Osho – People have decided to remain static out of a desire for convenience

[A sannyasin, returned from a visit to the West, says it was so difficult for him to readjust there he was unsure whether to come here again.]

Osho – It happens many times in life. When your consciousness starts changing you cannot remain in the old pattern any more; you have to change it. In fact, if you watch life carefully you will see it happening many times but it happens so silently that you don’t become aware. For example, below the age of fourteen you had a few friends. After fourteen those friendships disappeared. Something happened to you: you became sexually mature. Those friendships started looking childish; they became irrelevant.

If you are doing a certain thing and something happens in your consciousness, now you cannot do it the old way. You have changed so you have to readjust everything. That’s why many people have decided against growth, because growth brings problems. If you grow, then each time you have to change many things. Something looks very very valuable at this moment and you go a little deeper into meditation and it no more looks valuable. So change. That becomes a little inconvenient for people… and inconvenience is very very deep in many dimensions.

For example, you love a woman and your consciousness changes. Suddenly you see that that woman is there, you still like her, you still feel for her but that romance has disappeared. You are in love with a certain kind of work and then you change. That work simply seems no more relevant, no more valid for you.

People have decided to remain at a fixed state of consciousness so that they need not change every day. They have become stagnant. If they remain flowing then every day: new shores and new trees and new people and new towns and new mountains and new valleys. The river will have to come to new things every day.

People have decided to remain static out of a desire for convenience. Psychoanalysts say that usually the mental age of people never goes beyond thirteen, fourteen; that is where they have stopped. They have decided that now this is the last. Now they are going to remain with it. This is their work, this is their hobby, this is their liking, this is their love, these are their friends. Now they have settled their world and they are not going to change it. The only way not to change is to stop your growth.

A growing person has to live in inconvenience, insecurity. And my whole approach is that growth is life. Life is dangerous. Death is very convenient, very comfortable. To be in a grave is the last in luxury. You cannot improve upon it; whatsoever you do will be something less than that. So many people live in the grave.

I will suggest only one thing – to never cling to the past, whatsoever the cost. Always remain open to the future because only the future is going to come. The past is not going to come. You will not meet it again; you will never come across it again. It is finished and finished for good. So loosen your grip on the past, and whatsoever happens, trust life. And if you feel that you are no more enjoying your job then change it! Nothing to be worried about. If you feel that you are no more enjoying the west then come to the east. Nothing is a problem. One should not cling to safeties, and then you will go on growing. To the very last moment of death one can go on growing.

If a person dies at seventy, then his mental age should be seventy – that is my idea – not less than that, because if something is less than that then that man has not lived totally. This is the minimum – the maximum can be more. A person of seventy can have the mental age of two hundred years or three hundred years, because if the man of seventy can have the age of ten years, why not two hundred years? – both are possible.

Live intensely and live dangerously. Live to the very last moment of your life and allow whatsoever happens. Yes, sometimes there will be pain and there will be many times agony, anguish, but those are part of life; they cannot be avoided. If one wants to be ecstatic one has to go through many agonies. If you want to be in an inner state of bliss you will have to go through many pains. They prepare, they cleanse you.

So whatsoever you feel, go with your feeling and always listen to the heart. Whenever you want to decide something, don’t decide only by the mind; decide by the heart. If you still feel that things are going perfectly well, continue; there is no hurry. But if you have started feeling that something is amiss and you are no more in tune with it, then what is the point?

We don’t live for anything else – everything else is for our life. If somebody paints and loves it, good. If one day he finds that it is finished – he cannot paint anymore or no more loves it – he can continue, he can go on dragging, but the love has disappeared. He should drop it! There is no need to carry on in it. He won’t be creating any big painting any more. And it is possible that one day he may come back to the painting. After twenty years he has completely forgotten about it and again it starts coming up. Then again he can go into it and there will be great joy. And after twenty years forgetfulness something more original will come out of it. He will be no more a technician; it will be more original. He has forgotten all that he knew – it will be no more out of his knowledge. It will not be anymore out of his expertise; it will be simply from his heart.

And of course, all that he has known has become part of his bones and blood and marrow so it is there but no more visible; it is an invisible force. But always listen to the heart and go with it. Sacrifice anything that is needed. At the altar of the heart, sacrifice everything. If you feel like coming here, come here. This is your home! And if you want to continue in your work, continue… but listen to your heart. I am not saying to do this or do that. What you do is not the point, but do whatsoever you do with joy and celebration.

Source – Osho Book “Don’t Just Do Something, Sit There”