What is the
Purpose of Life?
Beloved Osho,
If everything is simply happening, then can
there be any ultimate purpose to it all, or is life just an accident? Can it be
said that life is evolving towards some ultimate goal?
It is very difficult, particularly
for the Western mind, to understand that life is purposeless. And it is
beautiful that it is purposeless. If it is purposeful then the whole thing
becomes absurd — then who will decide the purpose? Then some God has to be
conceived who decides the purpose, and then human beings become just puppets;
then no freedom is possible. And if there is some purpose then life becomes
businesslike, it cannot be ecstatic.
The West has been thinking in
terms of purpose, but the East has been thinking in terms of purposelessness.
The East says life is not a business, it is a play. And a play has no purpose
really, it is nonpurposeful. Or you can say play is its own purpose, to play is
enough. Life is not reaching towards some goal, life itself is the goal. It is
not evolving towards some ultimate; this very moment, here and now, life is
ultimate.
Life as it is, is accepted in
the East. It is not moving towards some end, because if there is some end who
will decide the end and why? If God decides it, then you can ask the same
question about God: “What is the purpose of creating a world with purpose?” or,
“Why should he create a purposive world?” or even more deeply, “What is the
purpose of God’s existence?”
Maybe life has a purpose and
God decides the purpose, but then God’s existence has to be questioned — why he
exists — and that way the question is simply pushed one step ahead. Then God
becomes purposeless, or you have to create another God to decide the purpose of
this God. Then you will be in a regress ad infinitum, then there is no end to
it. Somewhere deep down you will have to come to the conclusion that this
phenomenon is purposeless; otherwise there is no end.
So why go from the world to the
God? Why not say that life itself is purposeless? The whole game of logicians,
theologicians, is stupid in a way. They say, “God created the world, because
how could the world come into existence if there was no one who created it?”
But the question can be asked, “Who created the God?” — and then they fall on
their own. They say, “God is uncreated.” If God can exist without being
created, why can’t this life itself exist without being created? If you accept
that something is possible without being created, then what is the trouble?
Then why think about a God who created the world?
The East says God is not the
creator, God is the creation. Nobody has created it, it is there. It has been
so always, it will be so always — sometimes manifest, sometimes unmanifest;
sometimes visible, sometimes invisible. It goes on moving in a periodical
rhythm, in a circle. But existence itself is uncreated and it has no goal.
Then think about it in other
ways also. Firstly, if there is a goal why hasn’t it been achieved yet? The
existence has been existing timelessly, millions and millions of light-years it
has existed, and the goal has not been reached yet. When will it be reached? If
so many millions and millions of light-years have passed and the goal is
nowhere to be seen, when will it be reached? Secondly, if some day the goal is
reached, what will happen to existence? Will it disappear? When the purpose is
fulfilled, then what? Conceive of a moment somewhere in the future when the
purpose is fulfilled: for what will existence exist then? Then it will be
purposeless for it to exist.
The reality is this: that it is
already always purposeless. There is no goal towards which the existence is
moving. It is moving, but not towards any goal. It has a value, but the value
is not in the end, the value is intrinsic.
You love someone. Have you
asked the question, “For what purpose does love exist?” The mind, a calculating
mind, is bound to ask, “Why love? What is the purpose?” If you can answer then
one thing is certain — that you are not in love. If you can show the purpose
then love is not there, it is a business, it is a bargain. But lovers will
always say there is no purpose to it. To be in love is the goal. The goal is
not somewhere else; it is intrinsic, it is in the very phenomenon of love. The
goal is already achieved. When you are happy have you asked, “What is the
purpose of being happy?” Can there be any purpose to being happy? When you are
happy you never ask because the question is absurd. Happiness is itself the
goal, there is no purpose to it.
Life is like love, life is like
happiness. Life is existence — no goal. And once you can understand this your
ways of living will change totally, because if there is no purpose in life
itself there is no need to create a purpose for your individual life also — no
need. Because of individual purposes you become tense, something has to be
achieved. Then an achieving mind is created which is always trying to achieve
something or other. And whenever something is achieved again the mind asks,
“Now what? What is to be achieved now?” It cannot remain with itself, it has to
go on achieving.
