic; they have no way to open them—except to reverse the process. They should stop struggling. Again for ten minutes they should think the opposite of what they thought before: “When I open my hands after ten minutes, they will surely open; certainly they will open. No doubt.” After ten minutes, their hands will open. You can test this with ten friends. You may not have suspected that you are among that thirty-three percent. Such…

The moment you make anything sure, you have moved from it because life is movement, a continuous flux, river-like; it knows no limitation. So one can never be really certain. And to live with this uncertainty is really to live. To live at all is to live with uncertainty, with openness -- vague, nebulous; in a certain way, in chaos. And it is beautiful to be in a chaos. Order is always ugly because order is always petty. And order is always ugly because order is man-made, home-made. God is a chaos: stars disappearing, new stars being born... old people disappearing, new babies being born. It is a chaos! It is very un-economical.

Beloved Osho, does it really matter that I can't distinguish imagination from reality? If I can be aware that "I am", is this not enough?

It is certainly enough. It does not matter. There is no need to make any effort to discriminate between imagination and reality. You simply remain aware of yourself. And whatever is imagination will slowly disappear, and whatever is real will remain. It is again from Chetana. But remember, your friendship with ghosts.... Those ghosts will disappear. Because you cannot discriminate between who is a ghost and who is a real person, there may be fear that perhaps you are thinking that this is a real person -- and he disappears. But that much risk has to be taken. In the commune Milarepa used to disappear. That was because of your awareness of yourself. Then you can't find where he is. So if you are not afraid, then there is no problem. You simply remain aware of yourself. And I have never been teaching discrimination. Imagination is that which disappears. Reality…