Osho Quotes on Expectations

Osho Quotes on Expectations

1. People expect too much. People who expect heaven always fall into hell — that is the law. Expect heaven and hell is certain. Don’t expect heaven and there will never be any hell.
2. The life of a sannyasin should be a life of no expectations. And then every moment is such a bliss, such a benediction, because whatsoever God gives is so much. Then you always feel grateful. But your desires are so much that whatsoever God gives always looks so little; and you feel frustrated, and you feel complaints, and you cannot feel grateful. And without gratitude, there is no possibility of prayer arising in your heart. Gratitude is prayer.
3. Everybody is looking with his own world of desires, expectations, passions, lust, greed, anger. There are a thousand and one things standing between you and your world; that’s why you don’t ever see it as it is. Once your eye is completely clean, clean of all the dust, once it becomes a pure mirror, it reflects that which is. And that is truth and truth liberates, but it has to be your own. My truth cannot liberate you, Buddha’s truth cannot liberate you. There is only one possibility of liberation, that is your own truth. And all that you have to do is to create a dispassionate eye.
4. Expectation is the mother of all frustrations; expectation gone, frustration disappears. And when there is no frustration in your life, life really becomes a bed of roses. Then God is a constant blessing; he goes on raining his grace, his beauty on you.
5. Expectations always lead to frustrations. Expectations are the seeds, and frustration is the crop that sooner or later you will have to reap. It is your own doing.
6. Frustration is out of expectation; expectation is our projection. All kinds of love frustrate unless love is based in meditation.
7. Any expectation, even the expectation of peace, brings restlessness. The tension has to go. As soon as this happens a divine peace sets in.
8. All expectations belong to the mind, all disciplines belong to the mind, all so-called saintliness and so-called sin belong to the mind. When there is no mind, there is no sinner and no saint, and the gift simply showers on you.
9. Remember, frustration is out of expectation, and ego is always expecting. The ego is a beggar.
10. Mind’s requirements and expectations cannot be fulfilled. Existence has no obligation to fulfill mind’s requirements and demands. You have to accept existence as it is.
11. Each moment brings new surprises to the one who has no expectations, who comes with an absolutely open mind. Then incredible things start happening. Even if you had wanted them you could not have expected them; you could not have found yourself worthy enough to expect them.
12. Don’t expect anything in the future. Don’t corrupt it. Because if all your expectations are fulfilled then too you will be miserable… because it is your expectation and it is fulfilled. You will not be happy about it. Happiness is possible only through surprise; happiness is possible only when something happens which you had never expected, when something takes you completely unawares. If your expectations are fulfilled a hundred per cent, you will be living as if you are in the past, not in the future. You come home and you expected your wife to say something and she does. And you expected your child to behave in a certain way and the child does. Just think — you will be constantly in boredom. Nothing will happen. Everything will be just a repetition, as if you are seeing something which you have seen before, hearing something which you have heard before. Continuously you will see that it is a repetition of something. and repetition can never be satisfying. The new, the novel, the original, is needed. So if your expectations are fulfilled. you will remain completely unfulfilled.
13. And if your expectations are not fulfilled. then you feel frustrated. Then you feel constantly as if you propose and God goes on disposing; you feel that God is the enemy; you feel as if everybody is against you and everybody is working against you. If your expectations are never fulfilled you will feel frustrated. Just meditate upon your expectations: if they are fulfilled you will feel bored, if they are not fulfilled you will feel cheated. You will feel as if a conspiracy is going on against you. as if the whole existence is conspiring against you. You will feel exploited, you will feel rejected, you will not be able to feel at home. And the whole problem arises because you expect. Don’t go ahead into the future. Drop expectations. Once you drop expectations you have learned how to live. Then everything that happens fulfills you, whatsoever it is. For one thing, you never feel frustrated because in the first place you never expected. So frustration is impossible. Frustration is a shadow of expectation. With the expectation dropped, frustration drops on its own accord.
14. The future is just your hope, expectation. And when this life is not fulfilling you start looking further, beyond death. All these are fictions just for you to survive somehow. But this survival is not how you are supposed to be. Existence has not given you birth just to live in hopes. You can be really ecstatic this moment, and there is no other moment. Meditation is, Zen is living now and here.
15. A man who lives with intentions is bound to feel frustration. A man who lives with expectations is bound to feel frustrated because existence has no obligation to you. But if you live without intentions, without expectations, then miraculously you find that everything that you ever dreamed of is being fulfilled. The moon is reflected in the lake — the lake never asked it, the moon never intended it. Existence goes on spontaneously. Don’t bring your desire, your ambition and your expectation; they are the disturbing points. They create a chaos in your mind.
16. Egolessness is contentment. Egoless, you don’t expect anything, and just a small child smiles at you, but it is so beautiful. What else could you need? Suddenly you see a flower and the flower sends its perfume to you. What else could you need? What more could you want? The whole sky goes on filling with stars, the whole life becomes a celebration because now everything is beautiful. Without expectation everything fulfills — just to breathe is enough, just to breathe is such a bliss.
17. If mind can fulfill, then all meditators are foolish, then all enlightened persons are fools. Because mind cannot fulfill… when they come to understand the whole mechanism, and the whole misery of it…. This is the mechanism: yesterday mind promised you that something is going to be delivered to you tomorrow. Now the tomorrow has come, it is today, and the mind has not delivered — you are in misery, your expectations are frustrated. Now the mind says, “Tomorrow I am going to deliver.” The mind promises again. And what type of stupidity is this, that you again listen to the mind? And tomorrow the same mechanism will be repeated — it is a vicious circle. You listen to the mind, you become miserable — otherwise, this today is paradise! And there is no other paradise, this today is nirvana. If you had not listened to the mind… just don’t listen to the mind, then you are not in misery; because misery cannot exist without expectations and without hopes. And when misery exists you need more hopes for it, to hide it, to live somehow. Live hopelessly — then you are a righteous man, then you are retired.
