For many centuries all over the world they have been teaching every child to be purposive. ”Don’t waste your time! Don’t waste your life!” And what do they mean? They mean, ”Transform your life into a bank balance. When you die you must die rich. That is the purpose.” Here in the East – particularly the mystics we are talking about, the Upanishads – they say, ”Live richly.” In the West they say, ”Die a rich man.” And these are totally different things. If you want to live richly you have to live here and now, not a single moment is to be lost. If you want to achieve something, you will die a rich man – but you will live a poor man, your life will be poor.
Look at rich people: their life is absolutely poor, because they are wasting it transforming it into bank balances, changing their life into money, into big houses, big cars. Their whole effort is that life has to be changed for some things. When they die you can count their things. Buddha became a beggar. He was born a king, he became a beggar. Why? Just to live richly... because he came to understand that there are two ways to live: one is to die richly, the other is to live richly.
And any man who has any understanding will choose to live richly, because dying a rich man doesn’t mean anything; you simply wasted yourself for nothing. But this is possible only if you can conceive that the whole existence is purposeless; it is a cosmic play, a continuous beautiful game, a beautiful hide-and-seek – not leading anywhere. Nowhere is the goal. If this is the background, then you need not be worried about individual purposes, evolution, progress. This word progress is the basic disease of the modern age. What is the need?
All that can be enjoyed is available, all that you need to be happy is here and now. But you create conditions and you say that unless these conditions are fulfilled you cannot be happy. You say, ”These conditions must be fulfilled first: this type of house, this type of clothes, this type of car, this type of wife, this type of husband. All these conditions have to be fulfilled first, then I can be happy.” As if by being happy you are going to oblige the whole universe. And who is going to fulfill your conditions? Who is worried? You will try for those conditions, and the effort is going to be so long that they can never be fulfilled really, because whenever something is fulfilled, by the time it is fulfilled the goal has shifted.
A non achieving mind is possible only if you can be content with purposelessness. Just try to understand the whole cosmic play and be a part in it. Don’t be serious, because a play can never be serious. And even if the play needs you to be serious, be playfully serious, don’t be really serious. Then this very moment becomes rich. Then this very moment you can move into the ultimate. The ultimate is not in the future, it is the present, hidden here and now. So don’t ask about purpose – there is none. If there was purpose then your God would be just a managing director or a big business man, an industrialist, or something like that.
Somebody asked Jesus, ”Who will be able to enter into the kingdom of your God?” Jesus said, ”Those who are like small children.” This is the secret. What is the meaning of being a small child? The meaning is that the child is never businesslike, he is always playful. If you can become playful you have become a child again, and only children can enter into the kingdom of God, nobody else, because children can play without asking where it is leading. They can make houses of sand without asking whether they are going to be permanent.
Can somebody live in them? Will they be able to resist the wind that is blowing? They know that within minutes they will disappear. But they are very serious when they are playing. They can even fight for their sandhouses or houses of cards. They are very serious when they are creating. They are enjoying. And they are not fools, they know that these houses are just card houses and everything is make believe. Why waste time in thinking in terms of business? Why not live more and more playfully, non seriously, ecstatically?
Ecstasy is not something which you can achieve by some efforts, ecstasy is a way of living. Moment to moment you have to be ecstatic, simple things have to be enjoyed. And life gives millions of opportunities to enjoy. You will miss them if you are purposive. If you are not purposive, every moment you will have so many opportunities to be ecstatic. A flower, a lonely flower in the garden... you can dance if you are non purposive. The first star in the evening... you can sing if you are non purposive. A beautiful face... you can see the divine in it if you are non purposive. All around the divine is happening, the ultimate is showering. But you will be able to see it only if you are non purposive and playful.
Do not take life too seriously; you will never get out of it alive. Participate in the dance of life by being one with the existence. Be blissful, be ecstatic, be simple, be happy, be playful, be loved, be a child. Life’s best pleasures are in small things. Live your life every single moment of it. Live richly.
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