Expectations and Frustrations

"Frustration is just a shadow which follows expectation. If you don’t expect even for a single moment, if you are in a state of mind where there is no expectation, then it is simple. You ask a question and the answer comes; there is a fulfillment. But if you ask with any expectations you will be frustrated by the answer.

You want God to come to you. You begin to meditate and expectation comes in. I have seen people who meditate for fifteen minutes each day for seven days, and then they come to me and say, ”I am meditating and I have still not realized the divine. The whole effort seems to be useless.” They have devoted fifteen minutes to meditation for seven days and still God is nowhere to be seen. ”I am still no nearer to God, so what should I do now?” Even in the search for the divine we have expectations.

We are always concerned with changing the world. That is just an escape. I have always felt that people who are concerned with others’ changing are really escaping from their own frustrations, their own conflicts, their own anxieties, their own anguish. They are focusing their minds on something else, they are occupying their minds with something else, because they cannot change themselves. It is easier to try to change the world than to change oneself." - Osho