Hope 

 

 

Hope is a disguised form of desire. And unless one drops all desiring in all forms, disguised, one cannot attain to one's own reality. When we hope we project the future, when we hope, we hope in the future. Nobody can hope in the present. Hope brings in the future, hope is the future. And it is behind hope that the mind goes on playing thousands of games, it goes on deceiving you. It goes on promising you: tomorrow, tomorrow, tomorrow.... And tomorrow never comes, it can't come in the very nature of things. It is always today.

 

There is no other time then now. All other times are just mind-fabrications, fantasies. To be in meditation means to be in the present, and to be in the present one has to cut the root of all desire, the root of all hope.

 

Remember, by cutting the root of hope you don't become hopeless, because when there is no hope there is no possibility of hopelessness either. They both disappear. Hopelessness is possible only if hope is there, it is a by-product of hope. When hope is not, hopelessness also is not. And your whole sky, inner sky, is clear of all the clouds of hopes, of hopelessness, of desires, of frustrations, of expectations. Your whole sky is simply unclouded and the sun shines forth -- the sun of truth, the sun of your own being.

 

-Osho, "Dance Til the Stars Come Down From the Rafters, #9“