Ignorant people believe they are wise. Insane people believe they are the sanest.
Yes it happens; it is part of human nature that we go on looking to the outside. We watch everybody except ourselves. Hence we know more about others than about ourselves; we know nothing about ourselves.
We are not witnesses to our own functioning of the mind, we are not watchful inside.
You need a hundred-and-eighty-degree turn — that's what meditation is all about.
You have to close your eyes and start watching.
In the beginning you will find only darkness and nothing else. And many people become frightened and rush out because outside there is light.
Yes, there is light outside but that light is not going to enlighten you, that light is not going to help you at all. You need inner light, a light which has its source in your very being, a light which cannot be extinguished even by death, a light which is eternal.
And you have it, the potential is there! You are born with it, but you are keeping it behind you; you never look at it.
And because for centuries, for many lives, you have looked outside, it has become a mechanical habit.
Even when you are asleep you are looking at dreams. Dreams mean reflections of the outside. When you close your eyes you again start daydreaming or thinking; that means again you become interested in others.
This has become such a chronic habit that there are not even small intervals, small windows into your own being from where you can have a glimpse of who you are.
In the beginning it is a hard struggle, it is arduous, it is difficult — but not impossible. If you are decisive, if you are committed to inner exploration, then sooner or later it happens. You just have to go on digging, you have to go on struggling with the darkness.
Soon you will pass the darkness and you will enter into the realm of light. And that light is true light, far truer than the light of the sun or the moon, because all the lights that are outside are temporal; they are only for the time being.
Even the sun is going to die one day. Not only do small lamps exhaust their resources and die in the morning, even the sun with such an immense resource is dying every day.
Sooner or later it will become a black hole; it will die and no light will come from it. Howsoever long it lives it is not eternal. The inner light is eternal; it has no beginning, no end. It is synonymous with God.
And I am not interested in telling you to drop your faults, to make yourself good, to improve your character — no, not at all. I am not interested in your character at all; I am interested only in your consciousness.
Become more alert, more conscious. Just go deeper and deeper into yourself till you find the center of your being. You are living on the periphery, and on the periphery there is always turmoil. The deeper you go, the deeper the silence that prevails. And in those experiences of silence, light, joy, your life starts moving into a different dimension. The errors, the mistakes start disappearing.
So don't be worried about the errors and the mistakes and the faults. Be concerned about one single thing, one single phenomenon; put your total energy into one goal, and that is how to be more conscious, how to be more awakened. If you put your total energy into it, it is going to happen, it is inevitable. It is your birthright.
OSHO