“Don't waste your time with the nonessential. Don't fool around. Millions of people are wasting their time with the nonessential, and the irony is that they know that it is nonessential. But they say, ‘What else to do’? They are not aware of anything more significant.
People are playing cards, and if you ask them, ‘What are you doing’? they say they are killing time. Killing time? Time is life! So you are really killing life. And the time that you are killing cannot be recaptured again; once gone, it is gone forever.
The man who wants to become a buddha has to drop the nonessential more and more, so that more energy is available for the essential. Take a look at your life, how many nonessential things you are doing – and for what? And how long you have done them – and what have you gained? Are you going to repeat the same stupid pattern your whole life? Enough is enough! Take a look, meditate over it. Say only that which is essential, do only that which is essential, read only that which is essential. And so much time is saved and so much energy is saved, and all that energy and time can easily be channeled towards meditation, towards inner growth, towards witnessing.
I have never seen a man who is so poor that he cannot meditate. But people are engaged in foolish things, utterly foolish. They don't look foolish, because everybody else is also doing the same.
But the seeker has to be watchful. Take more note of what you are doing, what you are doing with your life – because to grow roses of awareness much energy will be needed, a reservoir of energy will be needed. All that is great comes only when you have extra energy. If your whole energy is wasted on the mundane, then the sacred will never be contacted.”
Osho, The Book of Wisdom
