Osho – Unless one is ready to dissolve one’s ego, the fish is going to remain thirsty. Dissolve the ego and all thirst disappears, because the moment you dissolve the ego, the wall between you and the ocean disappears; then you are part of the ocean. How can you be thirsty then?
And man is certainly thirsty! hungry, in deep anguish. Man lives a very phony life, inauthentic. He only pretends to live; he does not really live. He goes through all the empty gestures of living, but look at people, look at yourself, look at others — you will not see the dance. People are dragging; life seems to be a burden, a great burden, somehow to be tolerated. Life is not a celebration, and that’s what it should be.
Your steps don’t have the quality of dance. Your heart is not throbbing with ecstasy. You are not pulsating and vibrating with joy, with love. You are not overflowing with energy.What kind of life is this? Just going round and round in circles, dead, dull, stupid routines. Just hoping that tomorrow something will happen… and the tomorrow never comes, and nothing ever happens. Waiting for Godot, and Godot never comes. You go on waiting and waiting and waiting and all that ever comes is death.
But life is so miserable that even death feels like a relief. Life is so empty that it is very rare to find a human being who has not contemplated, some time or other, committing suicide. Life is so empty that we go on keeping ourselves occupied — with any rubbish, just to remain occupied so that we don’t see the emptiness, so we don’t see the inner vacuum, the inner darkness.
Just watch and you will see that man is living in great anguish, anxiety. Man is already in hell. When somebody asks me, “Osho, do you believe there is a hell?” I always say, “There is no question of believing — you are living in it.” Hell cannot be doubted; heaven can be doubted but not hell. Hell is such a day-to-day reality! But why? — why should it be so? Why did it happen in the first place? We will have to understand something special about human beings.
Man is the only animal on the earth, in fact in the whole of existence, who is dual. Other animals are not dual: they are what they are, hence there is no problem. A tiger is a tiger, and a peacock is a peacock, and a dog is a dog. With man there is something special. That is the glory of man, if we understand it. If we don’t understand it, this becomes the agony.
Man is not what he is: he can be more. Man is not finished: man is a growth. Man is the only growing being in existence, the only evolving being in existence. Man is a potential and much has to become actual in him. And unless you start transforming your potential into the actual, your life will remain empty. The seed is empty. If the seed remains a seed it will remain in anguish; it will not feel the joy of fulfillment, the contentment that comes when the seed has become the tree and the tree has bloomed.
Man is a seed — the seed of God. When man blooms, God becomes manifest. That’s why we have called Buddha ‘Bhagwan’; Mahavira, Krishna, ‘Bhagwan’. It simply means that their seed is no more a seed; the seed has disappeared in the soil of existence, and they have come to their ultimate blossoming. Godliness has bloomed in them. The fragrance of divineness has been released. They are fulfilled, utterly fulfilled. Joyous they are because they have come home. Now there is nowhere to go.
Man is the only animal who is an unfinished product. Nature HAS brought man to a certain point, and from that point man has been made responsible. Now you are responsible for your growth. Nature cannot do any more; whatsoever was possible through nature has already happened — it has brought you to the threshold. You have to take the further journey now; you have to become a pilgrim.
If you don’t become a pilgrim, if your life does not take the quality of adventure, of search, of enquiry, you will remain empty — and you will remain thirsty, and you will remain hungry. You will remain spiritually starved. Don’t take yourself for granted — that is the problem, exactly that is the very crux of the problem: we take ourselves for granted, we think as if we are what we are supposed to be.
Man is a paradox. Man is not what he thinks he is — man is far more. Man’s capacities are immense. In fact, there are no limits to man’s growth. One can go on and on and on… It is an infinite journey. There is no goal! There is a beginning of the pilgrimage but no end.
To know God is to know that life is an eternal pilgrimage. What is the meaning when we say God is infinite. You can go ON attaining, but you can never say that now the dead end has come. This is the beauty of existence — it goes on giving you more and more opportunities. When you have climbed one peak, another peak starts giving you challenges.
The misery of man is that he thinks he is what he is supposed to be. He thinks that he is already that which he can be. Man remains satisfied with the superficial; then there will remain a deep discontent in your soul.
Source – Osho Book “The Fish in the Sea is Not Thirsty”