Osho Quotes on Anxiety – Desiring only creates anxiety, anguish

Osho Quotes on Anxiety

1. Remember one thing always — that there is no cause to be anxious in life, and all causes are just excuses. If you decide not to be anxious, then nothing will make you anxious; there is nothing worth it. Life is such a fleeting phenomenon that is going to disappear one day. Why be bothered too much about it? We are only here for so few days. Just play the game and remain aloof. If one can remain a witness, aloof, distant from things, then anxiety is not possible. Anxiety comes into existence only when we become identified with small things. And they all pass.
2. The accidental man is idiotic. Such a vast universe, running so smoothly… Look at the stars, look at the change of seasons; rivers running from the Himalayas to the ocean, clouds coming and showering. Watch nature — everything is running so smoothly! Why not become a part of it? Why create any conflict? Conflict creates anxiety; anxiety brings anguish. If you have a private goal you are going to get mad. Relax! Drop out of the accidental world so you can drop into the essential world. Then one starts accepting things as they are.
3. What you desire does not matter: you can desire presidency of a country, or you can desire money, or you can desire sainthood, or you can desire God, you can desire truth — desire is desire. Desire means you are torn apart between that which you are and that which you would like to be. This is anguish, this is anxiety. And this anxiety will not allow you to become a hollow bamboo.
4. Consider anxiety as your unit of measurement. As soon as anxiety begins to make you uneasy then at once take note that you are demanding more than is necessary — because it is desire for the nonessential which creates anxiety. Necessities do not create anxieties at all. The unessential thing — without which we can carry on but are not willing to do so — is the cause of our cares and anxieties. So when the mind becomes worried, observe how you have been busy in satisfying demands which go beyond the needs of the sense organs.
5. You can go on changing your anxieties — somebody is seeking money, somebody is seeking power, then somebody starts seeking god — but all things will bring anxiety. Every desire brings anxiety as a shadow to it. No desire can exist without anxiety, and anxiety is hell, anxiety is destructive, because anxiety creates a split in you — you are tom apart. You are not one piece, not together, not integrated. Only love makes you integrated.
6. As you start looking inwards, you are amazed: you were ignoring yourself, and that was the trouble. That was why you were in misery, anxiety, suffering. You were trying everything to remove the misery, but it was caused by your unawareness, by your unconsciousness, by your ignorance of your own being. That was the cause. And unless that cause is removed, you will never have a taste of blissfulness, of ecstasy, of immortality, of the divineness of existence.
7. One just needs to relax, to be in a let-go and accept life joyously, with no desire to achieve anything. The desire to achieve creates tension, anguish, anxiety, and in that anxiety we go on missing that which is very close by. We remain occupied with the anxiety and remain oblivious of the truth that is within us. Relaxation is the law, let-go is the law. God is not a question of conquest but of surrender, hence the ego is not interested in it. It is interested in conquest. Without god our life is nothing but a defeat, a failure, a frustration. Only when god enters into your life is there meaning and joy and love and laughter. With the entry of god some celestial music starts happening within you. Your heart becomes a temple and your life starts having a beauty, a grace.
8. When evolution is still unconscious, it is an automatic process; there is no uncertainty about it. Things happen through the law of cause and effect. Existence is mechanical and certain. But with man, with consciousness, uncertainty comes into existence. Now, nothing is certain. Evolution may take place or it may not. The potential is there, but the choice will rest entirely with each individual. That is why anxiety is a human phenomenon. Below man there is no anxiety because there is no choice. Everything happens as it must. There is no choice so there is no chooser, and in the absence of the chooser, anxiety is impossible. Who is to be anxious? Who is to be tense? With the possibility of choice, anxiety follows like a shadow. Everything has to be chosen now; everything is a conscious effort. You alone are responsible. If you fail, you fail. It is your responsibility. If you succeed, you succeed. It is again your responsibility. And every choice is ultimate in a sense. You cannot undo it, you cannot forget it, you cannot go back on it. Your choice becomes your destiny. It will remain with you and be a part of you; you cannot deny it. But your choice is always a gamble. Every choice is made in darkness because nothing is certain. That is why man suffers from anxiety. He is anxious to his very roots. What torments him, to begin with, is: to be or not to be? to do or not to do? to do this or to do that? “No choice” is not possible. If you do not choose, then you are choosing not to choose; it is a choice. So you are forced to choose; you are not free not to choose. Not choosing will have as much effect as any other choice. The dignity, the beauty and the glory of man is this consciousness. But it is a burden also. The glory and the burden come simultaneously the minute you become conscious. Every step is a movement between the two. With man, choice and conscious individuality come into existence. You can evolve, but your evolution will be an individual endeavor. You may evolve to become a buddha or you may not. The choice is yours.
9. People talk of conquering nature, people talk of conquering this and that — how can you conquer nature? You are part of it. How can the part conquer the Whole? See the foolishness of it, the stupidity. You can be with the Whole in harmony, or you can be in conflict with the Whole in disharmony. Disharmony results in misery; harmony results in bliss. Harmony naturally results in a deep silence, joy, delight. Conflict results in anxiety, anguish, stress, tension.
10. The beginning of meditation is when you start dropping your conditionings. A moment comes when you become unconditioned again, like a child. Then your intelligence explodes. And an intelligent person cannot desire, that is impossible, because desiring only brings misery, frustration. Desiring only creates anxiety, anguish; it never brings any fulfillment, never any contentment.
11. Meditation is just being delighted in your own presence; meditation is a delight in your own being. It is very simple — a totally relaxed state of consciousness where you are not doing anything. The moment doing enters, you become tense; anxiety enters immediately. How to do? What to do? How to succeed? How not to fail? You have already moved into the future.
