[A visitor says he is confused about the master-disciple relationship. He doesn’t know if he is ready for the spiritual path.]
Osho – Mm mm. A few things…. First: there is no purpose in life. All search for purpose is bound to fail. To live purposelessly is the way of being religious; religion is not a purpose. Politics is a purpose, business is a purpose; religion is not a purpose. What is the purpose of a rose flower? What is the purpose of a song? So is the case with religion: it has no goal. Life is not goal-oriented. Logic is goal oriented. Your problem is not that you don’t have a purpose in life; your problem is that you want to have a purpose in life.
That is your problem: you cannot allow this non-purposiveness of life; you want to enforce some purpose on it. You can’t allow this directionless flow. You are a coward! Cowards always want to narrow things down into a certain purpose, into a certain direction, into a certain goal, then they are at ease. It needs great bravery to live without purpose, it needs great heart to live without any direction, just to live for no reason at all, to live without any motivation, for the sheer joy of living!
If you search for purpose then this is not the place for you. But one thing you should keep in mind: there are many people around the world who will say ‘We will give you purpose’, but you will be deceived again and again. … Because what can they do? They are promising something which is against life. Not that they are deceiving; they may just be trying to help you. They may be good people, they may not be cheats, charlatans; I am not saying that. They may be do-gooders, but they do harm… not that they intend to but they do, because they keep on helping your illusions. This is a place where we destroy illusions.
I don’t give you any hope, because there is no hope possible. I can only make you alert enough to live without any hope and then there is great joy, because with hope comes future. with future comes anxiety. With hope you start losing the present and you start postponing life. And this whole idea that there has to be a purpose is utterly meaningless. Even if somebody says ‘This is the purpose,’ then again the problem will arise, ‘What is the purpose of this?’ Somebody says ‘To attain to god is the purpose’; but why? What is the purpose of attaining to god?
The question remains the same; ad infinitum. A thousand and one answers can be given but the question is not solved. You simply go on pushing the question a little further away, but it is there and sooner or later you will be encountering it. Why not encounter it right now? Why waste time? There is no purpose in life, and that’s why life is beautiful. If there were purpose, life would be American and would not be beautiful at all! (some laughter) It would be a business.
So one thing: if you want to be here, within seven days you will get into trouble. So if you want to be here, be alert that this is a place where we destroy purposes. We don’t give any consolations, we don’t give any securities. We are not helping people to improve, no, not at all; I am the last person to help you to improve. Those improvers have poisoned you so much. I simply make you alert to enjoy whosoever you are. There is no condemnation, there is no evaluation, there is no judgement. Good or bad are not the words that we use here in this place. Open and closed are the words that we use instead of good and bad. Alive and dead are the words that we use instead of good and bad. We don’t divide humanity into saints and sinners. We only divide humanity into people who are aware and who are not aware.
The second thing: I am not a perfect man. Nobody can ever be perfect, nobody has ever been perfect. Life does not allow anybody to be perfect, because in -imperfection there is growth, and life is a growing phenomenon — it is evolution. Perfection is a dead-end, there is no going beyond it; then you commit suicide.
You have some idea of perfection and if you look at me with that idea, you will be puzzled. I am not a perfect man; nobody has ever been, nobody will ever be. Life is not an opportunity to become perfect. Perfection is foreign to life. Again, we use the word totality here, not perfection. One can be total, each moment one can be total, but totality is not perfection.
Totality is wholeness and holiness. If you are loving somebody, love totally. I am not going to say to love perfectly; that is stupid. How can you love perfectly? That is goal-oriented. Then you have an idea ‘This is perfection and this should be fulfilled. If it is fulfilled, then love is right.’ Then you put something higher than love — perfection. I simply say be total in it, be utterly lost into it. While you are in love, why not be total? Why go half-heartedly? If you are eating, then eat totally; drinking, drink totally. If you are angry then be totally angry. Do things totally.
There is a very famous anecdote about Mulla Nasrudin; Mulla Nasrudin is a sufi device. When he was old he was made justice of peace. The first day he was in court a man was brought to him. He was crying and weeping and he said, ‘I have been robbed! All my clothes have been taken, my money has been taken. And this has happened just on the boundary of this town, so the thieves must belong to your town. You have to look, sir, and you have to find those thieves.’
The man was only wearing a pair of underpants, and Mulla said, ‘But you are wearing this underwear?’ So he said, ‘Yes, they have left only this.’ He said, ‘Then they cannot belong to this town; things are done totally here. (laughter) Go somewhere else!’
And that’s what we do in this place: we do things totally. If you are here even underwear will be gone!
So, so it is very natural that you are feeling puzzled, disturbed, divided, confused. I can understand that in five days you must have gone through many trips. That is consciously, deliberately managed here. The whole process is to confuse you utterly, because only in that confusion can you drop your mind; otherwise you go on clinging. My statements are contradictory and I am a very absurd man; I’m not trying to hide it, this is how things are. But if you decide to be here… Be here totally!
Source – Osho Book “The Sun Behind the Sun Behind the Sun’