Frustration is a shadow of expectation

It is better not to meditate than to meditate with expectation, because at least you will not suffer the frustration. Don't meditate. But if you have decided to meditate, then be clear. Meditation does not guarantee anything to you. Not that nothing happens out of it; it happens, but there is no guarantee. Tremendous possibilities open but you cannot expect them. If you expect, doors remain dosed. It is your expectation that blocks the way.

Once you drop expectations you have learned how to live. Then everything that happens fulfills you, whatsoever it is. For one thing, you never feel frustrated because in the first place you never expected. So frustration is impossible. Frustration is a shadow of expectation. With the expectation dropped, frustration drops on its own accord.

Don't expect anything in the future. Don't corrupt it. Because if all your expectations are fulfilled then too you will be miserable... because it is your expectation and it is fulfilled. You will not be happy about it. Happiness is possible only through surprise; happiness is possible only when something happens which you had never expected, when something takes you completely unawares. If your expectations are fulfilled a hundred per cent, you will be living as if you are in the past, not in the future. You come home and you expected your wife to say something and she does. And you expected your child to behave in a certain way and the child does. Just think -- you will be constantly in boredom. Nothing will happen. Everything will be just a repetition, as if you are seeing something which you have seen before, hearing something which you have heard before. Continuously you will see that it is a repetition of something. and repetition can never be satisfying. The new, the novel, the original, is needed.

So if your expectations are fulfilled. you will remain completely unfulfilled. And if your expectations are not fulfilled. then you feel frustrated. Then you feel constantly as if you propose and God goes on disposing; you feel that God is the enemy; you feel as if everybody is against you and everybody is working against you. If your expectations are never fulfilled you will feel frustrated.

when everything happens unexpectedly, everything becomes new. It brings a freshness to your life; a fresh breeze is continuously blowing and it does not allow dust to gather on you. Your doors and your windows are open: in comes sunshine, in comes the breeze, in comes the fragrance of flowers -- everything unexpected. You never asked for it, and existence goes on showering it on you. One feels God Is.