Here and Now

I don't go anywhere. Why is a map needed? Isn't being here-now enough?

Yes, there is no goal and nowhere to go. And the map is not needed if you have understood me. But you have not understood me, and the map is needed. And the need of the map is not because there is a goal, it is not to go somewhere that the map is needed; the map is needed because you have gone somewhere and you have to come back to the here-now. It is not needed to go somewhere, but you have dreamt that you have gone somewhere; the map is needed to come back home. You have gone astray; you have moved in your imagination, in your desire, in your ambition; you don't look at yourself; your being is at your back and you are rushing away. The map is needed to look back, to meet your being, to encounter yourself. But if you understand me -- that…

Beloved Osho, I don't know where I'm going, and I don't know what there is to do. Do I have what I need for this adventure?

There is no need to know where you are going. There is no need to know why you are going. All that is needed to be known is that you are going joyously, because if you are going joyously you cannot go wrong. If you are going dancing, singing, celebrating, the direction does not matter, the road does not matter, the goal does not matter. Every moment becomes paradise. Let me repeat it again to you: there is no goal in existence. There are only moments, and the art is to squeeze the moment, its whole juice, herenow. And as moments go on coming into your hands, go on squeezing all the juices that existence contains for you. In fact, you are where you are supposed to be, so if you are going somewhere it is just a morning walk. Don't be worried. There is no goal, you can turn…

It is difficult to understand. The first difficulty is to understand that there is nowhere to go. Even this much is hard to grasp. The whole arrangement of our chitta, our mind, keeps saying: move, go somewhere; here there is nothing. The entire mind is woven out of this tension — go somewhere, somewhere far lies the goal. The very base of mind is that the goal be far; otherwise the mind disappears. Because if the goal is far, one has to try to attain, to think, to plan, to find devices. And if the goal is far, it will not be attained today, it will be attained tomorrow. So the strain from today toward tomorrow has to be maintained. The mind lives in tension. And every tension, deep down, is the tension of reaching somewhere — whether it be wealth, fame, religion, or moksha.

Question: BELOVED OSHO, UNDERSTANDING RIGHT WHERE YOU ARE IF YOU WANT TO STUDY THIS PATH, YOU MUST UNDERSTAND RIGHT WHERE YOU ARE. AS SOON AS YOU RELY ON THE SLIGHTEST KNOWLEDGE, YOU MISS THE SCENE RIGHT WHERE YOU'RE STANDING. WHEN YOU'VE COMPLETELY COMPREHENDED THE SCENE RIGHT WHERE YOU ARE, THEN ALL KINDS OF KNOWLEDGE -- ALL WITHOUT EXCEPTION -- ARE THINGS RIGHT WHERE YOU ARE. THUS THE PATRIARCH SAID, "AT THE VERY MOMENT ONE SPEAKS OF KNOWLEDGE, KNOWLEDGE ITSELF IS MIND. AND THIS VERY MIND ITSELF IS KNOWLEDGE." SINCE KNOWLEDGE IS RIGHT NOW, IF RIGHT NOW YOU DON'T GO ANOTHER MOMENT, BUT DO AWAY WITH YOUR KNOWLEDGE RIGHT WHERE YOU ARE, THEN YOU'LL JOIN HANDS AND WALK ALONG TOGETHER WITH THE PATRIARCHS. IF YOU CANNOT YET BE LIKE THIS, DON'T GO WRONG IN YOUR KNOWLEDGE.