The original source of all tension is becoming. One is always trying to be
something; no one is at ease with himself as he is. The being is not
accepted, the being is denied, and something else is taken as an ideal to
become. So the basic tension is always between that which you are and that
which you long to become.

You desire to become something. Tension means that you are not pleased with
what you are, and you long to be what you are not. Tension is created
between these two. What you desire to become is irrelevant. If you want to
become wealthy, famous, powerful, or even if you want to be free, liberated,
to be divine, immortal, even if you long for salvation, moksha, then too the
tension will be there.

Anything that is desired as something to be fulfilled in the future, against
you as you are, creates tension. The more impossible the ideal is, the more
tension there is bound to be. So a person who is a materialist is ordinarily
not so tense as one who is religious, because the religious person is
longing for the impossible, for the far-off. The distance is so great that
only a great tension can fill the gap.

Tension means a gap between what you are and what you want to be. If the gap
is great, the tension will be great. If the gap is small, the tension will
be small. And if there is no gap at all, it means you are satisfied with
what you are. In other words, you do not long to be anything other than what
you are. Then your mind exists in the moment. There is nothing to be tense
about; you are at ease with yourself. You are in the Tao. To me, if there is
no gap you are religious; you are in the dharma.

The gap can have many layers. If the longing is physical, the tension will
be physical. When you seek a particular body, a particular shape -- if you
long for something other than what you are on a physical level -- then there
is tension in your physical body. One wants to be more beautiful. Now your
body becomes tense. This tension begins at your first body, the
physiological, but if it is insistent, constant, it may go deeper and spread
to the other layers of your being. If you are longing for psychic powers,
then the tension begins at the psychic level and spreads. The spreading is
just like when you throw a stone in the lake. It drops at a particular
point, but the vibrations created by it will go on spreading into the
infinite. So tension may start from any one of your seven bodies, but the
original source is always the same: the gap between a state that is and a
state that is longed for.

If you have a particular type of mind and you want to change it, transform
it -- if you want to be more clever, more intelligent -- then tension is
created. Only if we accept ourselves totally is there no tension. This total
acceptance is the miracle, the only miracle. To find a person who has
accepted himself totally is the only surprising thing.

Existence itself is non-tense. Tension is always because of hypothetical,
non-existential possibilities. In the present there is no tension; tension
is always future-oriented. It comes from the imagination. You can imagine
yourself as something other than you are. This potential that has been
imagined will create tension. So the more imaginative a person is, the more
tension is a possibility. Then the imagination has become destructive.
Imagination can also become constructive, creative. If your whole capacity
to imagine is focused in the present, in the moment, not in the future, then
you can begin to see your existence as poetry. Your imagination is not
creating a longing; it is being used in living. This living in the present
is beyond tension

. Animals are not tense, trees are not tense, because they do not have the
capacity to imagine. They are below tension, not beyond it. Their tension is
just a potentiality; it has not become actual. They are evolving. A moment
will come when tension will explode in their beings and they will begin to
long for the future. It is bound to happen. The imagination becomes active.

The first thing the imagination becomes active about is the future. You
create images and because there are no corresponding realities, you go on
creating more and more images. But as far as the present is concerned, you
cannot ordinarily conceive of the imagination in relation to it. How can you
be imaginative in the present? There seems to be no need. This point must be
understood.
Osho, Psychology of the Esoteric, Number 8


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