• Life has no meaning. Rejoice! It has no meaning. Dance, sing, enjoy! It has no meaning. You need not be serious. It is a cosmic joke.
    - Osho

open all | close all

oshofriends




 

Osho TalksKey IssuesSubject Index

Osho HealingThe EsotericOsho Dictionary

 

 

oshofriends

 

 

 

Anguish

 

 

There is great anguish in every heart -- the anguish of not knowing oneself, the anguish of not knowing from where we are coming and to where we are going, and who we are and what this life is all about. What is the meaning of life? -- this is our anguish, our agony.

 

Life seems to be so futile, so utterly meaningless, a mechanical repetition. You go on doing the same things again and again -- for what? The anguish is that man feels very accidental; there seems to be no significance. And man cannot live without experiencing some significance, without experiencing that he contributes something meaningful to the world, that he is needed by existence, that he is not just a useless phenomenon, that he is not accidental, that he is required, that he is fulfilling something tremendously significant. Unless one comes to feel it, one remains on fire.

 

The existentialist thinkers have made many words well-known. One of those words is 'anguish'; anguish is spiritual agony. It is not that everybody feels it; people are so dull, so stupid, so mediocre. Then they will not feel the anguish, they will go on doing small things their whole lives and they will die. They will live and they will die not knowing what life really was.

 

In fact when people are dying they become aware for the first time that they have been alive; in contrast to death they become alert: "I have missed an opportunity." That is the pain of death. It has nothing to do with death directly but only indirectly. When one is dying one feels great pain; the pain has nothing to do with death. The pain is: "I was alive and now all is finished and I could not do anything meaningful. I was not creative, I was not conscious, I lived mechanically, I lived like a somnambulist, a sleepwalker."

 

The mediocre mind goes on living without being worried. He seems to be happier than the intelligent person; he laughs, he goes to the club and to the movies, he has a thousand and one occupations, and he is very busy without any business. The more intelligent you are, the more sensitive you are, the more you will feel that this life -- the way you are living it -- is not the right way, is not the right life; something is wrong in it.

 

-Osho, "The Dhammapada - The Way of the Buddha, Vol 5, #1"

 
 
 
TAG •

Osho Dictionary

A Spiritual Dictionary for the Here and Now

List of Articles
No. Category Subject
74 A Absolute : A man of truth is always relative.
73 A Abstinence : You can be a celibate, but to be a celibate does not mean to go beyond sexuality.
72 A Abstractions : Because you can't love human beings you start loving humanity just to deceive yourself. Avoid abstractions.
71 A Absurd : The absurd is nothing but another name of God
70 A Absurdity : Collect as many absurdities in your life as possible.
69 A Accept yourself : Accept yourself as you are, and accept totally, unconditionally. That is the way God wants you to be
68 A Accept Yourself : This is the first step of Unio Mystica: be one with yourself.
67 A Acceptance : Accepting is another name for Let Go
66 A Acceptance : If somebody hits you, bow down your head, accept it with gratitude.
65 A Accidental : Become a little more conscious. See what is happening.
64 A Accidents : Consciousness can be, and without content. So that accident was a blessing.
63 A Accidents : life goes ahead and your mind is past-oriented
62 A Acharya : He knows exactly what he’s teaching, but not on his own authority.
61 A Act : You will create a chain of reactions and you will get into karma.
60 A Acting : The really spiritual person transforms his whole life into an acting.
59 A Action : You have to use action to attain non-action.
58 A Action and Activity : Action is when the situation demands it, you act, you respond. Activity is when the situation doesn't matter, it is not a response
57 A Active Meditation : All traditional methods have become irrelevant.
56 A Activity : Action is not activity; activity is not action.
55 A Activity : Activity has utility, action is pure joy, pure beauty.
54 A Acupuncture : Acupuncture deals with the cause. Never deal with the effect
53 A Adam's Apple : Adam became knowledgeable, hence the fall. So knowledge is the fall.
52 A Adam's Apple : I am against all kinds of enforced things.
51 A Admiration : One wants to be admired because one has no respect for oneself.
50 A Adultery : The real meaning of adultery is making love while you are not in love.
49 A Advaita : Advaita means not two
48 A Advaita : Existence Is Advaita
47 A Advertising : It hypnotized you.
46 A Advice : Listen, but don’t follow.
45 A Ageing (Aging) : You are just pure consciousness
44 A Aging : Change beautifies everything.
43 A Ah : Ah, this cake is delicious
42 A AIDS : Perversion requires the basic condition that you are fed up with changing women, you want something new.
41 A Alchemy : How to change the negative into the positive
40 A Alcohol : Nothing but a chemical strategy to forget your miseries, anxieties, your problems, to forget yourself.
39 A Alertness : If you are alert, if your actions become more and more aware
38 A Alienation : He is an uprooted tree. He has forgotten how to relate with existence
37 A Alone : The person who is not able to be alone cannot be together with somebody, because he has no individuality.
36 A Aloneness : Rejoicing in Your Own Aloneness
35 A Aloneness : We are born alone, we live alone, and we die alone
34 A Ambition : Nothing kills love more than Ambitiousness
33 A Ambition : The result of an inferiority complex
32 A Ambition : The root cause
31 A Amen : It simply means "Yes, Lord, yes. Let thy will be done.
30 A Analysis : The beauty is something more, hence in analysis it disappears.
29 A Androgyny : Where your man and woman inside meet and mingle and disappear into each other.
28 A Angels : You are simply creating belief systems to cling to.
27 A Anger : Anger is just a mental vomit.
26 A Anger : If anger rages within, shout, cry, jump, talk, babble, do whatever you please
25 A Anguish : Anguish is, in short, the quest of who you are.
24 A Anguish : God is not responsible for your stupidity. It is your own work.
» A Anguish : The anguish of not knowing oneself
22 A Answer : To Be Questionless is the Answer
21 A Anti Christ : The people who established Christianity, they are the Antichrist.
20 A Apology : We don't try to reform ourselves, we only try to reform our image.
19 A Art : If it leads you towards God, it is true art, it is authentic art.
18 A Art : To be a painter, you have to drop the ego
17 A Art, Objective : Objective art means something that helps you to become centered
16 A Asleep : Man is asleep – man lives in a deep slumber
15 A Assertion (Assertive) : Everybody has to be assertive, not aggressive.
14 A Astrology : Astrology is an investigation into the possibility that whatever is happening anywhere in the universe also affects man.
13 A Astrology : The Science of Cosmic Oneness
12 A Atheism : Just as the theists are blind, so are the atheists. Both are believers.
11 A Attachment : Attachment means clinging to something, wanting it the way it is forever.
10 A Attention : If you pay much attention to suffering, you help it to grow. If you pay much attention to happiness, you help it to grow.
9 A Aum : The primordial sound of which the whole universe consists
8 A Aum : The symbol of the seventh body
7 A Austerity : Austerity does not mean torture; austerity means a simple life, an austere life.
6 A Authenticity : To be authentic means to be true to oneself.
5 A Authoritative : Authoritarian People are suffering from Inferiority Complex
4 A Autohypnosis : You create illnesses! You believe in them.
3 A Average : You will drop your averageness. It is just forced on you.
2 A Avoidance : The harder you try to avoid it, the more focused you become on it.
1 A Awareness : The Seed of Godliness in You
Board Pagination Prev 1 Next
/ 1