Osho – We live with momentary things. That’s why there is so much misery, because whatsoever is momentary is not going to satisfy. By the time you become aware that it is there it is already gone. This life is almost a flux: it is continuously moving, slipping out of your hands. Nothing is certain, nothing is stable. Everything is in a constant movement.
You cannot make your abode in this momentary world, on these shifting sands. If you make your abode on these shifting sands it is bound to collapse; it is absolutely inevitable. The collapse is going to happen any moment, and you cannot live at peace.
You fall in love, then there is fear about whether the love is going to remain tomorrow or not. Your lover may leave you or you may start thinking to leave your lover. So we start making arrangements to stabilise it, to make it something permanent, and in that very effort all joy is lost.
Lovers start trying to possess the other so that tomorrow it is still there, but in trying to possess love you are already destroying it. You are not even waiting for tomorrow to destroy it, you have destroyed it today… because nobody wants to be possessed, nobody wants to be thought of as a commodity. Nobody is a thing. To behave with a person as if he or she is a thing is to humiliate; it is utterly disrespectful. And everybody resists it, hence the fight starts.
The desire is for something eternal, but that cannot be fulfilled in the outside world. Somebody is poor and he thinks that if he becomes rich he will be happy. The moment he becomes rich he is not happy, he is simply more worried. Now he is worried about whether he is going to remain rich or not, because things go on changing. The market goes down, the prices change, the banks go bankrupt, governments become communist, so nothing can be certain. So there is a constant worry. When he was poor at least he used to sleep well; now he cannot even sleep, his sleep becomes a restlessness. He is constantly worried, nightmares surround him.
Through great effort a person reaches the highest post of the country, becomes the prime minister or the president… and then the fear. Almost the whole of his life is wasted in reaching the highest post, now he clings to the chair, afraid that others are pulling his legs. There is a long queue of people who all want to be the president or the prime minister . There is immense competition, cut-throat competition, and everybody is against everybody else’s necks. He cannot rest at peace. He has reached after such a long effort and now all that he can do is to cling to the chair, to somehow survive there.
This is what goes on happening unless we start looking inwards. The outside world is not going to satisfy because it is a changing world, momentary, and our innermost longing is for the eternal. And that cannot be fulfilled on the outside.
I am not against the outside world. All that I want my sannyasins to be aware of is that your desire is for the eternal and that cannot be fulfilled on the outside. So on the outside remain joyful with the momentary, don’t ask that it should be eternal. Nothing can be eternal on the outside. Enjoy the momentary as momentary, knowing perfectly well that it is momentary.
The flower that has opened up in the morning is bound to die by the evening. It has come with the sunrise, it will go with the sunset. So rejoice! I am not against the flower — rejoice! But remember, don’t cling, don’t hope, otherwise you will be disillusioned. Rejoice in the momentary on the outside, and search for the eternal in the inside.
That’s my message to my sannyasins. And inside you will find amrit, nectar, the immortal, the eternal, the divine. And once you have found that then there is nothing more to be found. Then all is bliss, then all is joy. Life is fulfilled. One has come home.
Source – Osho Book “Just the Tip of the Iceberg”