Raising_Expectations
por Elisabeth Cavalcante em STUM WORLDAtualizado em 01/03/2010 12:40:58
English version by Fernanda Santos Pereira da Silva - [email protected]
One of the most effective paths to frustration is through the raising of expectations. It's the nature of the mind hoping that something much desired happens quickly.
And when we live a unconscious life we are not able to realize that this game always makes us wait for the urgent realization of our hopes and to feel a great disappointment when they fail to succeed.
Since we don't have the power to determine others will and attitudes it’s impossible for us to have granted the fulfillment of all our hopes.
This kind of mistake happens mostly at love relations for we always project our hopes on the other half and wait anxiously to be wholly satisfied. When this doesn’t occur, our reaction is of revolt by feeling betrayed by the one who didn’t live up our expectations.
Living a conscious life implies, first of all, learning to notice when these illusions begin to take form in our mind and accept the fact that we don’t have the gift to manipulate reality so it can adjust to our desire.
From this on everything begins to flow in a new rhythm. We begin to connect in a realistic way, seeing the other like he really is, without any fantasy or illusion.
Besides that it becomes possible to accept easily that not always reality will correspond to our wish, no matter how much we fight for it. Then common sense and wisdom can finally take the place of anguish, anxiety and despair.
This is not an easy learning but is undoubtedly essential for us to set free from the suffering created by our own mind which insists in keeping us prisoners of illusion. Happiness is only possible when we are able to realize how much our own expectations create the majority of the frustrations we experiment in life.
… You are all living in shadows. You think, you project, you imagine, you dream… You live in shadow, in your hopes. What have you gained with your hopes? Just the empty imagination that tomorrow something will happen, that hasn’t happened now, and you feel complete. And it never happens. What happens tomorrow is death – and death creates fear because of the simple reason that you are not conscious.
The fear of death is that it takes the future out of your hands. And you have been living in the future in your imagination, and death comes and puts a full stop: no more tomorrow. The existence has no obligation to you to fulfill your desires and your hopes.
People expect something, and it is never fulfilled. There is always frustration all around. People are living in despair, and the reason is that what they expected… existence has no desire, no reason to go according to their expectations. If you want to be happy, go along with existence and its ends wherever it takes you.
That’s what I mean by let-go: you simply drop your projections, your imaginations, and let the existence take hold of your whole life. Then there is no despair, because there is no possibility of being frustrated. There is no anguish and no anxiety; you are relaxed with existence. Whatever happens, that is good.
…The whole existence is wiser than you, so whatever happens…
Don’t stand aloof and against existence; be part, and feel a certain oneness.
… The meaning is whatever happens is good. You have to find the beauty and the joy of this… Only a man of let-go is not deceived by anything. He takes everything that comes in the way happily and joyously, and if things change, he allows the change without any hindrance, without creating any barriers to prevent the change.
Everything is as it should be. So peaceful are the hills in the full moon night… they are in peace, dancing in the full moon… Everything is silence and peace. There is no frustration in the hills, there is no frustration in the rivers…
… Man can also be as happy as the hills and as peaceful as the rivers if he looks at the moon and the surroundings without any mind. With no thought, he will also become part of the whole scene.
But man remains always concerned with his own stupid ideas. When the whole existence is rejoicing, it is only man who is worried. Have you ever seen a tree worried? No animal is ever worried. Even in dying, it dies peacefully. Such is the way of existence, that anything that is born is going to die.
But man’s mind intrudes, always creates problems, because it expects things to be different then they are. He is no t ready to accept the suchness of existence; he wants it according to him. This, according to him, is the whole misery.
Everybody is trying that everything should be according to him. One man say it, one man not say it, but even without saying it, your mind is weaving thoughts about how things should be brought according to your idea – and this is impossible.
You cannot change existence. All that you can do… is drop your mind.
OSHO – Rinzai: Master of the Irrational
Ch #6 – All you can do is drop your mind
