Why This Guru Told Me That To Be Happy I Should Drop My Goal-Oriented Life

Because “Life is a purposeless play.”

A disciple asked the Guru:

“You have said that there are no goals in life…no purpose. Yet we are all here with enlightenment as our goal. Can you explain this?”

The Guru said:

“If you are here with enlightenment as your goal, you cannot be here.

Physically you may appear to be here but you cannot be with me.

The goal is in the future.

I am here and the goal-oriented mind is bound to be in the future.

We will never meet.

I know, you are here to attend something [to be spiritually enlightened].

But that’s why you are missing it.

I am here to persuade you to drop the idea of attending anything whatsoever: enlightenment, moksha…God included.

If you drop this goal-oriented mind — and there is no other mind besides a goal-oriented mind — if you drop it, you are enlightened.

Enlightenment is not a search.

It is a realization.

It is not a goal.

It is the very nature of life itself.

As life is, it is enlightened.

It needs nothing to be edited or improved.

Life is perfect.

It is not moving from imperfection to perfection.

It is moving from perfection to perfection.

You are here to attend something… but that is functioning as a barrier.

Drop this barrier.

Just be here.

Forget about any purpose.

Life cannot have any purpose.

Life is the purpose.

How can it have any other purpose?

Otherwise, you will be in an infinite regress.

Because then that purpose will have another purpose, then that purpose will have another purpose.

Life has no purpose. And that’s why it is so beautiful.

Hindus have called it “Leela” — a play.

It is not a game.

Now, in the West, the game has become very important: hundreds of books have been published with the title, “The Master Game”, “The Ultimate Game” and so on.

But there is a difference between game and play.

Hindus have called it a play not a game because even a game has a purpose: a result to be attempted, victory to be achieved, the upper wind has to be conquered. Then a play becomes a game.

It becomes serious.

Grown-ups play games. Children only play. Just the very activity in and of itself has an intrinsic end. There is no goal to it.

Life is a Leela. It is a play. The moment you are ready to play, you are enlightened.

Try to understand from some other dimension.

You are already that which you are trying to be.

The more you will try, the more you will miss.

You should leave all your effort.

Just accept yourself.

Suddenly it is there because it has always been there but you were seeking so seriously — that was the only cause of missing it.

You are here to attend something: enlightenment, samadhi, satori, or whatever.

To me, all those words are nonsense.

Because they again give you a new line of desiring.

They open a door of desire.

In the world you desire money, power, prestige which you get fed up with when you see the whole thing is rubbish because if you don’t get them, you are defeated; If you do get them, you are still defeated.

Then you come to feel that this whole thing is nonsense.

Now suddenly you start playing new games: enlightenment, meditation, yoga, God, the other world, the other “source”.

Again, the mind is at ease because a new world of desires has opened, now you will be after these goals.

And by the way, money is not so elusive as meditation: This world at least is solid so you understand money. That spiritual shore, that world, the other world, is absolute fantasy.

Now in chasing that meditative goal, you are in a deeper ditch than before. With the first [money] you could realize that it is useless. With the second [spiritual], it could take millions of lives to realize that this too is useless.

When one comes to realize that all goals are useless, with no exception, then there is nothing to do.

One just has to be.

One relaxes.

And One relaxes so totally because there is nothing to do, there is no tension.

Suddenly, your boundaries melt, as is the snow melting in the morning.

With nothing to do, you disappear, your ego disappears.

With nothing to do, with nothing to be, nothing to achieve, who will you be? The whole identity evaporates.

This is enlightenment.

Then you start a different way of life.

You start being playful.

You start being alive from moment to moment.

Nowhere to go.

Whatever life gives you, you accept with deep gratitude, grace, happiness.

This is what I’ll call becoming a God.

The moment you start playing in the moment, you have become a God.

I am here to persuade you that you are already Gods.

You may be here to become Gods…but I am here to persuade you to look at your own face once again, to search within, and to not go about searching for something that doesn’t exist.

Life is a purposeless play.

A play of infinite forces.

Beautiful if you do not have an achiever’s mind.

Ugly if you have the ambition to become something, to be something, to do something.

Relax.

Drop the future completely.

Only this moment exists and this moment is eternity.

And only this life is all that is there.

Like the Chinese allegory about the man who wanted to find Buddha: the man returned from the middle of the river.

Why did he cut his trip short and return laughing?

Because he suddenly realized that he himself is the Buddha he was seeking.

Zen Masters teach to their disciples that when meditating if you come across Buddha, kill him immediately.

Do not despair a single moment.

Kill him immediately! Otherwise, he will lead you astray.

While you are meditating, Krishna comes with his flute — it’s so beautiful — but again you are dreaming.

Again you are caught in a dream and desire.

Then Jesus comes, and you are caught in the web of the mind.

It is a spider’s web.

And then Buddha comes and you forget yourself.

Zen Master said,

“Kill the Buddha immediately!”

“Clear the way!”

“Don’t allow anyone else to be there!”

That is to say, don’t allow any goals to be there.

Just be alone in your absolute purity. This is enlightenment.

I will repeat because I know you will forget.

You are already that which you are seeking.

Let this be the basic mantra.

If you can understand this mantra, you have understood it all.

You have given too much life to your goals.

Now try living moment to moment, as if there is no future.

In the beginning, it will only be “as if” but by and by you will become aware that that “as if” is the only reality.

In the beginning, it may be like acting.

Soon you will realize that that acting is the only reality.

You have come to me with a goal but I won’t allow you to remain with a goal.”

Thank you for reading. These words of wisdom were spoken by Osho.

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