What matters is not what you do; Whether you do it with your presence or your absence, that is what matters. Whatever you do, if you do it with your whole being, your life will be ecstatic; it will be a bliss. If you do something absent-mindedly without you being there, your life will be pain. It has to be. Hell means your absence.
So there are two kinds of seekers: One kind of seeker is always looking for what to do. That seeker is on the wrong track, because it is not a question of doing. It is a matter of being… What to be, how to be. So never think in terms of action and doing, because whatever you do will be meaningless if you are not there.
It doesn’t matter whether you live in the world, whether you function in a monastery or function in the crowd, in a deserted spot in the Himalayas. If you are not here, you will perish there too, and whatever you do – in the crowd or alone – will bring you pain. If you’re not there, then whatever you do is wrong.
The second type, and the right type of seeker, does not look for what to do, it looks for how to be. The first thing is how to be.
A man came to Gautam Buddha. He was so full of passion, so much empathy, that he asked Gautam Buddha: “What can I do to help the world?”
Buddha is reported to have laughed and said to the man, “You cannot do anything because you are absent. How can you do anything when you are not? Do not think of the world. Do not think of how to serve the world, how to help others.” Buddha said: “Be first… And if you exist, then whatever you do becomes a service, becomes a prayer, becomes compassion. The turning point is your being. Your self is a revolution.”
Osho – “The Book of Secrets”
