Osho,
For the last six years I’ve lived in your communes. You are here, all my friends are here; everything I love and value is here. And yet, I often think of leaving. What’s wrong?

That’s what is wrong. You have all your friends here, all that you love, all that you have aspired to. When one comes to a point of having all, a great desire to escape from it arises – for the simple reason that the mind wants more and more and more. If all is available, the mind starts feeling restless; it has nothing to do.

It is a strange fact that poor countries and their people are more satisfied and contented, compared to the rich countries and their people, because the poor can hope and hopes keep them going. If you reach the final rung of the ladder, you are suddenly at a loss; you cannot hope anymore, there is nothing to hope for.

The mind and its functioning has to be understood; the continuous desire for more has to be understood. It is very sick.

One should start looking into one’s desire to leave when everything is available. Who is prompting this desire? The mind wants more, and there is no more anymore. The mind is bound to create turmoil in you to escape. And the dichotomy is that on the other hand you see, “All is available here. Where am I going to be and what am I going to gain by going there?” It is sheer stupidity. But this mind comes from the monkeys and is stupid.

You have to learn not to be identified with the mind. You have to be just a watcher, and see all the buffoonery that the mind goes on doing around you. Don’t applaud, don’t support, don’t negate – just watch. Take no action against the mind because that is also part of the mind. Only one thing in you is the door, and that is witnessing, because it is not part of the mind. It is simple to understand: if you can witness your mind, certainly you are not the mind. Anything that you can see in front of you, you are not.

This is the whole simple and open secret of meditation. Whatever the monkey within you is doing, watch, with no judgment, because any judgment is either going to be for or against; you have become party to the foolishness of the mind. Neither for or against, just remain watchful of what is happening and this desire to leave will disappear, because you will be able to see that what you wanted is here. So where are you going? And this mind will be with you wherever you go, and it will not allow you any rest.

The mind always wants to go on and on, because that is its very lifeblood. Stopping, even for a single moment, the mind dies. And the death of the mind is the birth of you. While the mind has power over you, you are not born yet.

All the great masters in the East were either kings, or princes who were going to become kings. Buddha, Mahavira, Parshvanatha, Bahubali – what happened to these people? Not a single poor man in the whole history of the East has become a great master, for the simple reason that he still has hope.