Discontent

 

 

Mind lives in discontentment. That is its food. To be discontented is its nourishment. If you become contented mind dies out of starvation... and the mind has to die, only then you can know who you are. So learn the ways of being contented.

Whatsoever is, feel grateful for it. Don't ask for more and you will be cutting the very roots of the mind. Mind lives in the more. If you have money it says, "Have more." If you have knowledge it says, "Have more." Whatsoever you have -- it doesn't matter what it is -- mind says "More", and it goes on saying "More, more..." When you have attained that, again it is there asking for more. That more is unquenchable.

Seeing the absurdity of it, one drops it. One no more runs after the horizon because one knows there is no horizon. It only appears. It looks so close by, just ten, fifteen miles away. If you run you can reach within two hours, but by the time you reach there, it is not there; it is again fifteen miles ahead. It is always fifteen miles ahead. There is no way to bridge the gap.

The more is the horizon and mind is always asking for it; hence mind lives in misery. Mind is hell. And the best way to cut its roots is: to drop asking for more. Rather start enjoying that which is available. Rather than being miserable because you don't have more, be blissful for whatsoever you have and enjoy it, relish it, rejoice in it. And you will be surprised that immediately you are the richest person in the world, immediately you are no more a beggar.

And once the more disappears, the mind disappears. Mind is equivalent to more and more and more. Let the mind die so that you can be reborn.

 

-Osho, "Dance Til the Stars Come Down From the Rafters, #24"
 

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One who has divine discontent is the most fortunate, because only those who are afire with a desire to know god will be able to know him. And the fire has to be a total fire; one has to burn at the optimum. Just a little holding back and one misses. The ego has to be completely dissolved into the desire for god. One has to die, and that’s the only way to life abundant.

 

People are in discontent, but their discontent is about things – prestige, power, money, et cetera. The same discontent has to be turned and focussed on god. Once all the discontent of life is focussed on god, it creates tremendous energy… energy that can transform you just by its sheer presence. You can ride on the wave of it.

 

People are discontented about the wrong things and contented with the wrong things too. People are topsy-turvy, upside-down. Discontent ordinarily is extrovert, but people are very contented with their own beings as they are – no desire, no urge to be transformed, not even a small flicker to be something else, to reach to the peaks of being, to have new plenitudes of consciousness.

 

People go on exploring the mountains, the Himalayas and the moon, but they never turn in. There they think all is as it should be, or they have not even meditated upon it at all – that man as he exists is only a potential, just a seed of great possibilities, that man as he is, is not yet actual, not yet real. The realisation has to happen. And only those who become actual, real, live life in its totality and become aware of the mysteries of existence.

 

Their joy is infinite and their ecstasy unending. This is the meaning of your name. Let your sannyas become a great divine discontent. God has to be found, and all has to be staked in the risk. My sannyasin has to be a gambler. And the meaning of satyarthi is of immense significance – it means a seeker of truth. There are very few people in the world who are really in search of truth. Even those who say they are in search of truth are not in search of truth.

 

They are in search of consolation, they are in search of a beautiful lie, they are in search of a fiction, an illusion. They have already decided what truth is and then they start searching! That is taking the very first step in a wrong direction. The real seeker of truth moves without any conclusion. He knows not, he starts from absolute ignorance. He has no idea of what truth is. He can’t have any idea, because he knows not !

 

His whole search consists in being open to it, whatsoever it is. He is not in search of a particular truth that the tradition has given to him. He is not in search of a certain idea of truth. He is simply in search of what this existence is, what this now is, what this here is, with no idea, with no prejudice, with no concept, with no a priori conclusion. He opens himself to reality – naked, utterly naked, indefensible, vulnerable.

 

The man who has already decided will find whatsoever he has decided, because he will project it, he will invent it, he will create it around himself. But that will be just a mind creation, it will be a dream dreamed so deeply that it looks as if it is real. And the more this so-called truth becomes real, the more he will become real; the more the dream becomes real, the more the dreamer becomes unreal.

 

Both can’t be real together; this is something to be understood. Either the dreamer is real, then the dream disappears; or the dream is real, then the dreamer becomes completely unconscious. So those who have decided according to the Gita, according to the Koran, according to the Dhammapada – those who have already decided according to some book or some teaching or some tradition, will create it, they will find it. But it will not be truth – it will be their truth but not the truth, and the truth is nobody’s. To know it one has to drop all accumulated mind.

 

This is the greatest adventure in life; no other adventure can be compared to this. Its ecstasy is great, but courage is needed to be utterly naked with reality, with no mind, to be with reality without the barrier of the mind. That is the meaning of satyarthi: existentially one has to enquire into the reality that is, that which is, that surrounds us, within and without.

 

There is no need to go to second-hand sources. Truth is available first-hand. Truth is constantly available, immediately available; there is no need to bring in Buddha or Mahavir or Krishna. And the beauty is: when you know it without bringing anybody in, they are fulfilled in you. And if you bring them in, you will be simply creating it; it will be your own script. And existence is so cooperative that if you want to create a dream it cooperates; it is so generous, its generosity is infinite. So even if you are dreaming it helps you to dream.

 

So there are millions of people who think they are searching for truth. They are not searching for truth; they are searching for their idea of truth. And how can truth be your idea or my idea or anybody else’s idea? Truth is simply truth. In fact it cannot be an idea at all, it is an experience.

 

Let this sannyas become a great enquiry into truth. And the deeper you go into it, the more aware you become of all the blessings that are constantly being showered on you. The more you go into it, the more sensitive you become – to colour, to taste, to sound, to beauty. Life starts becoming richer and richer and richer. The really religious person is the richest, because his perception is infinite, his clarity is infinite, his depth is infinite, his love is infinite and his sense of mystery is infinite. And these are all the aspects of truth. Good! Start meditating. Have you tried the meditation here? Choose one, any one.

 

-Osho,  “Don’t Look Before You Leap, #16”