You say, “The theory is nice, but from the dozens of sannyasins with whom I have spoken, nobody could say, ‘I have found the way…’”

 

Nobody can say, not even I. There is no way, we are not going anywhere; we are just being here. The way exists in the mind, the mind always thinks in terms of means and ends, ways and goals. The mind is always arrowed toward some target. The mind is always sacrificing the present for the future. The goal is bound to be in the future, the goal cannot be in the present. In the present is the way. Today is the way, tomorrow is the goal. But I say, today, this very moment, is all.

 

Call it the way, call it the goal, but it is all.

 

And there is no need to divide existence into means and ends, ways and goals. That division is part of the duality of the mind – and that duality is the cause of all misery.

 

Everybody is ambitious for a goal. The goal may be worldly, it may be otherworldly, but the goal is always there. And whenever there is a goal you are bound to remain tense because you have not yet achieved it. You are bound to remain in anguish, a deep trembling; whether you are going to make it or not, whether you will be able to live to achieve the goal, whether you will be strong enough to compete for it, to struggle for it. And meanwhile life goes on slipping out of your fingers like water.

 

And the goal always remains like the horizon: you can see it just there – maybe only a few miles away – and you can always hope that just a little more effort and you will reach. But nobody has ever reached the horizon because it exists not. It is an illusion, an appearance only; not a reality, an optical illusion. So when you move toward the horizon, the horizon goes on moving away from you. And the distance between you and the horizon always remains the same, exactly the same, absolutely the same. Wherever you are, the goal is always there somewhere ahead of you. It keeps you hoping, but it destroys your life.

 

I am not teaching any goal - worldly, otherworldly, materialistic, spiritualistic. I am teaching you how to live this moment. Naturally, this moment is so small it cannot contain the goal and the way, it cannot contain the means and the ends. It is so small that you cannot divide it, it is indivisible.

 

Naturally, nobody from my sannyasins can say, "I have found the way."

 

And then you will misunderstand. The misunderstanding comes from your own prejudice, because you are thinking in terms of ways and goals, and my sannyasins are not thinking in terms of ways and goals. They are not thinking in terms of mind; they have dropped that jargon. They have moved in a totally different space, the space of the heart, where only this moment exists and nothing else.

 

-Osho, "The Wild Geese and the Water, #13, Q1“

 

⯎

 

There is no goal, so all goal-oriented things are dangerous. The goal is here.

 

Whatsoever you are, you have to relax into it and celebrate it. Once you have a goal in the future and you start struggling for it, you are going into trouble. You are creating a sort of neurosis and a great tension. Then wherever you will be, you will be discontent. You will always be striving and reaching for something which does not exist. You exist - all ideas are fantasies. Never sacrifice yourself for any fantasy.

 

The real growth is not against you - the real growth is through you. The real growth is not even a struggle and effort, because it is not against you, so there is no fight. The real growth is effortless: one simply enjoys oneself, celebrates one's being, and growth happens as a consequence, on its own accord.

 

-Osho, "Dance Your Way to God“ - Darshan 3 August 1976“