Osho - To stop running means to stop ambition

Osho – People say that they want to stop, but they are not yet tired – so they say one thing and they do just the opposite. Because to stop running means to stop ambition. To stop running means to stop desire. To stop running means to drop the future completely – to live here and now. Then there is no running. If there is a then and there, one runs; one has to run.

To stop running means to stop the goal-oriented mind. It is the greatest renunciation there is – not to desire any goal and just to be here and now, no improvement, no progress, no reaching… just to enjoy oneself as one is. No ’should’, no ’ought’… just to be like an animal, or like a tree or like a rock.

So if you are really tired there is no problem. You can stop from this very moment. But you have to understand, otherwise just trying to stop it is not going to help, because even the effort to stop it can become a running. That’s the whole problem with the mind. Mm? You can start running to stop running. You can start jumping and jogging because you have to stop running and you have to do this and that. You can create desire and you can create a goal saying, ’Unless I stop running, I am not going to be happy.’ Again you have created a goal – in the name of no-goal.

It is a question of simple understanding. It has nothing to do with any action. Action cannot be stopped by another action. Action can only be stopped in a non-active understanding, in a passive understanding. So just see the point – that there is nowhere to go. Just see the point that for the whole of your life you have been running and you are reaching nowhere. You are simply wasting the time that is available to you to enjoy and delight in. You go on sacrificing the present for the future, and the future never comes.

You go on killing today for tomorrow, and tomorrow is just illusory, a mirage. And when tomorrow comes, it is today. It always comes as today. Then again you sacrifice it for some tomorrow that never comes. So just see it. And there is nothing to do. What else is there to do? One has seen the point – one starts living.

So delight in small things: eat and enjoy, love and enjoy. Go for a morning walk and enjoy. Sit while it is raining and enjoy. Lie down and enjoy. Each moment, small things, tiny things, of no importance for the ego, but very very important for life…. Enjoy gossiping, chit-chatting, singing, dancing, whatsoever. Whatsoever you feel to do, do it and enjoy it. Don’t make it a means to some other end. Let it be the very end itself…. It will happen.

Source – Osho Book “Dance Your Way to God”

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