Osho – It is not difficult to change, but if you have the idea that it is, then it will become difficult

[Another sannyasin says: I feel as though I am very old and set in my ways, and it is difficult to change.]
Osho – No, it is not difficult to change, but if you have the idea that it is, then it will become difficult. This idea can create trouble – nothing else. You can drop the old as easily as you drop your old clothes; nothing much is involved in it.

Nobody is set. Your being always remains free – because freedom is your inner nature, nothing can imprison you. This very moment you are totally free, because you are the doer, and you are greater than your doing, bigger than your act. Whatsoever you have been doing you are free, already free!

If you have been angry, when the anger has gone you are free. There is no need to bother that you have been angry, so how can you be free of it? – you are already free, the anger has gone. It was a momentary thing that you have passed, you have overcome. If you want to repeat it you can, but that will be a fresh decision to be angry. Don’t say that you are angry because you have been angry so many times before. You are not a machine.

It is a fresh decision, a fresh commitment to be angry. You are always free to break with the past; nobody is holding you, nobody can ever hold you. Consciousness is absolute freedom. Once you understand this, you stop putting these wrong suggestions to yourself.

Tomorrow morning when you get up, get up new, and start behaving as though you are new. Make a new decision that you will cancel all old ones, and you will start living afresh. There is no barrier. I tell you this from my own experience, and working with thousands of people – that nothing is a barrier.

People are deceptive, and go on deceiving themselves saying, ’How can I drop it now? I have had this habit for thirty years; it will take thirty more years to drop it!’ Then they will say, ’Now it has been sixty years, so how can I drop it right now? – it will take sixty years to drop’. Then they say one hundred and twenty years….

They will never be able to drop it. Just think of the mathematics. Either you drop it right now, or you cannot drop it. It is your decision; nobody is forcing you. But remember, if you want to repeat a habit, then it is through your decision to, again and again. Any moment that you want to break the contract with the habit, you are free to do so. The habit is a dead thing – you are alive!
How can a dead thing hold your aliveness? No, nothing can hold it. Contemplate, mm? meditate
on it.

Source: from Osho Book “Hammer on the Rock”