The new does not arise out of you, it comes from the beyond. It is not part of you. Your whole past is at stake. The new is discontinuous with you, hence the fear. You have lived in one way, you have thought in one way, you have made a comfortable life out of your beliefs. Then something new knocks on the door. Now your whole past pattern is going to be disturbed. If you allow the new to enter, you will never be the same again - the new will transform you.
It is risky. One never knows where you will end with the new. The old is known, familiar; you have lived with it for long, you are acquainted with it. The new is unfamiliar - it may be the friend, it may be the enemy. Who knows? And there is no way to know. The only way to know is to allow it. Hence the apprehension, the fear.
And you cannot remain rejecting it either, because the old has not given you yet what you seek. The old has been promising, but the promises have not been fulfilled. The old is familiar but miserable. The new maybe is going to be uncomfortable, but there is a possibility it may bring bliss to you. So you cannot reject it either, and you cannot accept it. Hence you waver, you tremble; great anguish arises in your being. It is natural, nothing has gone wrong. This is how it has always been, this is how it will always be.
Try to understand the appearance of the new. Everybody in the world wants to become new, because nobody is satisfied with the old. Nobody can ever be satisfied with the old - because whatsoever it is, you have known it. Once known, it has become repetitive. Once known, it has become boring, monotonous. You want to get rid of it. You want to explore, you want to adventure. You want to become new, and yet when the new knocks on the door, you shrink back, you withdraw, you hide in the old. This is the dilemma.
How do we become new? - and everybody wants to become new. Courage is needed, and not ordinary courage; extraordinary courage is needed. And the world is full of cowards, hence people have stopped growing. How can you grow if you are a coward? With each new opportunity you shrink back, you close your eyes. How can you grow? How can you be? You only pretend to be.
And because you cannot grow, you have to find substitute growth. You cannot grow but your bank balance can grow; that′s a substitute. It needs no courage, it is perfectly adjusted with your cowardliness. Your bank balance goes on growing, and you start thinking that you are growing. You become more respectable. Your name and fame goes on growing... And you think that you are growing? You are simply deceiving yourself. Your name is not you, neither your fame is you. Your bank balance is not your being. But if you think of the being you start shaking - because if you want to grow there, then you have to drop all cowardice.
How do we become new? We do not become new of ourselves. Newness comes from the beyond, say from god. Newness comes from existence. Mind is always old, mind is never new. It is the accumulation of the past. Newness comes from the beyond, it is a gift from god. It is from the beyond and it is of the beyond.
The unknown and the unknowable, the beyond, has ingress into you. It has ingress into you because you are never sealed and set apart, you are not an island. You may have forgotten the beyond, but the beyond has not forgotten you. The child may have forgotten the mother, the mother has not forgotten the child. The part may have started thinking, "I am separate", but the whole knows that you are not separate. The whole has ingress in you, it is still in contact with you. That′s why the new goes on coming, although you don′t welcome it. It comes every morning, it comes every evening. It comes in thousand and one ways. If you have eyes to see, you will see it continuously coming to you.
God goes on showering on you, but you are enclosed in your past. You are almost in a kind of grave. You have become insensitive. Because of your cowardliness, you have lost your sensitivity. To be sensitive means the new will be felt - and the thrill of the new, and the passion for the new. And the adventure will arise. And you will start moving into the unknown, not knowing where you are going.
Mind thinks it is mad. Mind thinks it is not rational to leave the old. But god is always the new. That′s why we cannot use for god, past tense or future tense. We cannot say, "god was"; we cannot say, "god will be". We can only use the present: "god is". It is always fresh, virgin. And it has ingress in you.
(Osho - The Diamond Sutra #4)