12. Be more meditative, become more conscious of your being. Let your inner world become more silent, and love will be flowing through you. People have all these problems. The problems are different — violence, jealousy, misery, anxiety — but the medicine for all these illnesses is only one, and it is meditation.
13. Spirituality cannot be an outcome of desire, because desire is the root cause of all our anxiety and anguish. And you cannot direct your desires to the spiritual realm. But it happens, it is natural, because we know only one movement — that is desire. We desire the things of the world. Someone desires riches, someone desires fame, someone desires prestige and power, or something else. We desire things of the world, and through this desiring we are frustrated.
14. The whole life is nothing but a play, and one should not take it seriously. The moment you take it seriously you get into trouble. The very attitude of seriousness is the root cause of all anxiety. Take it non-seriously, take it easy… take it as a fun! That is one of the most essential teachings of the east — that life is nothing but a drama.
15. The way to come out of your misery is meditation, because the mind has been created by the society, and if you remain inside the mind you remain inside the prison. Mind is the prison, the root cause of all your slavery, of all your despair, anguish, anxiety. It is continuously destroying you — it is poison. And it is very easy to get out of the mind just by becoming aware of the whole mechanism of mind — thinking, desiring, expecting. All these things have to be watched as if you are just a mirror reflecting whatsoever passes by, with no judgement, with no desire even to judge, just a pure witness — and immediately you are out of the mind. First it will come in glimpses. For a few seconds you will be out of mind, but those few seconds will give you a taste of freedom, of tremendous ecstasy. And then slowly those small moments will become bigger; the intervals when the traffic of the mind completely stops will become bigger.
16. A man of meditation is simply no longer miserable. He has forgotten the language of suffering, anguish, anxiety. He knows only joy. He knows love, he knows peace. He has nothing to forget. In fact, if you force him to drink wine he will refuse, because that will be forgetting peace, forgetting joy, forgetting blissfulness, forgetting silence. If you are miserable and suffering and continuously tense and in anxiety, then certainly alcohol can give you relief, just a temporary relief, and perhaps at a very big cost because tomorrow you will wake up again with all those miseries and the desire to drink again the same drug to forget them. And each time the drug will need to be increased, because each time you will become more immune to it.
17. You become nervous when you lose money. Ponder this. Look deep within to see whether the fear is actually because of the loss of the money or if there isn’t some other cause. At first you will feel you are afraid because of the loss of the money, because you have gone bankrupt or are going to go bankrupt, but search within. You will find that the real cause of your anxiety is your hidden fear of death. Money helps you in life; if you have money you have the means of supporting yourself, of saving yourself. If you cannot get the best treatment and the best medicine here in India then you can go to America — provided you have the money. But if you have no money you have no remedy. Then you have no way to save yourself. Then your helpmate has disappeared and you will be helpless when death comes knocking at your door. The fear one feels at the loss of money, or even at the idea of losing money, is nothing but the fear of death.
18. Desire means you are dragged out of the moment; that creates a tension, that creates anxiety, that creates hope. And then finally hope turns sour, becomes frustration. Each hope leads you into anguish. Buddha calls it the only impurity. Cut the roots of desire, live in the moment so totally, pull yourself out of the past and don’t project yourself into the future. Let this moment be all and all. And your life will have such a purity, such a crystal-clear consciousness that right now you cannot imagine.
19. Once you sow the seeds of desire…desire means to have more. You have a certain quantity of money, you would like to have double that. Desire means the longing for more. And nobody thinks twice that any quantitative change is not going to satisfy you. If you cannot be satisfied by ten thousand rupees, how can you be satisfied by twenty thousand rupees? The rupees will be doubled. But if ten thousand rupees cannot give you any satisfaction, your satisfaction cannot be doubled; there has been no satisfaction in the first place. In fact, when you have ten thousand rupees you have a certain quantity of anxiety, fear — those anxieties will be doubled when you have twenty thousand rupees, trebled when you have thirty thousand rupees, and so on and so forth. You can go on multiplying….
20. Your desire creates the future. Your memory creates the past. They are both parts of your mind. Don’t desire, and the future disappears. And when there is no future, how can you be tense? How? There is no possibility of being tense if there is no future And if there is no past — if you know that it is simply memory, the dust collected on the way — how can there be any anxiety? With the past, anxiety enters. And with the future — plans, imaginations, projections — tension exists. When the past drops and the future is not open, you are here, now. No anxiety, no tension, no anguish.
21. Seeing the futility of desire,
    seeing that It always brings pain and  anxiety and anguish
    Seeing that desire is hell
    One becomes free of desire
    One simply lives with no desire for the future.
22. Bliss makes one an emperor. You can possess the whole world but you will remain a beggar if deep inside you bliss is not happening. If deep inside you there is misery, suffering, anguish, anxiety, then you may sit on a throne of gold but it is irrelevant. It is wasting your life. And that’s what millions of people go on doing. They have all become achievers: achieve this, achieve that. They keep themselves engaged so that they don’t have to look in, because there they find great misery, great anxiety. They want to remain oblivious of it so they go on from one conquest to another conquest, from one desire to another desire, endlessly. But their whole life is futile. Unless your inner being is full of bliss you have not lived at all. And the way to bliss is not difficult; it takes a little perseverance, persistence, patience, but it is not difficult. If I can attain it, you can attain it. In fact to use the word ‘attain’ for it is not right. It is already there, we just have to become connected with it. We are disjointed; we have to plug ourselves into our own being. We have to become rooted, that’s all.