Question – Beloved Master, What is the main purpose of your life?
Osho – There is no purpose. The whole idea of purpose is mundane and illogical. You will have to come to a point where you will have to say there is no purpose. Life is a perfect point. Life is an overflowing of bliss, truth, love, but not purposeful; it is not a commodity.
If I speak to you, I enjoy it. If I help you, I am grateful to you that you accepted my help; you could have rejected it. As far as I am concerned, I am fulfilled, I am utterly contented. Purpose is when you are discontented, when you need something, when you want something, when you want to reach somewhere. I don’t want to reach somewhere.
I am already there and so full of joy and so full of love and so full of song that I want to share it. This wanting is not a purpose, because I don’t want anything in return. It is simply like when a roseflower opens and releases its fragrance.
I am reminded of Picasso….
He was painting by the seabeach. A man watched him for a long time, and then he approached him and said, “Sir, I don’t want to disturb you. I just want to know one thing: what is the purpose of your painting?”
Picasso said, “It is strange. You don’t ask the flowers, `What is your purpose?’ You don’t ask the sun, `Why do you rise every morning?’ You don’t ask the stars, `What is your purpose?’ You don’t ask the ocean, `What is your purpose?’ Then why do you torture a poor man like me? I am not doing any harm. I am simply playing with colors on this canvas. I don’t have any purpose. Just enjoying myself… this salty breeze, this beautiful morning…. I have so much sensitivity for beauty that I want to bring it out so that others can share it. There is no purpose.”
All the religions have been teaching that life should have a purpose. They are reducing life as a means to some end — which is ugly. Life is an end unto itself. To be alive, to be fully alive is enough. There is no goal, there is no purpose. Just here and now, all is. Nothing is missing.
I don’t have any purpose, because life has no purpose. Those who have purposes in life, are going against life. Life is a let-go. You are not swimming against the current, you are simply floating with the river wherever it leads. So wherever I reach, I am fulfilled. Or even if I am drowned, I am fulfilled. The purposeful mind is a very mundane mind.
In my childhood I had a beautiful river by my village. And my tailor was in great difficulty, because I had to force him to make as many pockets on my dress as possible. He said, “But you go on telling everyone that I am your tailor, and if they see all these pockets they will think I have gone mad. So if you promise me that you will say that the tailor across the street is your tailor, I am ready. But don’t mention my name to anybody.” He said, “And for what do you need so many pockets?”
I said, “You will not understand. You can ask my father.”
The need was that around the river there were such beautiful colored stones, so shining in the sun, that I would collect them and fill all my pockets. I would come home, and my mother would be very angry: “You spoil your dress. You make a mockery of all of us having so many pockets. Nobody has ever heard… your dress is just pockets and pockets. And then you come with all kinds of useless stones. What is the purpose of these stones?”
I said, “I have never thought about the purpose — I love them.” And that was enough.
I love life, but there is no purpose.
I love people, but there is no purpose.
I do everything that my love wants me to do, but there is no purpose. It is sheer joy being shared. And the moment you start sharing, purpose disappears.
Purpose is a business world.
Sharing takes you to a different world. And my sannyasins particularly should remember that their life has to be a sharing, not a purpose.
Okay, Maneesha?