Man is fast asleep not only in the night but in the day too. ~OSHO~

The fundamental problem is not metaphysical, it is not concerned with the ultimate reality. It is concerned with you, your mind, your functioning of the mind, your sleep, your state of a sleepwalker.

Man ordinarily exists only mechanically. He is not aware although he believes he is aware. In fact that belief hinders him from becoming aware. Man is fast asleep not only in the night but in the day too. He is constantly dreaming. You can watch it yourself. Any time close your eyes, relax a little and you will be surprised: dreams start moving. They were already moving like an undercurrent. You were occupied with outside reality, hence you were not looking at them, but they were there all the time. Your back was towards them. Just look a little in and you will find thousands of dreams crowding you: possible, impossible, consistent, inconsistent.

When you see this state, you will understand why humanity has missed always the awakened ones. The awakened one has no more any undercurrent of dreaming in him. He is fully alert, aware. He speaks the language of awareness and you are asleep. There is no possibility of communication between you and the awakened one. He shouts, he makes every effort to reach you, to penetrate you, to penetrate your sleep and unconsciousness, but it is thick, dense and very deep.

Rarely do you hear him, very rarely, and even when you hear him you misinterpret him. Even when you hear him you don't listen to him. You are like a drunk who seems to be hearing, but still goes on interpreting according to his  drunken state. The whole humanity needs to be part of an organization like Alcoholics Anonymous. You may not be alcoholic, you may not be taking any intoxicant, you may not be taking or injecting any drug, but the society goes on injecting into your blood, into your being, many poisons.

For example, each child is poisoned by the society through teaching him ambition. Ambition is a poison far more dangerous than any alcohol can ever be, far more dangerous than marijuana or LSD, because ambition destroys your whole life. It keeps you moving in a false direction. It keeps you imagining, desiring, dreaming, it keeps you wasting your life. Ambition means a subtle creation of the ego, and once the ego is created you are in the grip of darkness. And the whole social structure depends on ambition. Be the first! Wherever you are, whatsoever you are doing: be the first! -- as if being the first has something divine about it. By what means you become the first is irrelevant. By right means or wrong means, succeed! As if success in itself has become equivalent to life, synonymous with life.

Life has nothing to do with success. Success keeps you rushing towards the future and that becomes your intoxicant. Hoping, hoping for the tomorrow, wasting that which you have or that which you don't have and will never have.

OSHO, "The Dhammapada, Vol 9"