18. You listen to the mind, you become miserable — otherwise, this today is paradise! And there is no other paradise, this today is nirvana. If you had not listened to the mind… just don’t listen to the mind, then you are not in misery; because misery cannot exist without expectations and without hopes. And when misery exists you need more hopes for it, to hide it, to live somehow. Live hopelessly — then you are a righteous man, then you are retired.
19. The mind never allows you to be where you are, it never allows you to see things as they are. It is always taking you somewhere else, either into the past or into the future; it never allows you to be in the present. Either it drags you into memories — which are nothing but footprints on the sands of time — or it drags you into the future: great projections, great expectations, desires, goals…. And you become so much involved with them — as if they have some reality! And the reality is slipping out of your hands while you are engaged in all these trips into the past, into the future. The mind never allows you and will never allow you to see that which is; it always takes you to that which is not.
20. All hopes are lies, all expectations of the future are lies.
21. Without desire, you cannot project yourself into the future, without desire you cannot start expectations, and without desire you will never be disappointed. Without desire, time really disappears: you move from one moment of eternity to another moment of eternity. There is no sequence… and then you will never ask why nothing special is happening. For myself, I have not come to know the mystery yet. The very play is the mystery; being timeless, desireless, is the mystery. And to be ordinary is the `goal’, if you allow me to use the word. To be ordinary is the goal. If you can be ordinary you are liberated, then there is no SANSAR for you, no world for you. This whole world is a struggle to be extraordinary. Some try it in politics, some try it in economics, some try it in religion. But the lust remains the same.
22. Meditation is your awakening. The moment you awake, sleep disappears and with it all the dreams, all the projections, all expectations, all desires. Suddenly you are in a state of desirelessness, non-ambition, unfathomable silence. And only in this silence, blossoms flower in your being. Only in this silence the lotuses open their petals.
23. Once the ego is not there, there is no expectation, frustration, no desire, no despair. Suddenly one finds oneself falling into a deep harmony with the cosmos. And that harmony is God; that harmony is nirvana; that harmony is tao.
24. The real thing is that you are suffering from your expectations. When they are not fulfilled — and they are never going to be fulfilled — frustration arises, failure arises, and you feel neglected, as if existence does not care for you. Drop expectations for the future. Remain open, remain available to whatsoever happens, but don’t plan ahead. Don’t make any psychological, fixed ideas about the future — that things should be like this — and much more suffering will disappear.
25. Live without expectations and there will be no frustration.
26. You cannot live with expectations because life has no obligation to fulfill your desires. You can live with an open heart, but you cannot live with expectations. The more expectations you have, the more frustrated you will be.
27. If I fulfill YOUR expectations, how am I going to transform you? I have to DESTROY your expectations. I have to destroy the very mind that creates those expectations. If you come to me, never come with expectations, otherwise you will be disappointed — because I have no obligation to fulfill your expectations in any way. In fact, if I see that there are some expectations, I do things DELIBERATELY to destroy those expectations. That is the price you have to pay to be with me.
28. It is within your hands to be frustrated in life or not. Just your expectations should become smaller, smaller, smaller, and in the same proportion the frustration will become smaller. A day will come when there will be no expectation; then you will never come across any frustration.
29. You have to be a witness to your gunas, attributes, modifications of the mind, tricks of the mind, games, traps of the mind, habits, samskaras, past, changing situations, expectations: you have to be aware of all these things. You have to remember only one thing: the seer is not the seen. Whatsoever you can see, you are not that. If you can see your habit of laziness, you are not that. If you can see your habit of constant occupation, you are not that. If you can see your past conditionings, you are not those conditionings. The seer is not the seen. You are awareness and awareness is transcendental to all that it can see. The observer is beyond the observed.
30. All expectations are unreasonable, but when one expects something out of meditation it is ABSOLUTELY unreasonable. Because the very base of meditation, the very foundation of meditation is to understand that expectation has to be dropped; otherwise meditation never starts. It is expectation that keeps your mind continuously spinning thoughts. It is expectation that keeps you tense. It is expectation, when not fulfilled, that makes you feel frustrated, miserable. Drop expectation and meditation will flower, but it can flower only when you are not expecting. You can go on expecting for many lives; you will not allow meditation to flower. That is not the way.
31. The buddha is uncompromising; that creates trouble. He cannot compromise. Truth cannot be compromised with any lies, comfortable lies. The buddha seems to be very unsocial and sometimes antisocial. The buddha never fulfills any expectations of the multitudes — he cannot; he is not here to follow you. There is only one way: you can follow him if you want to be with him, otherwise get lost! He cannot fulfill your expectations. Your expectations are foolish, your expectations are your expectations — out of unawareness and blindness. What value can they have? The buddha is always rebellious, antitraditional, nonconformist. That creates trouble. The buddha does not belong to the past; in fact, the future belongs to the buddha. He is always before his time, he is a new birth of God.
32. Whatsoever you are waiting for, you are waiting in vain. It is not going to happen, and what is going to happen has nothing to do with your expectations and your desires. You just let it come in; don’t block the way. Remove yourself out of your own way. This time, with no expectations, no desires, no hopes, just meditate.