Have you watched Waiting for Godot?
If you did not... Waiting for Godot, published by Samuel Beckett in 1949, is a play in which two characters (Estragon and Vladimir) are waiting for someone who never comes. If you want to impress someone, you say Waiting for Godot explores themes of existentialist philosophy. The emptiness and randomness of the plot cause the audience to wonder if there any meaning in the play – or in life.
At one moment Estragon asks Vladimir what it is that he has requested from Godot:
VLADIMIR: Oh ... nothing very definite.
ESTRAGON: A kind of prayer.
VLADIMIR: Precisely.
ESTRAGON: A vague supplication (asking or begging for something).
VLADIMIR: Exactly
Sounds familiar? That is what we do all our lives.
If someone asked me to describe life in one word, that word would be... WAITING.
Our whole life we are waiting for something. We're waiting for the dawn, birthday, holiday, train, children, summer, Friday, payment, vacation, recognition, dinner, enlightenment, love, new year, answer, smile, call, truth, destiny, death...
There is a single immanent reality, directly experienced by everyone, which is simultaneously the source, the substance and the real nature of everything that exists. A number of different names, each one signifying a different aspects of the same indivisible reality - the Self.
The Self is the real "I", contrary to perceptible experience, not an experience of individuality but a non-personal, all inclusive awareness.
It is not to be confused with the individual self which is essentially non-existed, being a fabrication of the mind which obscures the true experience of the real Self.
The real Self is always present and always experienced but one is only consciously aware of it as it is really is when the self-limiting tendencies of the mind have ceased.
Permanent and continuous Self-awareness is Self-realization.
"I exist" is the only permanent self-evident experience of everyone. Nothing else is so self-evident as "I AM". What you call self-evident, that is, the experience you get through the senses, is far from self-evident. "I AM" is reality. I am this or that is unreal. "I AM" is truth, another name for the Self or God or Supreme, Absolute. "I AM" is beyond existence and non-existence.
Establish yourself firmly in "I AM" awareness, just be as you are. This is beginning and end of all endeavors.
~ Ramana Maharshi
Nothing is serious!
Every day you are faced with traps that encourage you to take life
seriously. You are faced with all kinds of frustrations, turning everyday
situations into problems, constantly on the lookout for shit to complain
about and worrying about a bunch of things that simply do not matter.
You are very sensitive, your ego is huge and you cannot tolerate simple
truth. You get offended by rain, by look, gesture, words... especially
words. "I am feeling offended" is an epidemic spreading across the world.
And I hate to be the bearer of bad news, but you’re a carrier of the
disease. It’s a mental condition whereby your ego grows up to the point
where everything offends you. The hurt feelings, indignation,
irritability, disappointment, grumpiness and an all-around allergic
reaction to anyone who says or does something you don’t like. In one word
- seriousness.
You try, you think, you plan, you work, and then there is no achievement. The thing that you desire never happens, it never comes. If life was a static, fixed thing - not dynamic and flowing - then you could achieve what you wanted, but then life would be a death. Life is life because it is dynamic, changing. You cannot predict its course, it is unpredictable. It is dynamic and flowing - always flowing nowhere.
If you are serious, then you cannot flow. Then you are frozen inside; then you become just a dead stone. Then there are resistances around you. You cannot melt, you cannot change as life changes. You have a fixed pattern, a fixed shape, and because of that shape you will resist change. Then you are not flowing with life, you are struggling against it. Seriousness creates frozen-ness, and frozen-ness creates struggle.
- Life is Not Serious, Osho
The Waiting for Godot plays quickly because it gives
situations which don't offer anything. Thus the main theme of the play and
the meaning of life is set in two sentences:
VLADIMIR: I'm beginning to come round to that opinion.
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