목적과 목표를 내려놓아라 (영문)

BELOVED MASTER,

IT IS LIKE DRIVING A CAR IN FORWARD AND REVERSE AT THE SAME TIME. I AM NOT GOING ANYWHERE. IS THE IGNITION SWITCHED on OR AM I JUST A BAD DRIVER?

Ray Horton, the very idea of going somewhere is basically wrong. Nothing is going anywhere. Existence is now-here; it is not moving towards a particular destiny. There is no destiny, there is no ultimate purpose. But we have been taught for centuries that existence is moving towards a certain goal and we have been also taught to live ambitiously, to prove that you are something, somebody: "Reach somewhere." But existence is absolutely purposeless.

I am not saying that it is not significant. Precisely because it is purposeless it is significant, but its significance is not that of the marketplace. It is a totally different kind of significance: the significance of a roseflower, the significance of a bird on the wing, the significance of poetry, music. It is an end unto itself.

We are not to become something -- we are already it. This is the whole message of all the awakened ones: that you are not to achieve something, it has already been given to you. It is God's gift. You are already where you should be, you can't be anywhere else. There is nowhere to go, nothing to achieve. Because there is nowhere to go and nothing to achieve, you can celebrate. Then there is no hurry, no worry, no anxiety, no anguish, no fear of being a failure. You can't fail. In the very nature of things it is impossible to fail, because there is no question of success at all.

It is just a conditioning by the society that creates the problem in you. And then you start thinking, "I am not reaching anywhere, and life is slipping out of my hands and death is coming closer. Am I going to make it or not?" And then there is great fear of missing, frustration that so much is lost. And who knows? -- tomorrow may never arrive. "I have not yet been able to prove myself, my worth. I have not become famous yet. I have not accumulated much wealth. I am not a president of a country or a prime minister."

Or you can start thinking in otherworldly terms, but the process is the same. You can say, "I have not yet become enlightened. I have not yet become a Buddha or a Jesus. Meditation is far away. I don't know who I am." And you can go on creating a thousand and one problems for yourself.

All these problems are created because the society wants you to be ambitious, and ambition can only be created if there is a goal in the future. For ambition, future is needed. And without ambition, the ego cannot be created. And the ego is the basic strategy of the society to rule over you, to exploit you, to oppress you, to keep you miserable. The ego exists in the tension between the present and the future: the bigger the tension, the bigger the ego. When there is no tension between your present and future, the ego disappears because there is no point where it can have shelter, where it can exist.

Hence society teaches you, "Become this, become that." It teaches you becoming. Its whole education system is based on the idea of becoming.

And what I am telling you here is just the opposite of it. I am talking about BEING, not about becoming. Becoming is an invention of the crafty politicians and the priests -- and these are the people who have poisoned the whole humanity. They go on giving you goals. If you become tired of the worldly things -- money, power, prestige -- they are there to tell you about paradise, God, samadhi, truth. Again the whole process starts.

And it is easy to be frustrated with the worldly things. Sooner or later you can see the whole stupidity of having more money or more power. Sooner or later you are going to see the futility of the very idea of "more," because the more brings nothing else but more misery. It takes away all bliss from you, all peace from you. It is destructive. It gives you only fear, trembling, anxiety, neurosis. It makes you insane; that can be seen very easily. It has made the whole earth a madhouse.

But to see that the otherworldly goals -- nirvana and moksha and God and paradise -- are also the same is very difficult. You will need tremendous intelligence to see that those goals are also of the same quality. There is no qualitative change because you are still thinking in terms of becoming, you are still thinking in terms of the future.

Future does not exist, it is nonexistential. It is as nonexistential as the past. The past is no more, the future is not yet; only the present is. And in the present there is no possibility for desiring, no possibility of being ambitious, not space enough for the ego to exist. Whenever you are now and here there is no ego to be found. You are a pure silence. Right now... see what I am saying. I am not propounding a theory or a philosophy; I am simply stating a fact.

Ray Horton, just for a second see... this very moment! Where is the ego? And what heights and what depths of peace suddenly become available to you. They are always within you, but you never look at them -- you are running and running. And because you are not arriving anywhere you are very much worried.

