https://oshofriends.com/dictionary/69550Sacrifice
A single moment of passionate love, of passionate living, of passionate stillness, is more valuable than the whole of eternity. It is not a question of survival, it is really a question of how to live this moment. The idea of survival makes tomorrow more important than today, the idea of survival makes it easier for you to sacrifice today for tomorrow. And tomorrow never comes: whenever it comes, it is today. And your mind is programmed to sacrifice today for tomorrow, so you go on sacrificing your whole life.
Parents sacrifice their lives for their children. The children again in their turn will sacrifice their lives for their children, and so on and so forth. And nobody will ever live.
I am against the very idea of sacrifice. Never sacrifice! Live this moment; live it totally, intensely, passionately. And then a miracle happens: if parents have lived their life beautifully, if they are fulfilled, their very fulfillment creates the space for their children to live, to live in the right way. And by the right way I don't mean the moral way, by the right way I mean the total way. To live partially is to live wrongly, to live totally is to live rightly.
If children are brought up by parents who have been living their lives afire, aflame, who have been celebrating their moments, these children will learn how to celebrate, how to live joyously, how to live affirmatively, how to live saying yes to existence. A deep yes will arise in their hearts: it will be triggered by their parents. And the parents were not sacrificing, not at all, and so the children will not learn the suicidal idea of sacrifice.
If parents are sacrificing for their children, then sooner or later, when the parents are old, they will demand sacrifice from the children. They will say, "We sacrificed so much for you, now you sacrifice for us."
The country demands sacrifice from the people who live in it, the church demands sacrifice, everybody demands sacrifice. Just look around you: they all are standing around you, asking for sacrifice. And they teach you that to sacrifice is moral.
To sacrifice is immoral! Whether you sacrifice for the country or for the religion or for the children, it is immoral. It is immoral because it does not allow you to live your life. You become sad, you become frustrated, and then in return you start coercing others to sacrifice for you. Then the whole life of the whole world becomes simply crippled and paralyzed.
A mother was teaching her small child the great truths of life and religion. She was a Catholic; she told her small son, "God has created you to serve others."
The little boy pondered over it, and he said, "Okay, if you say so. But then why did he create the others?" To serve me? This looks so absurd, that I am created to serve somebody else, and somebody else is created to serve me; it looks so illogical. Why should I not serve myself, and he can serve himself?" That seems simply logical, mathematical.
I teach you a kind of self-love. You are not created to sacrifice yourself for somebody else, you are not created to serve others. You have been taught this because those others want you to serve them, to sacrifice. And because they want you to serve them, they have to serve you; because they want you to sacrifice yourself for them, they have to sacrifice themselves for you. So we are at each other's throats continuously, demanding sacrifice.
The whole idea has to be dropped. You are created to live and celebrate, just as others are being created to live and celebrate. God is not a murderer; he demands no sacrifice from you. He demands that you bloom and flower.
Only when you have flowered will you be accepted. And the way to flower is the way of acceptance. Don't resist, don't rage against existence: relax, surrender, go with the flow. [....]
Now it is time: if you have understood it, drop it! Drop it, immediately -- don't carry it even a single moment any more because who knows? The next moment may never come. Drop it this very moment!
Always see that whatsoever you have understood has to immediately become your life. Don't postpone it.
-Osho, "Unio Mystica, Vol 2, #4, Q3“
