How does this mechanism of hope function? Whenever you are in misery, sad, depressed, you immediately escape from it, you try to forget it. That’s how it continues. The next time you are miserable — and you will not have to wait long; the moment my talk is finished you will be — don’t try to escape. My talk may also be functioning as an escape — you listen to me, you forget yourself. You listen to me, you have to be attentive towards me, but towards yourself you turn your back. You forget, you forget what your real situation is. I talk about bliss, I talk about ecstasy. That is real to me, but to you it becomes a dream. Again it becomes the hope that if you meditate, if you work for it, then it is going to happen to you also. Don’t use it as a drug. You can use a Master as a drug, and you can be drugged.

 

My whole effort is to make you more aware, so whenever you are in misery don’t try to escape. Hope is the enemy. Don’t hope, and don’t dream against the reality. If you are sad, then sadness is the reality. Remain with it; remain with it, don’t move, concentrate on it. Face it, let it be. Don’t move to the opposite of it. It is going to be a very bitter experience in the beginning, be cause when you face sadness, it surrounds you from every, where. You become like a small island and sadness is an ocean all around — and such great waves of sadness! One feels afraid, one feels a trembling to the very being. Tremble, be afraid. Only don’t do one thing — don’t escape. Let it be, penetrate deeply into it. See, watch — don’t judge. You have been doing that for millions of lives. Just watch, penetrate into it. Soon, the bitter experience will not be so bitter. Soon, out of the bitter en, counter arises reality. Soon you will be moving, penetrating deeper and deeper — and you will find the cause, what the cause of misery is, why you are so miserable.

 

The cause is not outside, it is within you, hidden in your misery. Misery is just like smoke. Somewhere there is fire inside you; penetrate deep into the smoke so you can find the fire. Nobody can put the smoke out because it is a by-product. But if you put the fire out, the smoke disappears of its own accord. Find the cause, the effect disappears because then some. thing can be done. Remember, only with the cause can some. thing be done, never with the effect. If you go on fighting with the effect, all fight is in vain. That is the meaning of Patanjali’s method of prati-prasav: go back to the cause, penetrate the effect and reach to the cause. The cause must be there some where. The effect is just like smoke surrounding you; but once the smoke surrounds you, you escape into hope. You dream about days when there will be no smoke. This is all foolish. Not only is it foolish, but suicidal, because this is how you are missing the cause.

 

Patanjali says ‘the discriminating person’. The Sanskrit word is vivek — it means awareness, it means consciousness, it means discriminating force. Because through awareness, you can discriminate between what is what: what is real, what is false, what is the effect and what is the cause.

 

The discriminating person, the man of vivek, the man of awareness, realizes that everything leads to misery. As you are, everything leads to misery. And if you remain as you are, everything will go on leading to misery. It is not a question of changing the situations, it is a question of a very deep-rooted thing within you. Something within you frustrates the very possibility of bliss. Something in you goes against your flowering into a blissful state. The man of awareness comes to know that everything leads to misery, everything.

 

You have done everything, but have you watched that everything leads to misery? If you hate, it leads to misery; if you love, it leads to misery. There seems to be no logical system in life. A man hates, it leads to misery. Simple logic will say that if hate leads to misery then love must lead to happiness. Then you love, and love also leads to misery. What is this? Is life absolutely absurd, irrational? Is there no logic? Is it a chaos? You do what soever you want, and finally comes misery. It seems that misery is the road and every road leads to it. From wherever you want to start, you can start: right, left, in the middle; Hindu, Mohammedan, Christian, Jain; man, woman, knowledge, ignorance, love, hate everything leads to misery. If you are angry it leads to misery; if you are not angry, that too leads to misery. It seems that misery is there and whatsoever you do is irrelevant. Finally, you come to it.

 

I have heard a story, and I have loved it always.

 

A psychoanalyst was visiting a madhouse. He asked the superintendent about a madman who was crying and weeping and beating his head against the wall. He had a beautiful picture of a woman in his hand. Asked the psychoanalyst, ‘What has happened to this man?’ The superintendent said, ‘This man loved this woman very much. He went mad because the woman did not agree to marry him. That’s why he has gone mad.’ Logical, simple, but next door to him was another madman and he was also crying and weeping and beating his head. He had a picture of the same woman in his hand, and he was spitting on the picture and using four letter words. Asked the psychoanalyst, ‘What has happened to this man? He has the same picture. What is the matter?’ The superintendent said, ‘This man was also madly in love with that same woman, and she agreed and married him. That’s why he is mad.’

 

Whether a woman rejects or accepts makes no difference; whether you get married or you don’t get married makes no difference. I have seen poor people in misery, I have seen rich people in misery. I have seen failures in misery, I have seen those who have succeeded in misery. Whatsoever you do, finally you come to the goal, and it is misery. Does every road lead to hell? What’s the matter? Then there seems to be no choice.

 

Yes, everything leads to misery — if you remain the same. I will tell you another thing: if you change, everything leads to heaven. If you remain the same, it is you, not what you do. What you do is irrelevant. Deep down, it is you. Whether you hate — you will hate — or whether you love — you will love — it is you who finally creates the phenomenon of misery or ecstasy, misery or bliss — unless you change. Just changing from hate to love, from this woman to that woman, this house to that house, won’t help. You are wasting time and energy. You have to change yourself.

 

- Osho, “Yoga: The Alpha and the Omega, Vol 4, #9″