This achieving mind will never
be blissful, it will always be tense. And whenever something is achieved the
achieving mind will feel frustrated, because now new goals have to be invented.
This is happening in America. Many of the goals of the past century have been
achieved, so America is in a deep frustration. All the goals of the founding
fathers who created America and the American constitution are almost achieved.
In America the society has become affluent for the first time in the whole
history of mankind. Almost everybody is rich. The poor man in America is a rich
man here in India.
The goals have almost been
achieved — now what to do? Society has become affluent: food is there, shelter
is there, everybody has got a car, radio, refrigerator, tv — now what to do? A
deep frustration is felt, some other goals are needed. And there seem to be no
goals. Instead of one car you can have two cars — a two-car garage has become
the goal — or you can have two houses, but that will be achieved within ten
years. Whatsoever the goal it can be achieved. Then the achieving mind feels
frustrated. What to do now? It again needs a goal, and you have to invent a
goal.
So the whole of American
business now depends on inventing goals. Give people goals — that’s what
advertisements and the whole business of advertising is doing. Create goals,
seduce people: “Now this is the goal! You must have this, otherwise life is
purposeless!” They start running, because they have an achieving mind. But where
does it lead? It leads into more and more neurosis.
Only a nonachieving mind can be
at peace. But a nonachieving mind is possible only with the background of a
cosmic purposelessness. If the whole existence is purposeless then there is no
need for you to be purposeful. Then you can play, you can sing and dance, you
can enjoy, you can love and live, and there is no need to create any goal. Here
and now, this very moment, the ultimate is present. If you are available the
ultimate can enter you. But you are not available here; your mind is somewhere
in the future, in some goal.
Life has got no purpose and
this is the beauty of it. If there was some purpose life would have been mean —
just futile. It is not a business, it is a play. In India we have been calling
it leela. Leela means a cosmic play… as if God is playing. Energy overflowing,
not for some purpose, just enjoying itself; just a small child playing — for
what purpose? Running after butterflies, collecting colored stones on the
beach, dancing under the sun, running under the trees, collecting flowers — for
what purpose? Ask a child. He will look at you as if you are a fool. There is
no need for purpose.
Your mind has been corrupted.
Universities, colleges, education, society, have corrupted you. They have made
it a conditioning deep down within you that unless something has a purpose it
is useless — so everything must have a purpose. A child playing has no purpose.
At the most, if the child could explain he would say, “Because I feel good.
Running, I feel more alive. Collecting flowers, I enjoy, it is ecstatic.” But
there is no purpose. The very act in itself is beautiful, ecstatic. To be alive
is enough, there is no need for any purpose.
Why ask for anything else?
Can’t you be satisfied just by being alive? It is such a phenomenon. Just think
of yourself being a stone. You could have been, because many are still stones.
You must have been somewhere in the past, sometime, a stone. Think of yourself
being a tree. You must have been somewhere a tree, a bird, an animal, an
insect. And then think of yourself being a man — conscious, alert, the peak,
the climax of all possibilities. And you are not content with it. You need a
purpose, otherwise life is useless.
Your mind has been corrupted by
economists, mathematicians, theologians. They have corrupted your mind, because
they all talk about purpose. They say, “Do something if something is achieved
through it. Don’t do anything which leads nowhere.” But I tell you that the
more you can enjoy things which are useless, the happier you will be. The more
you can enjoy things which are purposeless, the more innocent and blissful you
will be.
When you don’t need any purpose
you simply celebrate your being. You feel gratitude just that you are, just
that you breathe. It is such a blessing that you can breathe, that you are
alert, conscious, alive, aflame. Is it not enough? Do you need something to
achieve so that you can feel good, so that you can feel valued, so that you can
feel life is justified? What more can you achieve than what you are? What more
can be added to your life? What more can you add to it? Nothing can be added,
and the effort will destroy you — the effort to add something.
