Osho,
For the past three months, I have been working physically quite hard in the garden. I loved the work very much, and I felt deeply connected to you. It was as if your creativity and grace were blissfully flowing through me. But somehow in the last few weeks, I have fallen out of this beautiful space and I have seen a lot of old ghosts turning up again: impatience, competitiveness, perfectionism, lots of anger and seriousness. Simultaneously, I very painfully experienced my being less connected with you, to whom I have felt so close and who allowed me to be so close.
While writing this I cannot contain my tears. What went wrong? Soon I have to leave but I don’t want to leave with this burden. Please, beloved, help me, and show me where I missed, so that I can leave in joy and peace and carry you with me in my heart.

Premda, the evolution of consciousness goes through many ups and downs. It is a hilly track. Nothing has gone wrong with you – it is just that you are not acquainted with how the path moves. Many times it goes down just to go higher than before. It passes through valleys to reach to the peaks, and each peak is just a beginning of a new pilgrimage because a higher peak is ahead of you. But to reach to the higher peak, you will have to go down again. Once you have understood that it is natural, all your misery, all your clouds will simply disperse.

You have been doing perfectly well. So the first thing to be remembered is, never be worried when days of down-going come; keep your eyes always on the faraway stars. Those valleys are parts of the mountains. You cannot take the valleys away and leave the mountains alone. Once this sinks deep into you, you will pass through the valleys dancing and singing, knowing perfectly well that a higher peak is waiting for you. And there is no end to this pilgrimage. Just as every day is followed by night, every height is followed by a down-going.

One has to learn not only to rejoice in the day but to rejoice in the night too – it has its own beauty. The peaks have their glory, the valleys have their richness. But if you become addicted to the peaks only, you have started choosing, and any consciousness that starts choosing gets into trouble. Remain choiceless, and whatever comes, enjoy it as a part of natural growth.

The night may become even darker, but the darker the night becomes, the closer is the dawn. So rejoice in the darkening night, and learn to see the beauty of darkness, of the stars, because in the day you will not find those stars. And never compare what has been, and what should be, and what is.

What is has to be rejoiced.

Now you are going away from me – this will give you a new experience, because you may be going away from me but I am not going away from you. You will find me in your joyful moments and you will find me in your sad moments. A life which knows no sadness, no tears, remains poor. Life has to know all the varieties of experiences to be rich. The more you know different aspects of existence, and still keep yourself together and centered, the more your life will find itself becoming richer and richer every moment, every day.

Going away is just a means of coming back again. How can you come back if you don’t go away? Always look at life as a dialectical process.

Here, night brings the day.

Here, death brings a new life.

Here, sadness brings a new rejoicing.

Here, emptiness brings a new fulfillment.