Osho – A demanding mind always becomes miserable. Bliss is where demand is not

[A sannyasin couple and their baby are present. The man says he expected to come here and feel better, more loving. Instead, he says, in some ways he feels more sad, tense, angry.]
Osho – Expectation always creates misery. If you expect something, that very expectation will become the barrier. So live a life without any expectations. Your expectations are your demands on life and a demanding mind always becomes miserable. Bliss is where demand is not, because only in a non-demanding state can you relax and receive it. So this is not a problem which is personal to you; this happens to many people.
Naturally, you come with great expectation – that this is going to happen, that is going to happen… many fantasies in the mind. Because of those fantasies you cannot relax; you are always waiting for the result. The journey is no more important; the goal has become important. If the goal is not arising you become miserable. And the more miserable you become, the farther away the goal goes on receding. It’s a vicious circle.
So next time you come, come without any expectations. We cannot demand anything of life; it has no obligation to fulfill our demands. That whole pattern has to be broken, so in a way it has been good that you have been shocked. Now you can learn something beautiful out of it – to never again expect. Expectation is out of misery, and naturally when a thing arises out of misery it will create misery.
The tree will be nothing but an unfoldment of the seed; the tree cannot be anything else. Why were you expecting to be more loving? – because you must be suffering and feeling that you are not loving. Now out of the non-loving mind the desire comes to be loving. Watch the mechanism and from where it comes. The seed is poisoned, the source is poisoned. You are unloving so you desire to be loving. Now the deSire is coming from an unloving mind. It cannot change you – it will be a continuity with your mind; it will make you more miserable. And when the demand is there, expectation is there, comparison is there. The greater the demand, the more miserable you will feel, the more of a failure you will feel. Make a big deal and then you fall short.
If you had come without any desire, without any demand, without any expectation, that would have been the right way to come to me. Next time come without any demand. Just come to be here for the sheer joy of being here – not that something is going to result out of it. There is nothing to result out of it; it is the thing in itself. This is it! And if you can be in this moment without any expectation then there is no misery; then you are open. Then you simply unfold; your flower blooms. There is no barrier to it… nothing can hold it.
But it happens to many people. By and by they learn that expectations are not helpful. So you suffered because you sowed the seeds for it. Next time come just for the sheer joy of being here – with not even a single idea, no demand about what should happen. Whatsoever happens is good. If nothing happens, that too is good. With no future in the mind, come.
When there is no future in the mind the past slips, cannot remain there. The past can remain in you only if you project a future. The future is another side of the past. You were miserable, you were feeling unloving, closed – that was your past. You created a future. You think it is the opposite, but how can it be opposite? It will only be just the other side of it. The other side looks opposite but is not. They are together – they are never separate. Unloving, closed, feeling miserable, you created a future, you painted a future: loving, open, happy. And because they are together, you cannot get out of the rut.
Next time create no future, no fantasy, no dream. And then suddenly you will be surprised: the past is slipping out of you! It cannot keep glued to you; it needs the future to remain with you’ So drop the future to drop the past, and when the past and future are not there, there is no way to be miserable and there is no way to be closed. It is impossible to be closed and to be miserable; then one is simply blissful. Not really blissful, but one is simply bliss!
Next time… But remember, when I am saying ’next time’, don’t start creating an expectation for next time. Because I just saw the idea in you, of ’Okay, so next time I will see’… but then you have already created… I am saying, ’next time’ not to create a desire but just to see what has happened this time. In your seeing it, it will disappear and you will come more innocent, more in a primal state of mind. Then everything is possible.
Source – Osho Book “Don’t Just Do Something, Sit There”