But for many centuries all over
the world they have been teaching every child to be purposive. “Don’t waste
your time! Don’t waste your life!” And what do they mean? They mean, “Transform
your life into a bank balance. When you die you must die rich. That is the
purpose.”
Here in the East — particularly
the mystics we are talking about, the Upanishads — they say, “Live richly.” In
the West they say, “Die a rich man.” And these are totally different things. If
you want to live richly you have to live here and now, not a single moment is
to be lost. If you want to achieve something, you will die a rich man — but you
will live a poor man, your life will be poor.
Look at rich people: their life
is absolutely poor, because they are wasting it transforming it into bank
balances, changing their life into money, into big houses, big cars. Their whole
effort is that life has to be changed for some things. When they die you can
count their things.
Buddha became a beggar. He was
born a king, he became a beggar. Why? Just to live richly… because he came to
understand that there are two ways to live: one is to die richly, the other is
to live richly. And any man who has any understanding will choose to live
richly, because dying a rich man doesn’t mean anything; you simply wasted
yourself for nothing. But this is possible only if you can conceive that the
whole existence is purposeless; it is a cosmic play, a continuous beautiful
game, a beautiful hide-and-seek — not leading anywhere. Nowhere is the goal.
If this is the background, then
you need not be worried about individual purposes, evolution, progress. This
word progress is the basic disease of the modern age. What is the need? All
that can be enjoyed is available, all that you need to be happy is here and
now. But you create conditions and you say that unless these conditions are
fulfilled you cannot be happy. You say, “These conditions must be fulfilled
first: this type of house, this type of clothes, this type of car, this type of
wife, this type of husband. All these conditions have to be fulfilled first,
then I can be happy.” As if by being happy you are going to oblige the whole
universe.
And who is going to fulfill
your conditions? Who is worried? But you will try for those conditions, and the
effort is going to be so long that they can never be fulfilled really, because
whenever something is fulfilled, by the time it is fulfilled the goal has
shifted.
A meditator needs a
nonachieving mind, but a nonachieving mind is possible only if you can be
content with purposelessness. Just try to understand the whole cosmic play and
be a part in it. Don’t be serious, because a play can never be serious. And
even if the play needs you to be serious, be playfully serious, don’t be really
serious. Then this very moment becomes rich. Then this very moment you can move
into the ultimate.
The ultimate is not in the
future, it is the present, hidden here and now. So don’t ask about purpose —
there is none, and I say it is beautiful that there is none. If there was
purpose then your God would be just a managing director or a big business man,
an industrialist, or something like that.
Jesus says… Somebody asked him,
“Who will be able to enter into the kingdom of your God?”
Jesus said, “Those who are like
small children.” This is the secret. What is the meaning of being a small
child? The meaning is that the child is never businesslike, he is always
playful.
If you can become playful you
have become a child again, and only children can enter into the kingdom of God,
nobody else, because children can play without asking where it is leading. They
can make houses of sand without asking whether they are going to be permanent.
Can somebody live in them? Will they be able to resist the wind that is
blowing? They know that within minutes they will disappear. But they are very
serious when they are playing. They can even fight for their sandhouses or
houses of cards. They are very serious when they are creating. They are
enjoying. And they are not fools, they know that these houses are just
cardhouses and everything is makebelieve.
Why waste time in thinking in
terms of business? Why not live more and more playfully, nonseriously,
ecstatically? Ecstasy is not something which you can achieve by some efforts,
ecstasy is a way of living. Moment to moment you have to be ecstatic, simple
things have to be enjoyed. And life gives millions of opportunities to enjoy.
You will miss them if you are purposive.
If you are not purposive, every
moment you will have so many opportunities to be ecstatic. A flower, a lonely
flower in the garden… you can dance if you are nonpurposive. The first star in
the evening… you can sing if you are nonpurposive. A beautiful face… you can
see the divine in it if you are nonpurposive. All around the divine is
happening, the ultimate is showering. But you will be able to see it only if
you are non-purposive and playful.
