Osho – When you become more aware you become aware of more problems

Question : Beloved Osho, It seems that my problems are getting more and more since i have become your sannyasin. Is that your work?
Osho : It is my work. My work is to make you more and more aware, and when you become more aware you become aware of more problems. Those problems were there before. I don’t create your problems, it is just that you were unconscious, you were not taking any note. Those problems were there.

It is just like a house which is in darkness, and many spiders are weaving their nests and scorpions are living and snakes are enjoying, and suddenly you bring light there. The light does not create the spiders or the scorpions or the snakes, but it makes you aware of them.

And it is good to be aware, because then the house can be cleaned; then you can avoid the snakes. You have many problems which you are not seeing — which in fact, you do not want to see. You go on postponing. You are so afraid of seeing those problems, because then you will have to solve them. But by postponing they are not solved; it is not so easy.

Problems are not letters written to George Bernard Shaw. George Bernard Shaw used to collect letters; he would not open them. He would open them on the first of every month, so for thirty days he would collect thousands of letters from all over the world. His date was fixed: on the first of every month he would open them. And he would go on throwing them, because most of them had already been answered. It was rarely that some letter was left that had not answered itself. Somebody asked him, “This is a strange way….”

He said, “It is not strange, it is the simplest way. When somebody does not get an answer for two weeks, three weeks, he gets the answer that `This man is not going to answer.’ He drops the hope. “And most of those letters are useless anyway. I am not going to waste my whole month. I have given them just one day — and any really authentic letter that needs my attention, I answer. This way, I save my time, I save their time; otherwise they would have to read… and this is such a difficult world that they would not only read they would reply also… again you have to read it.

“It is better to finish it from the very beginning. It is a chain phenomenon, it can go on endlessly. And the more you allow it and then stop, the more it hurts. The first letter and it is finished — it does not hurt. The man just understands that this man is not the type who answers letters.”

But problems are not letters, and life is not George Bernard Shaw. You cannot postpone. But people are postponing. They go on pushing them this way and that way, everywhere hiding them, thinking that some miracle… and things will settle down and problems will be solved. This is not going to happen. On the contrary, those problems will create their children. They will start finding boyfriends, girlfriends — two problems meeting together and a third problem is produced, and you will be in more difficulty. It is better to go on facing each problem as it comes by.

It is not sannyas that has created your problems. Sannyas has simply given you a little more awareness. Your problems have always been there. Sannyas has given you the opportunity to solve them. And one should enjoy solving one’s problems. It sharpens your intelligence. Each problem is a challenge. Each problem makes you more intelligent.

And the day you will not have any problems, your mind will come to its utmost clarity — because no dust, no problem. Your mind becomes a mirror, so pure that it reflects reality. Yes, it is my work. But don’t think that I am creating your problems. I am just giving you insight, awareness, silence, so that you can see your problems and solve them.

Source – Osho Book “Beyond Enlightenment”