Osho English Posts

Question :  WHY ONE NEEDS A MASTER ?  Nobody needs a master.  But then, the journey will be very long. It may take many lives for you to discover the truth. So this is the first thing to remember, that the master is not an absolute need. You can go on your own alone, because truth is nobody's monopoly. You can seek and search and find it. The only thing is, how long it will take for you, because there are thousands of ways which lead nowhere. And there is only one way that leads to truth.  How you are going to find that one way amongst thousands of ways? The only logical method will be, move on every way and find out that this is not the right way. Eliminate it. Move on another way, and find out this is not the right way; eliminate it. Elimination is the only way for the person who has no master.  But how long it will take for you to eliminate thousands of ways? Perhaps thousands of lives. And who knows, you may get discouraged. Most probably you will get discou...

Question : YESTERDAY YOU MENTIONED THAT LAW IS ANTI-LOVE, BUT THAT WITHOUT IT LOVE CANNOT EXIST AND GROW. PLEASE EXPLAIN IN WHICH WAY LAW IS NEEDED FOR LOVE TO GROW.   For every growth the opposite is needed because the opposite creates the tension. Without the opposite, things relax into death. This is one of the most fundamental things in life.  Love cannot exist without the law; the law is the opposite. The law is the non-spontaneous, the mechanical; love is the spontaneous, the non-mechanical. Love is uncaused; law is within cause and effect. Love is individual; law is social. Can you exist without the society? Without the society you will not be born. You need a mother, a father, you need a family to grow in, and you need a society to thrive in. Without a society you cannot exist.  But remember, if you just become a part of society, you have already moved into non-existence again. Without the society you cannot exist, and you cannot exist just as a member of the soci...

ONLY PEOPLE WHO WANT TO BE SOMEWHERE, SOMEBODY, have to suffer the sadness of failure. But a person who never wants to be anybody, never wants to be anywhere else, cannot suffer the sadness of failure. He is always successful. Just like me.  From my very childhood, my parents, my well-wishers, my neighbors, my teachers, everybody was saying that, "You are going to be utterly worthless, a good-for-nothing." I said, "If that is my destiny, I am perfectly happy. Why should I try to be somebody else? Utterly useless? -- perfectly good! Good for nothing? I don't see anything wrong in it." And they would say, "Can't you ever talk reasonably?" I said, "It is just a question of reason. WHATEVER IS GOING TO HAPPEN, I AM GOING TO BE SUCCESSFUL... because I have not made a criterion that this has to happen, only then will I be successful. Just vice-versa: I am successful. Whatever happens, that does not matter; my successfulness is certain...."  The...

"Sex is one of the most secret forces of life. We come through sex, we are made of sex. Each cell of the body is a sex cell. The whole of life has a great collaboration with sexual energy. Life exists through sex, in sex." Of course life is bigger than sex but it is rooted in it, just as a lotus flower is rooted in mud. It comes out of the mud, but it is not mud. It is absolutely different from mud. How can you say that the lotus is mud? Just by looking at it you will see that the lotus is something of the other world. It is not earthly at all — but it comes out of mud. Life arises out of sex, but it should not be confined to sex. It should flower and become a lotus. But the lotus cannot avoid the mud. It remains rooted in the mud. It goes on being nourished by the mud; so mud is not an enemy. Sex is not an enemy. Be friendly. And meditate. Remain available and don't close your doors. Somebody will come and knock. Don't be shy — open the door. If you feel attracted to...

If you love yourself there is no need for any admiration, there is no desire at all, because once you start expecting admiration from others you start compromising with them. You have to fulfil their expectations, only then will they admire you. You have to be according to their dictates, you can not live a life of freedom. You become crippled and paralysed, you become retarded, you don’t grow up. You become so afraid of your own self that you are constantly on guard, because you know if you allow yourself you are bound to do something wrong – because all that you have ever done was labelled wrong and now there is a trembling inside. You can not depend on yourself, you have to depend on others. This is a very psychological strategy to create slavery. Condemn the person in his own eyes and he will remain dependent on others. The priests have done this for centuries: create guilt and the person will never be rebellious, he will always be obedient because he will always be rooted in fear....

"Relationships is a love-hate affair, an attraction-repulsion affair." Man cannot be without the woman, and the woman cannot be without the man. They are part of one dialectical process. Between these two poles there is both attraction and repulsion, because attraction and repulsion cannot be separated. Hence you feel attracted towards the woman or towards the man and repulsed at the same time. A part of you wants to be with the woman, a part of you wants to be alone. You are always hesitating. If you are with the woman or with the man, you start longing for the freedom to be on your own, to be alone. Suddenly you become very interested in being alone and free, and you don't know where this desire to be free is coming from. The woman or the man, the other, is provoking it. The moment you have left the other, this desire, this longing, this great longing to be alone will disappear. And then you are surprised, really surprised. When you are alone you simply feel lonely. You...

