Life is a dream.

Man lives in misery; he has lived in misery for centuries. Few human beings can be found who are not miserable. This happens so rarely that it seems almost unbelievable. That is why people do not believe that human beings like the Buddha ever existed at all. This is exactly what Sigmund Freud says: people like the Buddha are "wishful thinking."

People think that Buddhas were probably invented, that people like Gautama Buddha were a dream of humanity. Their misery is so great, and they are so deeply mired in it, that they see no possibility of escaping from it. This is exactly what Sigmund Freud says: people like the Buddha are "wishful thinking." We ourselves want to be such people, we want to escape suffering, we want to possess the same silence, the same peace, the same blessing — but it did not happen. And Freud says that there is no hope; this cannot happen by the very nature of things. Man cannot become happy.

Freud should be listened to very carefully and very deeply; his opinion cannot simply be dismissed. He was one of the most perceptive minds that ever existed, and when he says that happiness is impossible, when he says that hoping for happiness means hoping for the impossible, — he knows what he is talking about. This is not a philosopher's conclusion. He was led to this conclusion by his own observations of human misery. Freud was not a pessimist, but observing thousands of human beings, penetrating deeper and deeper into their psyche, he realized that man is constructed in such a way that there is a built-in mechanism creating a miserable existence.

At most, a man can live comfortably, but never — in ecstasy. At most, we can make life a little more convenient — with the help of scientific technologies, through social changes, improving economic conditions and other things — but man will still remain miserable. How can Freud believe that such a person as Buddha ever existed? Such serenity seems simply a dream; Buddha appeared to humanity like a sleep.

This idea arises because the Buddha is so rare, so exceptional. He does not belong to the general rule.
Why does man remain in such misery? The miracle is that everyone wants to be happy. Not a single person can be found who wants to be miserable, and yet everyone lives in misery. Everyone wants to be happy, blissful, peaceful, quiet. Everyone wants to be in joy, everyone wants to celebrate — but this seems impossible. Perhaps there must be some very deep reason, so deep that Freudian analysis could not reach it, so deep that logic could not penetrate it.

One of the fundamentals must be understood. Man wants happiness; that is exactly why he is miserable. The more you want to be happy, the more miserable you become. This seems very absurd, but this is precisely the root cause. And if you understand the process of how the human mind functions, you will be able to realize it.

Man strives to be happy; thereby he creates suffering. If you want to escape suffering, you will have to escape from your own striving for happiness — and then no one will be able to make you miserable. This is exactly what Freud overlooked. He could not understand that the cause of misery could be the very striving for happiness.
How does this happen? Why do you strive for happiness at all? And what does this striving for happiness bring you?
By beginning to strive for happiness, in the same instant you move away from the present, you move away from the existential; you have already moved into the future — which is nowhere, which has not yet arrived. You have moved into dreams, and dreams can never bring fulfillment. Your striving for happiness is a dream, and a dream is unreal.

With the help of the unreal, no one has ever managed to achieve the real. You took the wrong train.
The striving for happiness simply shows that at this very moment you are not happy. The striving for happiness simply shows that you are a miserable being. And a miserable being projects life into the future, imagining that one day — on some day, in some way — it will be happy. Your projection stems from suffering; it carries within itself the very seeds of suffering. It comes from you; it cannot be different from you. It is like your child — its face looks like yours; its blood flows in your veins. It will be a continuation of you.

Today you are unhappy. You create a projection, imagining that you will be happy tomorrow, but tomorrow is a projection of you and everything that you are today. You are unhappy — tomorrow will arise from this misery, and you will be even more unhappy. Of course, from greater misery you will again wish for greater happiness in the future. Now you are caught in the trap of a vicious circle: the more miserable you become, the more you desire happiness; the more you desire happiness, the more miserable you become. Thus the dog chases its own tail.

In Zen there is a specific name for this. Zen people say that it is like whipping a cart. If your horses are not moving and you continue to drive the cart, it will not help. You are miserable, and then everything you can dream of, everything you can project, will only bring even more suffering.

Therefore, the first thing to do is to stop creating dreams, to stop projecting. The first thing to do is to be here and now. Whatever happens, just be here and now — and a great revelation awaits you.

This revelation consists in the fact that no one can be miserable in the Here-and-Now.
Have you ever been miserable here and now? In this very moment — is there any possibility of being miserable right now? You can think about yesterday and become miserable. You can think about tomorrow and become miserable. But right in this very moment — in this pulsating, trembling, real moment — can you be miserable right now? Without any past, without any future?

You can bring misery from the past, from memory. Yesterday someone insulted you, and perhaps you still carry the wound, perhaps you still carry the grudge, perhaps you still feel miserable because of it: "Why? — why did this happen to me? Why did this person insult me? I did so much good for him, I always helped him, was always a friend, — and he insulted me!" You are playing with something that is no longer there. Yesterday has gone irrevocably.

Or you can be miserable because of tomorrow. Tomorrow you will run out of money — where will you live then? What will you eat? Tomorrow you will run out of money! — now misery enters. It comes either from yesterday or from tomorrow, but it is never here and now. Right in this moment, in the now, misery is impossible.
That is all you need to know so that you can become a Buddha. Then no one will block your path. Then you can forget all the Freuds; then happiness is not only possible, but has already happened. It is right before you, and you do not see it because you continue to look around.

Happiness is where you are — where you are, there is happiness. It surrounds you; it is a natural phenomenon. It is exactly like the air, exactly like the sky. Happiness should not be sought; it is the very substance of which the universe consists. Joy is the very substance of which the universe consists. But you should look straight ahead, you should look at what is immediately close. Looking around, you see nothing.
You are missing out because of yourselves. You are missing out because your approach is flawed.

But, continuing to die for the past and never thinking about the future, try to be miserable — you are doomed to fail! You will not succeed in being miserable; your failure is absolutely certain and predictable. You will not manage it — no matter how skilled you are at remaining miserable, no matter how much you practice, you cannot create misery in this very moment.
Osho