You say, "It is like driving a car in forward and reverse at the same time. I am not going anywhere."

There is no need. This very moment, wherever you are, it is a blessing, it is divine. Where else do you want to go? Why live in the past? It is the past that gives you goals. It is the past that you are carrying in your head which projects goals in the future. Future is only a reflection of the past.

From your very childhood you have been told, you have been hypnotized, by the society, by the priests, by the politicians, by your parents, by the pedagogues. You have been hypnotized continuously that you should have a goal in your life, that you should have some purpose, that you should be a great achiever, that you have to be famous -- a Nobel Prize winner or something -- that you are not to die just an ordinary man. To die just an ordinary man is ugly; you have to die like a president or a prime minister -- as if their death has something special!

Because of this constant hammering on your head you have become so much accustomed to the idea that it is driving you crazy. Otherwise, life is so beautiful as it is; no purpose, no goal is needed. Future can be completely dropped. You live in the future just to escape from the present, and you become so psychologically obsessed with the future that you go on missing that which is for that which is not.

Among the first things that a Jewish boy learns is the biblical injunction: "Honor thy father and mother -- or else!"

Herschel, aged six, was reminded of the admonition the day his father came home and announced that he had decided to buy a car, the first his family had ever owned.

The father was in high spirits. "Imagine, we are in this country only a few years and soon we will own a new car," he said proudly. "I can just see us riding around in Central Park. In the front I am steering, and sitting next to me is Mamma, and in the back is our little Herschel."

Mamma nodded, smiling her approval. "So, when are you planning to buy the car?" she asked.

"In two weeks, a month maybe -- no later."

The pleasant interlude was suddenly shattered by Herschel's mournful cry, "I don't wanna sit in the back! I wanna sit in the front and help steer!"

only one steerer we need in this family," the father reminded his son. "In the front sits Mamma, in the back sits you."

"If I have to sit in the back I will bang my head on the wall, you will see!" wailed Herschel. He ran to the wall and assumed a threatening pose, ready to give action to his words. "Mamma is sitting in the back, I am sitting in the front!"

"No, Herschel, you are in the back," said the father sternly.

"In the front, not in the back!" Herschel's voice rose in a sudden screech. "I ain't gonna sit in the back!"

Father, his manner grim, extended his arm and pointed a commanding finger. "Herschel," he said coldly, "get out of my car!"

People go on living in the future!

And the same is the case with your paradise, just like the car. The same is the case with your nirvana, your enlightenment -- the same as with the car.

It is only the mediocre mind that becomes psychologically obsessed with the future. But the society destroys everybody's intelligence and makes everybody mediocre. The society does not want you to be really intelligent; it is afraid of intelligence. Intelligent people are dangerous people. They are radicals, they are revolutionaries; they are always sabotaging the status quo. The society wants you to remain mediocre, stupid. It wants you certainly to be efficient, mechanically. It wants you to accumulate as much information as possible, but it does not want you to be really intelligent because if you are intelligent you will not care for the future. You will live IN the present and FOR the present, because there is no other life.

Listen to the birds chirping, chattering... the trees flowering... the stars, the sun, the moon. The whole existence lives in the present except you, except human mind. And it is only human mind that suffers.

Come out of the future! It is your dream. You are not supposed to go anywhere. Be happy wherever you are. Be contented with your being and drop the idea of becoming. Then each moment is so precious, then each moment has such beauty, such grandeur, such splendor. Then each moment is exquisite. Then you can feel God everywhere each moment.

God is not a goal; God is the presence right now. If you are present, God is available. If you live in the moment, you are enlightened; there is no other enlightenment. And then ordinary life is so extraordinary. Then to be just a nobody is so fulfilling.

I call this whole approach sannyas: dropping the goals, the purposes, the future -- becoming part of existence this very moment, not postponing it. Then in this very moment, a great explosion is possible in you: the ego disappears, you are no more, but God is. And that is bliss and that is truth.

- OSHO, <The Dhammapada: The Way of the Buddha 9>, Chapter 10 -