one can miss one's whole life

Sunday, 17 January 2010 at 12:53
Watch--one can miss one's whole life for ordinary, mundane things. To be spiritual means to understand that these small things should not be given too much importance. I am not saying that they are meaningless. I am saying that they are meaningful but not as meaningful as you think.
Money is needed. It is a need. But money is not the goal and cannot be the goal. A house is needed, certainly. It is a need. I am not an ascetic and I don't want you to destroy your houses and escape to the Himalayas. The house is needed--but the house is needed for you. Don' misunderstand it.
As I see people, the whole thing has gone topsy-turvy. They exist as if they are needed for the house. They go on working for the house. As if they are needed for the bank balance--they simply go on collecting money and then they die. And then they had never lived. They had never a single moment of throbbing, streaming life. They were just imprisoned in security, familiarity, respectability.
Then if you feel bored, it is natural. People come to me and they say they feel very bored. They feel fed up, stuck, what to do? They think that just by repeating a mantra they will become again alive. It is not so easy. They will have to change their whole life pattern.
Love, but don't think that tomorrow the woman will be available to you. Don't expect. Don't reduce the woman into a wife. Then you are living dangerously. Don't reduce the man into a husband, because a husband is an ugly thing. Let your man be your man and your woman your woman, and don't make your tomorrow predictable. Expect nothing and be ready for everything. That's what I mean when I say live dangerously.
What we do? We fall in love with a woman and immediately we start going to the court, or to the registry office, or to the church, to get married. I'm not saying don't get married. It is a formality. Good, satisfy the society, but deep in your mind never possess the woman. Never for a single moment say that "you belong to me". Because how can a person belong to you? And when you start possessing the woman, she will start possessing you. Then you both are no longer in love. You are just crushing and killing each others, paralyzing each other.
Love, but don't let your love degrade into marriage. Work--work is needed--but don't let work become your only life. Play should remain your life, your center of life. Work should be just a means toward play. Work in the office and work in the factory and work in the shop, but just to have time, opportunity, to play. Don't let your life be reduced into just a working routine--because the goal is play!
Play means doing something for its own sake. If you enjoy many more things for their own sake, you will be more alive. Of course, your life will always be in risk, in danger. But that' how life has tobe. Risk is part of it. In fact the better part of it is risk, the best part of it is risk. It is every moment a risk. You may not be aware... You breathe in, you breathe out--who knows whether the breath will come back or not? It is not certain, there is no guarantee.

Courage -- The Joy of Living Dangerously by Osho