osho – whatsoever situation you are in is a God-given situation; don’t reject it. It is an opportunity, an occasion to grow. If you escape from the opportunity, you will not grow. The people who go to the Himalayan caves and start living there and become very much attached to the caves remain ungrownup. They remain childish. They have not become seasoned. If you bring them to the world they will be shattered, they will not be able to bear it.
Just a few days ago one sannyasin came after three months of living in the Himalayas, and she said, ”But now it is difficult to be here. I want to go back.” Now this is not gaining in maturity. Now the Himalayas will become her obsession, and whatsoever she is thinking is her meditation, her silence, is not hers; it is just a by-product of the Himalayan silence.
I told her, ”You be here for three weeks, and then you tell me what happens to your silence and your meditation. If it disappears, then it has nothing to do with you. And then it is better not to go to the Himalayas. Grow in meditation here! If you can be meditative here in the marketplace, and then you go to the Himalayas, your meditation will be enhanced a thousandfold. It is good as a holiday, but don’t cling there; always come back to the world.”
Yes, it is good once in a while to move into the mountains, it is beautiful, but to become addicted, to start thinking of renouncing the world is utterly wrong – because it is in the storms of the world that integrity arises. It is in the challenges of the world that you crystallize.
Lu-tsu says, ”Accept the situation you are in. It must be the right situation for you; that’s why you are in it.” Existence cares for you. It is given to you not without any reason. It is not accidental; NOTHING IS accidental. Whatsoever is your need is given to you. If it were your need to be in the Himalayas, you would have been in the Himalayas. And when the need arises, you will find that either you go to the Himalayas or the Himalayas come to you. It happens… when the disciple is ready, the Master arrives. And when your inner silence is ready, God arrives. And whatsoever is needed on the path is always supplied. Existence cares, mothers.
So don’t be worried. Rather, use the opportunity. This challenging world, this constant turmoil on the outside, has to be used. You have to be a witness to it. Watch it. Learn how not to be affected by it. Learn to remain unaffected, untouched by it, like a lotus leaf in water. And then you will be grateful, because it is only by being watchful of all the turmoil that one day suddenly, ’the gods are in the valley’. You see the marketplace disappearing far away, becoming an echo. This is REAL growth.
And if you can rightly be meditative in the ordinary occupations of life, there is nothing which cannot happen to you. The light will start circulating; you just be watchful. Meditate in the morning and then keep close to your center. Go into the world but keep close to your center, go on remembering yourself. Remain conscious of what you are doing.
source – osho book “the secret of secrets, vol 2”