"There are a thousand and one poisons, but nothing like idealism – it is the most poisonous of all poisons. Of course, the most subtle: it kills you, but kills you in such a way that you never become aware of it. It kills you with a style. The ways of idealism are very cunning. Rarely does a person become aware that he has been committing suicide through it. Once you become aware, you become religious.

Religion is not an ideology. Religion does not believe in any ideals. Religion is to become aware of the impossibility of idealism – of all idealism. Religion is to live here and now, and idealism goes on conditioning your mind to live somewhere else. And only the now exists. There is no other way to live.

The only way is to be here. You cannot be there. The tomorrow is non-existent, it never comes, and idealism believes in the tomorrow. It sacrifices the today at the altar of the tomorrow. It goes on saying to you, “Do something, improve yourself. Do something, change yourself. Do something, become perfect.” It appeals to the ego.

Idealism belongs to the world of the ego. It appeals to the ego that you can be more perfect than you are; in fact you should be more perfect than you are. But each moment is perfect and it cannot be more perfect than it is. To understand this is the beginning of a new life, is the beginning of life. To miss this is to commit suicide.

Then you go on destroying this moment for the moment which never comes. Then you go on destroying this life for some life which exists nowhere. You go on destroying this world for some other world – some paradise, some moksha, some nirvana. To sacrifice the present for the future is to be trapped in death.

To live the moment, to live it totally and freely, is to delight in existence, is to celebrate it. And that is the only way of being; there is no other way."

Osho