Are all desires insane?

ARE ALL DESIRES INSANE?

Yes, all desires are insane. Desire as such is insane because desire means living in the future, and the future does not exist at all. What exists is the present. Objects of desire are not significant; desiring is significant. You can desire wealth, you can desire God– desiring remains the same, only the object has changed. You can desire a palace here, you can desire a palace in paradise– objects have changed, but the desire remains the same. You can desire anything whatsoever, desire will be the same. Remember this.

To live in the present is the only sanity there is, but to live in the present you have to drop all desiring. Desire takes you away from now and here. Desire means fantasizing about the tomorrow. Desire means: “If this happens, if I can manage this, then I will live.” You are sacrificing the present for the future, and the present IS and the future IS NOT. Sacrificing that which is, for that which is not, is insanity, sheer insanity.

A high-pressure salesman for a milking-machine company seemed unable to convince a farmer to buy his appliance.

“There’s no use talking,” persisted the farmer, “I’ve only got one cow to milk.”

“But this machine will save you time in milking even one cow,” he insisted. “Look! It is just about milking time now. Let’s go to the barn and I’ll show you.”

In the barn the salesman set up his machine and began the demonstration, carrying on meanwhile his persuasive flow of talk. The old man began to take a keen interest in the proceedings as he beheld the wondrous efficiency of the milker.

“Well, mister,” the farmer conceded at last, “I admit it’s wonderful. I’d like mighty well to have it, but I’ve got no money and no way of borrowing any.”

He paused and looked longingly at the shining machine. “I tell you, though, what I’m willing to do,” he went on, “I’ll let you take the cow as the first payment.”

That’s what you all are doing — sacrificing the present for the future, sacrificing that which you have for that which you have not yet and may not have ever. The tomorrow never comes. All that comes is always today, and you can become addicted to sacrificing the today for the tomorrow. Then you will go on doing the same thing your whole life — always sacrificing the now for something which is not.

This is how people are living. That’s why their life remains a desert with no oasis; nothing flowers, nothing blossoms, no fragrance, no festivity. People look so sad, with such long faces. The whole earth seems to have suddenly turned very religious.

Just the other day I received a letter from an old woman — I loved her letter. Her son was a sannyasin and he died just two weeks ago in a car accident. She writes to me: “I am grateful to you, because just before he died he came to see me after many many days, and he was so happy. I have never seen him so happy — he was almost dancing. And he was so loving to me…I have never seen him so loving. There has never been such a communion between me and him. There was always something like a wall separating us, but the day he came to see me, all barriers dropped. Although he died and I will never be able to see him again, I am immensely happy and grateful to you that you had made him laugh and sing and enjoy and you had helped him to drop his seriousness. He died joyously.”

It is from a mother. It is very difficult for a mother to accept the death of her son. But she could accept even the death, although she knows nothing of sannyas and she has never been here. But the one thing she understood was that something very essential had changed in the life of her son. She is not at all sad about his death. She is happy that before he died he had attained something; he had not lived in vain.

Desires are crazy. They make you sad in two ways: if they are not fulfilled you will be sad, frustrated; if they are fulfilled you will be sad and frustrated — in fact, more so, because when your desires are fulfilled, then you suddenly recognize that you have been chasing shadows, illusions. You have been trying to catch hold of a rainbow, and all that you find is that your hands are wet, that’s all!

People go on asking for the impossible; in fact, the more impossible a thing is, the more attractive it appears because it gives a challenge to your ego. The ego is not interested in the easy, it is interested in the difficult, and if it is impossible, it is immensely interested.

The ego exists only through the difficult and the impossible. That’s why the ego is not interested in God, because God is the simplest phenomenon in the world. You don’t have to do anything to achieve God, because he is already inside. You don’t have to do a thing. You have just to sit silently and watch and look in, and you will find him. It is so easy; that’s why the ego is not interested in it at all. The ego is interested in climbing Everest. And what are you going to find there? What did Edmund Hillary find on Everest? Nobody asks him; there was nothing to find.

People are more interested in reaching Everest, the moon, Mars, than in reaching their own innermost self, because that is no challenge to the ego.

God is so obvious; that’s why he is missed. Truth is so easily available; that’s why nobody is interested in it. Nirvana is now, and the mind is not interested in now at all, it is always somewhere else.

