The difference between ambition and longing is that ambition is goal orientated, longing is source-orientated.
Ambition means there is something to achieve "out there." It depends on a goal, there is a motive; hence you can be rational about it. You can figure out weather it is worth achieving or not. It is not a question of feeling, it has to be calculated. You have to move in a certain direction cautiously, because the world is very cunning and everybody is trying to achieve the same goal and there is competition. You have to be cleaver and cunning, very cautious.
Longing has no goal but it has a source. The heart is the source.
Vincent van Gogh would always paint he trees so big that they would go beyond the stars. The stars would be small, the sun and moon would be small, and the trees would be so huge....Somebody asked him, "Are you mad or something? Why do you go drawing such big trees? The farthest star is millions and millions of light years away and your trees go on reaching beyond the stars! What nonsense is this?"
And van Gogh would laugh and he would say, "I know! But I know something more, too, of which you are not aware: I am painting the longing, not the trees. I am more concerned with the source, not with the goal. It is irrelevant whether they reach the stars or not. I belong to the earth, I am part of it, and I understand the longing of the earth. This is the longing of the earth expressed through the trees-to go on reaching for the stars."
And for a longing, everything is possible. Nothing is impossible, because there is no question of reaching anywhere-it is just enjoying the source of longing itself.
Look deep into your heart. Listen to the still, small voice within. And remember one thing: Life is fulfilled only through longings, never through ambitions.
-Osho
Cool, Stacy!
Did I ever tell you I had a dog named Osho?
xxxxoooo
Did I ever tell you I had a dog named Osho?
xxxxoooo
