Understanding Addictions and All Our Efforts to Avoid Being Conscious

Osho,
Why do we resist becoming more conscious? It seems we do everything possible to avoid it. Is there a risk that we just get stuck here forever?

“Most of the people in the world are trying to be as unconscious as possible, because what little consciousness they know is nothing but anxiety, anguish, worry. It is a torture, a tension.

“And there is no certainty that what you are deciding is the right thing, so there is a great fear, a hesitation. In the small consciousness that man has, he is always in the position of either-or — divided, split, torn apart — one part pulling in one direction, another part pulling in another direction. He is simply miserable.

“It is not an accident that alcohol and other drugs, which can drown your consciousness in the vast unconscious, are as old as man.

“Thousands of times it has been impressed on man that he should drop these things. He has been punished for them — he has suffered imprisonment, fines — but these drugs give him something greater than the fear of your punishment.

“All religions are basically against drugs, all governments are basically against drugs, all educational systems are against drugs. It is very strange: everybody is against drugs; then why…