“Have you watched what goes on inside yourself? There is no communication between one fragment of your being with another fragment of your being. What to say about communion? There is no communication even. You are not one, you are a multiplicity. And you are a multiplicity because of the multiplicity of desires. You want to become so many things.

     “In the first place, the moment you want to become something, you are losing your being. In the clouds of becoming, the being is lost. The moment you start thinking in terms of what to become, you are no longer aware of who you are. When becoming is dropped, energy turns back upon itself. That’s what Jesus calls conversion: returning to the source. That’s what Patanjali calls pratyahar: coming back to oneself. That is what Mahavira calls pratikraman: turning back to one’s own being.

     “We are all rushing – rushing for somewhere there in the future. We are all rushing so fast because life is short and time is fleeting. We go on rushing, and where do we reach? We reach only our graves. Nothing is ever fulfilled because those desires are by their very nature unfulfillable.

     “Try to understand the nature of desire. That is the only deception there is, the only mirage, the only illusion. If one understands what desire is, one becomes a buddha. Seeing the futility of desire, desire is no longer valid for you and that dimension simply disappears. Becoming aware that no desire is ever fulfilled, cannot be fulfilled by its very nature – is intrinsically unfulfillable – you need not renounce it.

     “Those who renounce have not understood; those who have understood don’t renounce. There is nothing to renounce. Desire is simply no longer relevant. It slips out of your hands – not that you renounce it. It simply becomes utterly meaningless. In that very understanding, you are free of it. The whole work of sannyas, of being a meditator, is to understand the nature of desire.

     “What is the nature of desire? First thing, it always hankers for that which is not. Now, look into it, meditate over it. This is the very nature of desire: asking for that which is not. How can it be fulfilled? When you have it, your desire will have moved away.

     “You see a beautiful house and you desire it – and you long for it and you dream about it, and you work hard for years. Then one day the house is yours. But you are surprised, a revelation: the moment the house is yours, the desire is no longer there for it, it has already moved. It is never in the present, it can only be in the future. Future is its space, its soil, it grows there. Present is not its soil. In the present, it dies – immediately dies. So when the house is yours and you have moved into the house, suddenly you are surprised. Where are those beautiful dreams that you have been dreaming about the house? The house is yours, but where are those dreams? They have flown away.” Osho