Consciousness is life; sleep is a form of death. Consciousness is the light of awareness that fills the heart; sleep is the darkness that is ridden with misery, pain and remorse. If this is how you feel, know well that you are in darkness. But you must understand that you are asleep, you must understand this state before you can awaken from it. To appreciate the desire for freedom you must first experience imprisonment.

 

I ask everyone to look inside, to be introspective. If you have any inclination whatsoever to escape form your inner mind, from your inner feelings, it is just an attempt to flee from the darkness you have encountered there. I meet people every day and have the opportunity to study many of them at length. One thing is common to them all, and that is suffering. Everyone is caught in a net of deep misery, entangled in a web of intense anxiety.

 

Everyone seems to be choked by a sense of suffocation. Is it the same with you? Do you have the same feeling of claustrophobia as well? Everywhere I look I see a lack of purpose; there is an atmosphere of boredom and of frustration all around. Is this what life is about? Are you satisfied with this? Have you not had enough yet? Is this life? or is this death?

 

Life is a totally different proposition altogether. It is a whole other experience – one you are not familiar with at all. I tell you this for a reason, because I too once mistook this so-called life for the real thing. This is a natural mistake, because unless your are aware that there is an alternative you will accept what you know as life. This is not a conscious mistake, it is an error of ignorance. But the tiniest thought about the self, the most minute attention to one’s inner being can eradicate this ignorance.

 

You should not accept whatsoever is presented to you, for this is blind, unconscious reacting. Thought is conscious, and so it can destroy all illusions. Thought is diametrically opposed to belief, which is completely unconscious. So to attain to a life that is real it is necessary to follow the path of thinking, not the cul de sac of belief. Belief is blind acceptance; thought is alert investigation. Those who accept everything blindly have no incentive whatsoever to move ahead. The greatest hurdle on the path to knowledge is this tendency to believe.

 

Belief is the only real barrier that stands in the way of freedom of thought. The chains of belief impede progress. Do not get caught in this trap. You will only attain to a life that is authentic through your own investigation. Do not be satisfied with life as it is. It is not real. It has no meaning, no validity. It is only an episode, just a part of the overall evolution of life.

 

I have heard a story of an old man who wanted to choose an heir before this death, and so he decided to put his two sons to a test. He gave each of them some wheat seeds, said he would be away for a while on a pilgrimage and told them to look after the seeds carefully. The first son stored the seeds is in an underground cellar; the second son planted them. Some years later, when the old man returned, he found that the seeds he had given the first son had rotted away while the second son’s seeds had increased a thousandfold.

 

Life is also like this. Life is like a seed; its potential is latent, hidden within it. Only the man who realizes this potential can become the master of his inner being.Each of us has the opportunity to grow. And reaching the greatest level of attainment possible, reaching the highest peak there is, is becoming real.

 

- Osho, "The Long, the Short and the All, #4"