One Buddhist, Nagarjuna, is reported to have said that the desire to become a buddha is the greatest barrier to becoming a buddha– because unless you stop desiring to become a buddha you will not come to know that you are already a buddha. This desiring dissolve and your buddhahood appears; it is there. So now feel this new misery which is coming into being with the new desire. Every desire brings misery. There is nothing to be done– simply become aware that every desire brings misery. If you realize this, desires will disappear; internal or external, no desires are needed.

IN THE ULTIMATE SENSE, all desires are the same — because desire means you are not contented with yourself as you are. Desire is a DISCONTENT.

Essentially, desire is a longing for that which is not. Essentially, desire is a complaint against existence. You say: “This is not the way I want to be. This is not the house I want to live in, and this is not the woman I want to love and be loved by. This is not the world, this is not the society, this is not the body, this is not the mind, that I can be content with.”

Desire means discontent, and desire means a hope in the future — that somewhere there must be a place where everything will fall in tune with you. Desire means that “I am not in tune with the world as it is, so I hope for another world with which I can be in tune.” But you are not going to be in tune anywhere, because all the time you are learning only one thing, and that is not being in tune with. Yesterday you were not in tune with, the day before yesterday you were not in tune with.

In childhood there was no harmony between you and the world. Young you were not in harmony. Old you are not in harmony. And you are hoping: “Tomorrow I will be in tune with things and things will be in tune with me.” And the whole life is disciplined, trained, for NOT being in tune with. Tomorrow will always be the same as yesterday.

In Hindi, we have the same word for both, for yesterday and tomorrow. That is something very significant — the SAME word for both! Yesterday also we call KAL (कल), and tomorrow also we call KAL (कल). It simply means that your tomorrow is going to be nothing but a repetition of your yesterday, your future is nothing but a repetition of your past. So don’t wait for the future because then the future will only be a repetition of the past.

A desire for the outer, or a desire for the inner, is just a change of the object – the mind remains the same. Drop it. As you have dropped the outer desire, you can drop the inner also. And you know now that just by dropping the outer you are feeling a deep contentment with yourself. So why carry this new desire? Drop it also.

To be desireless means to be herenow, contented: whatsoever is, is good; whatsoever is, is the only way for things to be — there is no other way, it cannot be otherwise. It is the way life is, and life is meant to be. Suddenly you are surrounded by peace.

Just see: this very moment I can see peace surrounding you. This moment being with me, there is no yesterday, no tomorrow. The past is not there; the future is not there — you are just herenow. This nowness, this hereness, this is what desirelessness is. You are just happy being with me.

All desires are insane!

The only sanity is to be desireless.

The only sanity is to be herenow.

This moment is more than enough.

Osho: Enough for today. Come, Come, Yet Again Come Chapter #5 Chapter title: Let Sannyas Happen Q 3. (excerpts)
Osho: The Discipline of Transcendence, Vol 3 Chapter #2 Chapter title: Let There Be Prayer Q 6 (excerpts)
Osho: Vedanta: Seven Steps to Samadhi: CHAPTER 5. IN DEEP PATIENCE Q 3 (excerpts)

वक़्त किस तेज़ी से गुज़रा रोज़-मर्रा में ‘मुनीर’
आज कल होता गया और दिन हवा होते गए………….मुनीर नियाज़ी

vaqt kis tezī se guzrā roz-marra meñ ‘munīr’
aaj kal hotā gayā aur din havā hote ga.e………………….Muneer Niyazi

The speed at which time passed in daily life, Munir,
“Today” became “yesterday,” and the days just flew by like the wind.

Just listen to the lyrics of this song “tu na jaane aas pass hai khuda” — It resonate deeply as we speak to the divine presence around us—often unnoticed yet always nearby. The song underscores the message that true peace and fulfillment are within reach when we let go of desires and simply are, embracing each moment with trust in life’s unfolding. Film “Anjaana Anjaani” Singer – Rahat Fateh Ali Khan Lyricist & Music by – Vishal Dadlani, Shekhar Ravjiani.

Aas Paas Hai Khuda Lyrical | Anjaana Anjaani | Priyanka Chopra, Ranbir Kapoor | Rahat Fateh Ali Khan