Games 

 

 

Question 1

You have said that there are no goals in life, no purpose. and yet we are all here with enlightenment as our goal. please speak on this.

 

 

If you are here with enlightenment as your goal you cannot be here. Physically you may appear to be here but you cannot be with me. The goal is in the future, I am here! And a mind which is goal oriented is bound to be in the future -- we will never meet.

 

I know you are here to attain something -- that's why you are missing it. I am here to persuade you to drop the very idea of attaining anything whatsoever: enlightenment, moksha, nirvana, God, included. If you drop this goal oriented mind -- and there are none but goal-oriented minds, there is no other mind -- if you drop it, you are enlightened.

 

Enlightenment is not a search, it is a realization. It is not a goal! It is the very nature of life itself.

 

As life is, it is enlightened. It needs nothing to be added to it, to improve it. Life is perfect. It is not moving from imperfection to perfection, it is moving from perfection to perfection.

 

You are here to attain something. That is functioning as a barrier. Drop that barrier. Just be here! Forget about any purpose, life cannot have any purpose. Life is the purpose, how can it have any other purpose? Otherwise you will be in an infinite regress: then that purpose will have another purpose, then that other purpose will have another purpose.... Life has no purpose, and that's why it is so beautiful.

 

Hindus have called it Leela, a play. It is not even a game. Now in the West the word Game has become very very important; hundreds of books have been published within two, three years with Game in the title: The Mster Game, The Ultimate Game, Games People Play, and so on and so forth. But there is a difference between game and play. Hindus have called life PLAY not a game, because even a game has something as a purpose: a result to be attained, victory to be achieved, the opponent has to be conquered.... Then a play becomes a game; then it becomes serious.

 

Grownups play games, children only play. Just the very activity is enough unto itself. It has an intrinsic end, there is no goal added to it. Life is a LEELA, it is a play, and the moment you are ready to play, you are enlightened.

 

Try to understand from some other dimension. You are already that which you are trying to be. The more you try, the more you will miss. You leave all effort, you simply accept yourself, you just be that -- suddenly it is there! It has always been there but you were seeking so seriously, and that was the only cause for missing it.

 

You are here to attain something: enlightenment, samadhi, satori -- or something. To me all those words are nonsense, because they give you again a new line of desiring. They again open a door of desire.

 

In the world you desire money, power, prestige; then you get fed up with it, then you see the whole thing is just rubbish -- even if you get it you are defeated, if you don't get it you are defeated. Then you come to feel that this whole thing is nonsense. Now suddenly you start playing new games: enlightenment, meditation, yoga, God, the other world, the other shore! Again the mind is at ease; a new world of desire has opened; now you will be after these goals.

 

And money is not so elusive as meditation. This world at least is solid; that shore, that world, the other world, is absolutely fantasy. Now you are in a deeper ditch than before. With the first you could realize that it is useless, with the second now it will take millions of lives to realize that this too is useless.

 

When a person comes to discover that all goals are useless -- with no exception all goals are useless, then there is nothing to do, one just has to BE. One relaxes, one relaxes so totally because there is nothing to do that there is no tension. Suddenly your boundaries melt like snow melting in the morning sun. With nothing to do you disappear, the ego disappears. With nothing to do, nothing to be, nothing to achieve, who will you be? The whole identity evaporates. This is enlightenment.

 

Then you start a totally different way of life. You start being playful, you start being alive moment to moment with nowhere to go -- whatsoever the life gives, you accept it with deep gratitude. Grace happens to you. This is what I call: to become a god. The moment you start playing, living in the moment, you have become a god.

 

I am here to persuade you that you are already gods. You may be here to become gods -- that's your trip, I'm not concerned with it. I know what I am here for: just to persuade you to look at your own face once again; to search within and not to go without, searching for something which doesn't exist.

 

Life is a purposeless play, a play of infinite forces -- beautiful if you don't have an achiever's mind, ugly if you have ambition to become something, to be something, to do something.

 

Relax. Drop the future completely. Only this moment exists, and this moment is eternity. And this life only is all that is there, don't think of the other shore.

 

Just the other day I was telling you the Chinese allegory of the man who returned from the middle of the river. Why did he return from the MIDDLE of the river? Because there is no other shore, this is the only shore. And why did he start laughing? Because he suddenly realized he himself is the Buddha whom he has been seeking.

 

Zen Masters teach their disciples that: if while meditating some day you come across Buddha -- kill him immediately. Don't spare a single moment -- kill him immediately! Otherwise he will lead you astray.

 

They are right. While you are meditating Krishna comes with his flute, it is so beautiful.... Again you are dreaming, again you are caught in dream and desire. And Jesus comes, and you are caught in the web of the mind; it is a spider's web. And then Buddha comes, and you forget yourself.

 

So Zen Masters say: Kill the Buddha immediately. Clear the way. Don't allow anybody else to be there; that is, don't allow any goal to be there; just be total, alone -- in your absolute purity. This is enlightenment.

 

I should repeat it, because I know you will forget and forget and forget: you are already that which you are seeking. Let this be the basic mantra. If you can understand this mantra, you have understood all.

 

Give it a try. Goals -- too many lives you have already given to them. Now try to live moment to moment, as if there is no future. In the beginning it will be only AS IF, but by and by you will become aware that that AS IF is the only reality. In the beginning it may be just like acting. Soon you will realize that this acting is the only reality.

 

You have come with a goal but I won't allow you to remain with a goal. If you don't escape me the goal is bound to drop. Just hang around a little more and the goal is bound to drop. Either I can be here with you or the goal can: you have to choose.

 

-Osho, "Tao: The Three Treasures, Vol 3, #10, Q1“