Insecurity

 

 

One can be secure only in illusions; there is no question of why. If you find somebody who is secure, you can be certain he must be living in illusions. But insecurity has tremendous beauty; you have not tasted of it. You have become too much accustomed to the dirty pool of water, stagnant, stinking. You have forgotten the beauty of a river, constantly flowing from the known to the unknown, from the limited to the unlimited. I have to revive your memory of it. It is a remembering, because one day you knew it.

 

When the child is born he knows nothing of security; he knows nothing of the past, nothing of the future. He simply lives in the is; we drive him out of the is. That’s what we call the process of civilizing a child, that’s what we call education: driving him out of the is, taking him out of life’s naturalness and making him arbitrary and artificial. By the age of three or four a child becomes part of society; he loses all contact with God and reality.

 

So you knew once what it means to be in insecurity. All that I need is to remind you, to provoke that remembrance in you. And once you have again tasted it you will drop all your illusions and you will start moving into the unknown with all its insecurity.

 

And not that you will feel frightened – you will feel thrilled! You will feel that insecurity is not something wrong but is the root of all adventure. Insecurity is not something against you but is the very possibility of your existence. It sharpens your intelligence, it keeps you alive, alert. It keeps you always mystified, it keeps you in a state of constant surprise.

 

Insecurity is beautiful. And the day you know insecurity is beautiful, you have known the wisdom of insecurity, and you have understood the very core of sannyas.

 

–Osho, “The guest, #3, Q3”