I dare to play, to try first one thing, then another. My statements are like the actors on the stage: let them contradict each other; they are not there to tell the truth, but to provoke it, to discover it.And I would like to tell you too: do not do anything merely for the sake of consistency. That is the shelter for fools and philosophers – which are the same people. Never do anything just for the sake of consistency. This is undesirable since it limits experimentation and exploration. Action, so as to be consistent with the past, develops into a programmatic addiction. It freezes you into stasis, halting the evolutionary march of becoming. You should retain all power over current behavior. None should be yielded to the past.
Acting consistent with precedent is a form of death and destroys all potential to grow into understanding.
Remember, what is consistency? It means my today has to be obedient to my yesterday – that is consistency. My present has to be obedient with my past – that is consistency. But then how am I going to grow? Then how am I going to move? If I remain consistent with the past, then there is no growth possible.
Growth means inconsistency: your today has to go beyond your yesterday, has to be inconsistent with it, has to use it as a stepping-stone, has not to be confined by it, and your tomorrow has to go beyond your today. If each day you go on moving away from your past, you will be growing, you will be reaching higher peaks.
Consistent people are stupid people. Their life is stagnant. They stink of death, they are like corpses: they go on rotting, they don’t live. Life is basically not a logical phenomenon but a dialectical phenomenon. Dialectics means thesis, antithesis, synthesis: your yesterday was a thesis, your today will be its antithesis and your tomorrow will be a synthesis. Again your tomorrow will create a thesis and the next day an antithesis and then synthesis – and so on it goes. You go on in a dialectical way. Life is a dialectical process; it is not a linear, logical process.
Life is a contradictory process. That’s why I cannot define myself – because today’s definition won’t be applicable tomorrow. I cannot define myself because it is like defining a cloud or an ocean or a growing tree or a child. I constantly change, because change is the very soul of life. Except change, nothing is eternal.
I am committed to change. Change is my God, because that is the only unchanging phenomenon in life. Hence I call it God. Everything else changes: life changes, death changes – only change remains. I worship change. I am in love with it. I cannot define myself once and forever. I have to define myself each moment of my life; and one never knows what each next moment is going to bring.
- Osho
Acting consistent with precedent is a form of death and destroys all potential to grow into understanding.
Remember, what is consistency? It means my today has to be obedient to my yesterday – that is consistency. My present has to be obedient with my past – that is consistency. But then how am I going to grow? Then how am I going to move? If I remain consistent with the past, then there is no growth possible.
Growth means inconsistency: your today has to go beyond your yesterday, has to be inconsistent with it, has to use it as a stepping-stone, has not to be confined by it, and your tomorrow has to go beyond your today. If each day you go on moving away from your past, you will be growing, you will be reaching higher peaks.
Consistent people are stupid people. Their life is stagnant. They stink of death, they are like corpses: they go on rotting, they don’t live. Life is basically not a logical phenomenon but a dialectical phenomenon. Dialectics means thesis, antithesis, synthesis: your yesterday was a thesis, your today will be its antithesis and your tomorrow will be a synthesis. Again your tomorrow will create a thesis and the next day an antithesis and then synthesis – and so on it goes. You go on in a dialectical way. Life is a dialectical process; it is not a linear, logical process.
Life is a contradictory process. That’s why I cannot define myself – because today’s definition won’t be applicable tomorrow. I cannot define myself because it is like defining a cloud or an ocean or a growing tree or a child. I constantly change, because change is the very soul of life. Except change, nothing is eternal.
I am committed to change. Change is my God, because that is the only unchanging phenomenon in life. Hence I call it God. Everything else changes: life changes, death changes – only change remains. I worship change. I am in love with it. I cannot define myself once and forever. I have to define myself each moment of my life; and one never knows what each next moment is going to bring.
- Osho
