This is an answer by the great enlightened master OSHO in response to a question about a devotee regarding his underconfidence in life,where he recalls an incident where he was ridiculed by his school friends
Mm mm, it is just an old record -- absolutely irrelevant. But it goes on playing. You have to put it off. You cannot erase it; there is no need to erase it. You just have to understand that this is foolish. Who are these school friends? How do they know that you cannot make it? Who are they? And how can they decide? How can anybody else decide that you cannot make it? Except for you, nobody can decide it.
And you also cannot decide it beforehand. First you have to try it and see whether you make it or not, because if you decide beforehand that you cannot make it, you will not be able to. Your decision will affect your life. If will become an auto-suggestion. It will become a seed. It will sabotage your whole life. Even you cannot decide what you can make an,d what you cannot make. You have to do it, you have to see it. Only life decides. So it is simply foolish, childish -- but many childish things continue. The tape goes on playing itself, and if you play it too much, it becomes habitual.
And it is a trick of the mind -- it is a trick to avoid. Once you decide that you cannot make it, then why bother? Why struggle? Why so much conflict, effort? You know already that you cannot make it. It is the mind finding a rationalisation so that you can avoid struggle. And of course, if you avoid effort, you will not make it, so you fall back upon your decision. You say it was right, it was always right; you knew it beforehand. These are self-perpetuating things in the mind; they perpetuate themselves. They fulfill themselves, and the circle goes on moving, the wheel goes on moving.
I don't see why you can't make it. You are alive -- why can't you make it? Life is trying in every way within you to make it -- otherwise you would not be here. You cannot be purposelessly here. Life has not yet become hopeless in you, otherwise you would die.
The very thing is enough evidence that life is still alive within you, thriving, kicking, still striving. You are Still breathing and you are still there. Once it is really settled that you cannot make it -- that you are doomed, nothing is going to happen to you -- you will die immediately, you cannot live a single moment, because then life has nothing to be there for. The destiny is closed. But you are breathing... you are aware.
Life has not become hopeless about you. God still goes on hoping about you, hence He goes on giving you life.
Every morning you are awake again. He again tries. He has not become hopeless, otherwise you would disappear. Man exists because God hopes. Man is a hope... a divine hope, a dream in God's mind. The moment God becomes hopeless about you, you will be there no more; you simply disappear.
You can make it. You are here to make it. But these foolish noises that you have gathered -- put them off! Just tell the mind, 'Enough of this nonsense.' Let them shout -- you go on your way. By and by they will stop bothering you, and by and by you will start achieving things. That will be a proof -- and only that proof will make them shut their mouths; otherwise they will continue.
Nobody has the right to condemn you, but everybody carries these voices within, and everybody has to come to understand, otherwise one never grows. So whenever it happens again, just say to them, 'Shut up!' and don't pay much attention. Become indifferent and go on your way. Whatsoever you want to do, do. Only by doing it you will prove them wrong; otherwise there is no way.
Once glimpses start coming to you, and you are on the right track, and you feel that yes, you are arriving, they will disappear by themselves. They will not be able to show their face to you. In fact use them as a challenge that you have to prove them false. This is your life's work.
Do Vipassana now -- and in Vipassana the voices will be com-ing more strongly.
Do visit osho-isayuntoyou.blogspot.com/
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