Totality

 

 

Question

Osho,

You have called this community your circus, your carnival. Is this carnival happening with any purpose or is it just for fun?

 

 

It is just for fun. Purpose is a business word, where everything is done for some end, where every act is divided in two parts, the means and the end. The end is always in the future, so in every purposive activity you have to sacrifice the present for the future. And my whole teaching is not to sacrifice the present for anything.

 

So against purpose, my work is pure fun. The word fun is not very respected, but we have to make it the most respected word. Purpose is ugly. Purpose means you always act with greed. Fun means there is no greed. Fun means there is no need for you to be victorious. You are playing cards – just fun; nobody takes it seriously whether you are defeated or victorious. After the game is over, all victories and all defeats are over too.

 

That’s how life should be taken. Live each moment totally, but don’t carry the idea of purpose; otherwise you cannot live totally, your mind is somewhere in the future looking at the purpose, arrowed at the purpose. You can’t be total in the activity. Your action is half-hearted. You are doing it mechanically. But if there is no purpose, you can be total in the moment.

 

My work is fun, but out of this fun there is much flowering. I am not saying that nothing will come out of it. So remember the distinction: the man who is working for some purpose perhaps may not attain it, because he is never wholeheartedly in the action. The man who is functioning only as fun is so totally in it that he may attain to many things which the purposive man can never dream of. So just thinking “Act out of fun” does not mean that you are a loser. You are a gainer in every way just because of your totality. Your action is going to bring more fruits, more flowers, although you were not working for fruits and flowers. You enjoyed the moment, its action, and out of that enjoyment and out of that totality many things are going to happen. But they were not your concern. When they happen, you will be surprised.

 

A sannyasin is surprised every moment because he was not hoping that anything was going to happen. He had not even given a thought to it. He was so involved in his action that there was no space for anything. But when the moment and the action are finished, he is surprised that something great and beautiful has arisen out of it.

 

My sannyasin will never feel miserable, never feel disappointed. The man who works with the idea of purpose in mind is always miserable.

 

The proverb is significant: Man proposes, God disposes. God may not exist, but the proverb has a truth in it. The truth is, the more you propose, the more you will feel disappointment. You can dump that on the head of God – who does not exist so he cannot deny it: “I have not disposed of anything. You yourself messed things, because you were not total in your action. You have missed the target.”

 

My people are living as fun. That’s why I call it a circus, a carnival. It is not a marketplace. It is just a commune of people who have decided to enjoy life to its fullest, materially, spiritually, in every dimension.

 

-Osho, "The Last Testament, Vol. 2, #23“