Let me tell you the story of a wandering Sufi mystic. Every evening he would give thanks to existence: “You have done so much for me, and I have never been able to repay it, and never will.” His disciples found this a little distasteful, for life was sometimes very hard.

The mystic was a rebellious man, and his disciples had joined a band of rebellious Sufis. This time, for three whole days, they could find no food, for in every village they passed through they were turned away for being Sufis. People would not even give them shelter for the night, so they slept out in the desert. They were hungry and thirsty, and now the third day had come. At the evening prayer, the mystic said once more to existence: “I am so grateful. You have done so much for us, and we can never repay it.”

One of the disciples burst out, “This is too much. Will you please tell us what existence has done for us these last three days? Why do you keep thanking it?”

The old man laughed. “You still do not see what existence has done for us. These three days have been precious to me. I was hungry, I was thirsty; we had no place to sleep; we were turned away, cursed, and stones were thrown at us. And I watched myself from within — and felt no anger at all. I am grateful to existence. Its gifts are beyond price; I can never repay them. Three days of hunger, three days of thirst, three days without sleep, the stones people threw — and still I feel no hostility, no anger, no hatred, no sense of failure, no disappointment. This must be its grace; this must be the support existence has given me.”

“In these three days I have understood many things I could never have understood if we had been fed, if we had been welcomed, if no stones had been thrown. And yet you ask me why I thank existence? Even as I die, I will thank it — for I know that even in death it will reveal its mysteries to me, just as it has in life. For death is not the end; it is the very summit of life.”

Learn to flow with existence, so that you carry no guilt and no wound. Do not fight your body, or nature, or anything else, and you will become more peaceful and serene, calm and self-possessed. This will help you to grow more awake, more alert, more conscious — and in the end you will arrive at the greatest awakening of all: liberation.

— Osho, “Balancing Body and Mind”