Work is time; play is timeless. Meditation must be like play, not end-oriented. You must not meditate to achieve something because then the whole point is lost. You cannot meditate at all if you are meditating for something. You can meditate only if you are playing with it, enjoying it, if nothing is to be achieved out of it, if it is beautiful in itself. Meditation for meditation’s sake…then it becomes timeless. And then the ego cannot arise.

Without desire, you cannot project yourself into the future, without desire you cannot start expectations, and without desire you will never be disappointed. Without desire, time really disappears: you move from one moment of eternity to another moment of eternity. There is no sequence…and then you will never ask why nothing special is happening.

For myself, I have not come to know the mystery yet. The very play is the mystery; being timeless, desireless, is the mystery. And to be ordinary is the “goal,” if you allow me to use the word. To be ordinary is the goal. If you can be ordinary you are liberated, then there is no samsara for you, no world for you.

This whole world is a struggle to be extraordinary. Some try it in politics, some try it in economics, some try it in religion. But the lust remains the same.

The second question:

Osho,
Not only in meditation but in routine life also, I constantly feel a oneness with the existence, egolessness, timelessness. Yet I feel myself ordinary. And I do not find in me the total transformation about which you talk very often.

This is good. This is the goal. You should not create a problem out of it. You should relax and be ordinary.

But why do you feel it? Why do you feel that you remain ordinary? Somewhere there must be the desire to be extraordinary, to be not ordinary. Only in contrast to that can you feel ordinary, and then a certain sadness will follow. But why not be ordinary? What do I mean when I say, “Be ordinary?” I mean that whatsoever the case is – be.

One young man came to me just a few days ago, and he said, “I am an egoist and whenever I listen to you, I feel that I am wrong. So how to be egoless?” I told him, “You be simply egoistic, and accept the fact that you are so and don’t struggle. Don’t try to be egoless. You are an egoist, so feel it and be it.”

He felt very disappointed because really he was searching for a new way for the ego. He was searching for egolessness. And I said, “Be whatsoever you are,” so that that desire would be cut and the ego couldn’t move. And I told him, “For three months don’t come to me and don’t fight the ego – accept it, it is there. It is part of you, it is how you are. Don’t fight with it, and don’t think in terms of the contrary, how to be egoless, because that is the way of the ego. Accept it. Acceptance is the death.”