Question :

Osho,

Is Vairagya, Nonattachment, a method, a means, an intermediate stage, or an end in itself?

 

 

It is all – because means and ends are not two things. The way and the goal are not two things. The way is just the beginning of the goal, and the goal is just the ending of the way. So please, don’t divide, and don’t think in terms of the means being different from the end. Means are the end. Once you can conceive of this, the quality of your effort will change immediately.

 

Ordinarily mind is always concerned with the end; means are used, exploited, to reach the end. If you could avoid the means you would like to avoid them; if you could achieve the end directly without any means, if you could reach the goal without the way, without the path, you would like to do so. You would like to reach the goal immediately.

 

The mind divides ends and means; end is meaningful, means are just necessary, they have to be suffered. This is how the ordinary mind functions, and because of this whatsoever you do becomes a suffering – because you have to pass through the path, you have to use means, methods, and therein is all suffering.

 

Happiness is in the goal, somewhere in the future, not here and now. Here and now will be means and the end will be somewhere else, somewhere in the future, tomorrow – so today will always be a suffering. And remember, if your today is a suffering your tomorrow cannot be a happiness, because it is born of today, it comes out of this moment. The future comes out of the present, so whatsoever the present the same will remain in the future.

 

If you are suffering now you will suffer then also. If you are suffering here you will find the hell there also – because who will find that heaven which you think is there? You? Your whole attitude creates the suffering. So those who are on the spiritual path must be aware of this tendency of the mind. Forget the end and look at the means as if they are the end, and enjoy them as if they are the goal.

 

Then the very path becomes blissful, the very journey itself becomes blissful. Every step becomes blissful, because you are not waiting for the bliss, for the next step. And out of this blissful step the next is going to be born – it will be more blissful. The tomorrow will be more blissful if today is blissful, and the bliss will grow.

 

We are doing meditations. These meditations are means, but they are goals also; so don’t try to exploit them, otherwise you will be in a hurry, you will constantly think of how to be finished with them and reach the goal. Then you will never be able to be finished with them and the goal will always remain illusory, always like the horizon, always distant. And the more you move ahead, the goal will also move ahead in the same proportion.

 

Ends and means are not two things. Don’t divide. The end is just the flowering of the means, the end is just the realization of the means. The end is hidden in the means, just like the tree is hidden in the seed. The seed is the tree. Don’t look at the seed as if the seed has some secondary importance and the tree is meaningful and significant, and you can avoid the seed. If you avoid the seed the tree will never be there. Take care of the seed, love the seed, give soil to it, prepare the ground, and help the seed to grow. It will become the tree.

 

It is already the tree unmanifest. So let me say it in this way: means are the unmanifest end, and end is the manifest means. Means are seeds, and ends will be the trees, the flowering – so love the means as the end.

 

Vairagya is all, nonattachment is all. It is the beginning, it is the middle, it is the end. It is a method, it is an intermediate stage, it is the goal. Desirelessness is the end – but the end must be there in the beginning, only then can it grow. So desirelessness is both the first step and the last also. Of course the quality will differ. In the first step the desirelessness will be with effort, in the intermediate stage desirelessness will have become unconscious effort.

 

In the beginning it will be conscious effort, you will have to do it; in the middle it will start happening, it will have become unconscious effort. Effort will be there, but indirect, unconscious. In the end it will be spontaneous, effort will have completely disappeared. But desirelessness is the same. Desirelessness in the beginning is with conscious effort, in the middle is with unconscious effort, in the end is effortless.

 

Avoid this tendency to divide, to cut things, and see that every phenomenon is a continuity,everything is joined together. Even those things which look opposite are also joined together, they are also polarities. Develop this way of looking at things – that will be very helpful. For those who are really sincerely interested in traveling this inner path, this approach of nondividing is a must.

 

– Osho, "Vedanta - Seven Steps to Samadhi, #9"