Be a white cloud

Osho speaks to a sannyasin in darshan

All my life I have felt confused and have been searching, and feeling fearful. I feel at this point my life is disintegrating. I say to myself that I want direction, and in the same breath I feel okay.

Mm, that is the direction for you. Feeling that it is all okay is your direction. There is nowhere to go and you are not to become somebody else. Whosoever you are, you are good. So, no need to search. Just be and enjoy and never carry any condemnation, because this is the only way you can be, this is the only way god has chosen to be in you. So don’t create any ideals. Don’t have any shoulds in the mind. All shoulds are criminal.

One should live without shoulds, without any commandments. One should live without any enforced discipline, and then one will never feel that one is disintegrating. Then that chaos itself has its own order, and when the chaos has its own order it is beautiful. When you enforce an order it is ugly. How can your order be very beautiful? Enforced, it carries violence, it carries bloodstains. And against whom are you going to enforce? Against yourself. So you become divided into two parts: one that you bully and one that becomes the enforcer. It is a very violent game, a self-torture. You have already tortured yourself enough. There is no need. Drop all torturing… just be.

And be like a child. Wherever life leads you, that’s your direction. There is no need to carry any compass, no need to carry any maps. Without compass, without maps, just go on moving. Life is already directing. Relax into it. This is the way, this is the direction.

This is what in the east we call ‘tao’. One simply allows oneself as it happens, as it comes. That which happens on its own accord is natural. That is the meaning of the word ‘tao’ – that which happens on its own accord, without any conflict. It is chaotic, but still it has a centre. And the chaos also has an order in it but that order comes from within; it is not enforced from without. That order is organic.

The seed is planted in the soil and it bursts forth. In that bursting forth, in that chaos, an order arises and the tree starts growing. Out of such a small seed, out of such a small centre, such a big periphery, such a big circle, so many branches, so many flowers… Nobody is putting this order. It is coming out of the seed, it is growing out of the seed. It is coming from inside the seed. This is organic order.

So whatsoever man can do will be mechanical, and whatsoever man allows to happen is organic. I believe in the organic. I believe in the inherent, intrinsic order that is already there. You simply allow it. Even without your allowing, it has been functioning – that’s why you have come here. In spite of you, it has carried you all along the way. So drop all nonsense that one has to bring any order or any direction.

The seed never thinks of what direction to move in, where to go. The river never thinks of what direction to go in; it simply goes. Zig-zag is its path. It doesn’t move in a straight line of course – sometimes to the north, sometimes to the south. Sometimes this way, sometimes that way, it goes on moving, zig-zag, but finally it reaches to the ocean. It is not a straight line; it is not very economical, that’s true. If a map were given to the river and engineers were to manipulate it, it would go in a direct line, straight, but then it would not be alive. It would not be so beautiful. It would not be a river at all. Something of tremendous import would be lost in that enforcement. So just be a river. There is no need for any direction. This is my direction. And you have been moving beautifully; go on.

The disintegration is not there. The disintegration will happen again and again because you go on enforcing an outward order. Then that order disintegrates because the organic chaos cannot tolerate it. It is against it, so it goes on sabotaging it. Then. you feel disintegrated. Stop ordering and then there is no disintegration; then there is nothing to disintegrate. It is such a beautiful experience then to live moment to moment without any outward direction… just like a cloud. Wherever the winds take them, the clouds are always ready to go.

Be a white cloud.

Osho, Dance Your Way to God, Ch 15