I believe that when there will be no ideal, man will be free.
I HAVE NO IDEALS. I am the man without ideals.
I am utterly iconoclastic – I destroy ideals. When there will be no goal, man will be free – never before it.
All ideals create slavery.
Because the ideal stands there in the future, it starts dominating you from the future. It starts condemning your present. It starts telling you that you are falling short: Become perfect! Be this! Be that! It brings thousand and one shoulds and should-nots.
With all those shoulds and should-nots, how can you imagine to live in freedom? They hamper you from everywhere, they limit you from every direction, THEY DESTROY YOU IN EVERY POSSIBLE WAY – because THEY CONDEMN YOUR PRESENT. And there is only one way to live and that is in the present. THERE IS ONLY ONE LIFE AND THAT IS IN THIS MOMENT.
If THIS moment is condemned in any way, by any method, your life is being destroyed. That's why there are millions of people on the earth but very few are alive. Ideals have poisoned their life. AND THE IDEALISTS ARE THE GREAT POISONERS.
I am not an idealist, I believe in the real.
And in fact you need not believe in the real; it is so. Belief is needed only for the ideal. For the real, what belief is needed? The sun rises – you don't say, 'I believe in the sunrise.' And the birds are singing – you don't say, 'I believe in the birds.' You believe in God because you can't see God, because God is not a reality. I don't believe in God, because for me God is as much a reality as the sunrise and these birds singing and these flowers and these trees and these people, you. I DON'T BELIEVE IN GOD.
Belief presupposes that you don't know.
Belief presupposes ignorance. The very word 'belief' makes one thing certain – that it is not real. I am all for reality. That's what I mean when I say I believe in the real: I DON'T PUT ANY IDEAL IN CONTRAST WITH REALITY. Down the ages, THE IDEAL HAS BEEN THE MOST SUBTLE TRICK TO MANIPULATE MAN – BECAUSE
The ideal creates guilt.
You continuously think you are not coming up to the mark – you are falling short, you are below the level, you are not as you should be. And this becomes a rock on your heart. It cripples you, it paralyzes you. It does not allow you to move in freedom, it does not allow you to dance.
HOW CAN YOU CELEBRATE LIFE WHEN THERE ARE SO MANY IDEALS EVERYWHERE? And everywhere you feel limited – those limitations are created by the ideals. WHATSOEVER YOU DO IS NEVER PERFECT. So whatsoever you do, it never makes you happy. In fact, whenever you do something it makes you unhappy – again you have proved your imperfection. Again you failed. Again there is guilt. Again there is condemnation. Again you hate yourself. Each act brings more hatred. Each act brings more and more self condemnation, rejection.
AND IF YOU DON'T LOVE YOURSELF, YOU ARE VIRTUALLY DEAD – worse than being dead! If you don't love yourself, nobody is going to love you. How anybody can love you if you don't love yourself?
AND THE IDEALIST CANNOT LOVE HIMSELF – he is very hard, he is a masochist. And when a person is a masochist, when a person goes on torturing himself in the name of ideals – 'I should be like this'… and he is not, so he tortures himself. And he goes on pulling himself towards this impossible ideal. AND ALL THOSE IDEALS ARE IMPOSSIBLE – their very nature is such, they cannot be fulfilled. That is the whole trick; if they can be fulfilled, they won't be ideals.
The ideal is by inner necessity unfulfillable.
It is not possible to achieve it. Hence, it remains a dangling carrot in front of your eyes. And the donkey goes on moving… and the carrot goes on dangling. It is illusory. It is like the horizon far away – you go on moving, but you never reach; the horizon also goes on moving.
I AM A REALIST. I am very down-to-earth. I want you to be grounded in the earth – it is your home. It is the way God is. God is very earthly. There is no other world, this is the only world. AND THERE IS NO OTHER WAY TO BE, THIS IS THE ONLY WAY TO BE. This acceptance, this utter joy in being oneself – that's what I call THE MAN OF REALITY or THE WOMAN OF REALITY.
Utter joy in being oneself, as one is – with no guilt surrounding it, with no condemnation arising, with no idea how you should be. This is the way you are; this is the only way you can be. So you don't bring any opposition – you don't create a conflict, you don't create a friction between your reality and the ideal.
(OSHO – Bhagwan Shree Rajneesh)
From: 'Zen: The Path of Paradox'
Osho was pretty much an ideal guru, wasn’t he?
Wasn’t Osho an idealist himself?!