… In your life you have been too serious about everything; about god too. That seriousness has been a barrier; it has to be dropped. It looks very strange when I say that god can be approached only in a playful mood, but it is so. When you are having fun you are closer to god than ever. The English word 'recreation' is beautiful. It really means literally 're-creation'. Whenever you are in fun, in a non-serious playful mood, you re-create yourself. You allow yourself to be recreated by god; you go through a rebirth. Whenever man becomes serious, he becomes closed. Seriousness is part of the ego.
Seekers down the ages have thought that they were very very serious people; millions have been searching and missing because of their seriousness. Their search is great, their effort is great, they devote their whole life to seeking and still they miss — not because they have committed any sin but just because of their seriousness.
If you cannot be playful you keep god distant. When you are flowing, relaxed, the distance is not so much.
And there come moments of relaxation when the distance simply disappears, when there is no need to seek god: god is found. God is found without seeking. Seeking has nothing to do with god; seekers miss. There are two types of people — the seekers and the finders, and they are different people. Seekers never find and finders don't need to seek, they simply find.
Picasso was painting something beautiful and the visitor, a friend, asked, 'How do you seek beauty?' And he said, 'I don't seek it! find it!' That statement is pure Zen: I don't seek it, I find it….
Drop seriousness; there is still time to drop it. And in the very dropping of it you will really start growing.
OSHO
?