Osho – It is one of the most significant things to understand that the very desire for NIRVANA is the only hindrance. You can desire money, you can desire power, you can desire prestige, but you cannot desire nirvana; that is a contradiction in terms. NIRVANA simply means the understanding that all desires are futile – the desire for NIRVANA included.
Desire as such is absurd. To be in a desireless state is what NIRVANA is all about. Everybody who comes here comes with a certain desire. The people who come always come with a background. If they have been brought up to believe in God, they come in search of God. If they have been brought up with the belief in self-realization, if they have been taught that the most important thing in life is to know thyself, they come here to know their innermost being, their supreme self If they have been brought up and conditioned that the ultimate search is for MOKSHA, NIRVANA, enlightenment, then they come with that desire.
Everybody who comes is bound to come with a certain desire. That is natural, otherwise you would not be here. But once you are here, as you start getting deeper and deeper into understanding me and what is happening here, you start seeing that desiring is the root cause of all misery. There is no other misery than desiring. It is desiring that is covering your eyes like a veil. It does not allow you to see that which is because you are always concerned about that which should be. Desire leads you into the future, and the future is not yet. And whatsoever you desire comes from the past.
Source – Osho Book “Tao: The Golden Gate, Vol 2″