“Question : OSHO, WHY IS IT SO DIFFICULT TO FORGIVE, TO STOP CLINGING TO HURTS LONG SINCE PAST?

Osho : The ego exists on misery - the more misery the more nourishment for it. In blissful moments the ego totally disappears, and vice versa: if the ego disappears, bliss starts showering on you.

Joy is like poison to the ego, and misery is like vitamins.

You will have to understand the whole mechanism of the ego. If you try to forgive, that is not real forgiveness. With effort, you will only repress. You can forgive only when you understand the stupidity of the whole game that goes on within your mind.

You will repress in one form; it will assert in another form - sometimes so subtle that it is almost impossible to recognize it, that it is the same old structure, so renovated, refurnished, redecorated, that it looks almost new.

The ego lives on the negative, because the ego is basically a negative phenomenon; it exists on saying no. No is the soul of the ego. And how can you say no to bliss? You can say no to misery, you can say no to the agony of life. How can you say no to the flowers and the stars and the sunsets and all that is beautiful, divine? And the whole existence is full of it - it is full of roses - but you go on picking the thorns; you have a great investment in those thorns.

The first thing to remember is: ego is the most negative phenomenon in existence. It is like darkness.

Darkness has no positive existence; it is simply absence of light...that's why you cannot do anything directly with darkness.

If you try to fight with it, you will be defeated. Darkness cannot be defeated by fighting. It is impossible, for the simple reason that darkness does not exist. If you want to do anything with darkness you will have to go via light. If you don't want darkness, bring light in. If you want darkness, then put the light off. But do something with light; nothing can be done with darkness directly.

I don't say to you: Don't hate; love. I don't say to you that drop all your sins and become virtuous. I say: Bring light into your being. Don't be bothered by all these fragments of darkness.

And at the very center of darkness is ego. Ego is the center of darkness. You bring light - the method is meditation - you become more aware, you become more alert. Otherwise you will go on repressing, and whatsoever is repressed has to be repressed again and again and again.

That I have to do; that's the function of the Master, to destroy your ego. And you can become very revengeful, and you can carry deep wounds through it.

People go on carrying things that they hate. They live in their hatred. They go on fingering their wounds so they don't heal; they don't ALLOW them to heal - their whole life depends on their past.

Unless you start living in the present, you will not be able to forget and forgive the past.

I don't say to you: Forget and forgive all that has happened in the past; that is not my approach. I say: Live in the present that is the positive way to approach existence. Live in the present. That is another way of saying: Be more meditative, more aware, more alert, because when you are alert, aware, you are in the present.

Awareness cannot be in the past and cannot be in the future. Awareness knows only the present.

Awareness knows no past, no future; it has only one tense, the present. Be aware, and as you will start enjoying the present more and more, as you will feel the bliss of being in the present..You will stop going into the past. You will not have to forget and forgive, it will simply disappear on its own accord. You will be surprised - where it has gone?

To be free from past and future is to taste freedom for the first time, is to taste God. And in that experience one becomes whole, healthy; all wounds are healed. Suddenly there are no more any wounds; you start feeling a deep well-being arising in you. That well-being is the beginning of transformation.”