Discourses on the Great Mystic Ashtavakra Quotes

“The world cannot be finished for the one who does not know himself. You will not be able to know yourself by dropping the world. But by knowing yourself, the world drops. There are two approaches to renunciation. One approach says that by renouncing the world you can know yourself. The other approach says, know yourself and the world has already dropped. The first approach is wrong. By abandoning the world you cannot know yourself. Because, in abandoning the world you go on creating the illusion of the world. Try to understand a little. A rope is lying on the ground but you see a snake. If someone meets you and says, ‘Just drop the idea of a snake and you will see the rope,’ you will say, ‘How can the idea of a snake be dropped? I see a snake, I don’t see a rope.’ If you take courage by”
― Osho, Enlightenment: The Only Revolution

“When people come new and fresh and they have no experience of meditation, it happens. It happens and they are filled with joy—but the very experience creates difficulty. Then expectations begin: what happened today should happen tomorrow; not just happen, but happen stronger. But it doesn’t happen again, and they approach me, crying. They say, ‘What happened? Have we made some mistake? It happened once, but now it’s not.’ ‘This is your mistake,’ I tell them. ‘When it first happened you were not expecting anything; now you are. Now the mind is no longer innocent. Your expectation has contaminated it. Now you are not genuine, you are not open—asking has closed the doors. Expectation has arisen, and this expectation spoils everything. Now desire is aroused, greed enters.”
― Osho, Enlightenment: The Only Revolution