Once someone asked Osho about the pandemic, read the answer… The question was: How to avoid epidemic? Osho: “You are asking the wrong question. The question should have been like this: "Say something about the fear of dying in my heart because of the epidemic?” How to save yourself from this fear? Because it is very easy to avoid virus, but it is very difficult to avoid the fear that is present within you and in the world. People will die more because of this fear than because of the epidemic. There no virus in this world is more dangerous than fear. Understand this fear, otherwise you will become an alive dead body before your body will die. It has nothing to do with the virus. The frightening atmosphere you are watching right now is a collective madness, which is always decreasing after some time. The reasons keep changing, but this kind of collective madness keeps on being revealed from time to time. Many people either get help or they die. It has been a thousand times before, ...

A D D I C T I O N Question: What is the basic cause of addiction, any addiction? "All around you there are people whose vested interest is that you should not live totally. It is surprising: why are they so interested that people do not live totally because their whole exploitation of humanity depends on it.  A man who lives totally will not drink alcohol, or take any other kind of drug. Naturally, the people who are earning millions of dollars out of alcohol and drugs cannot allow you to live totally. To live totally is so joyous that you don't want to destroy your joy by drinking alcohol. Alcohol is needed by miserable people, by people who are troubled, by people who want somehow to forget their problems, their anxieties — at least for a few hours. The alcohol is not going to change anything — but even a rest for a few hours seems to be an absolute necessity for millions of people. If a man lives totally, his every moment is such a fulfillment that you will not s...

A real prayer is nonverbal; words are inadequate. They are made for other things,  not for prayer. Yes once in a while you may find tears rolling down from your eyes, and they are far more significant than all the words you could use. Yes, once in a while you would like to dance like a Baul mystic - for no reason at all, for the sheer joy of being! That dance will be prayer. Yes, once in a while you may like to play on the flute. And believe me, God loves music! He is tired of your words! Sing, dance, cry, or just be silent. And you will be surprised: great light starts showering on you. You are bathed in bliss, benediction. OSHO

WHAT HAPPENED? And this has happened in this country many times; there must be something behind it. AND THIS HAS HAPPENED MORE IN THIS COUNTRY THAN ANYWHERE ELSE, because more Tilopas have been born here. But why it happens that a Tilopa has to go to Tibet? Why it happens that a Bodhidharma has to go to China? THIS COUNTRY KNOWS TOO MUCH, this country has become too much of the head. That's why it is difficult to find a heart -- the country of brahmins and pundits, the country of great knowers, philosophers. They know all the Vedas, all the Upanishads, they can recite by memory the whole scriptures: A COUNTRY OF THE HEADS. That's why it has been happening so many times. Even I feel, so many times I feel it, that whenever a brahmin comes it is difficult to communicate. A MAN WHO KNOWS TOO MUCH BECOMES ALMOST IMPOSSIBLE -- because he knows without knowing. He has gathered many concepts, theories, doctrines, scriptures. IT IS JUST A BURDEN ON HIS CONSCIOUSNESS, It is not a fl...

I FEEL SOMEWHAT DETACHED FROM ALL EXTERNAL EVENTS -- EVEN SHARP PHYSICAL PAIN. IT WOULD BE NICE TO THINK THAT THIS IS THE FIRST BUD OF MEDITATIVE BEING, BUT IT SEEMS MORE LIKELY TO BE A CHILLING SIGN OF SCHIZOID WITHDRAWAL. COULD YOU PLEASE SAY SOMETHING ABOUT THE PERILS OF WITHDRAWAL, AND HOW TO AVOID THEM ? IN THE search for a meditative state of mind, that peril always exists. In the search of one's own self there is always a danger that you may choose the inner against the outer -- then the withdrawal becomes schizoid, because you become lopsided, you lose balance. Balance is health. To lose balance is to lose health. And balance is sanity -- to lose balance is to become insane. The fear is always there. The danger is always there. The danger comes because of your mind. It is always easy for the mind to change its diseases. Somebody is mad after women; only sex is his obsession. One day or other he will be fed up with this, tired of it all. He will start moving...

BUTEI, THE EMPEROR OF RYO, SENT FOR FU-DAISHI TO EXPLAIN THE DIAMOND SUTRA. ON THE APPOINTED DAY FU-DAISHI CAME TO THE PALACE, MOUNTED THE PLATFORM, RAPPED ON THE TABLE BEFORE HIM, THEN DESCENDED AND, STILL NOT SPEAKING, LEFT. BUTEI SAT MOTIONLESS FOR SOME MINUTES, WHEREUPON SHIKO, WHO HAD SEEN ALL THAT HAD HAPPENED, WENT UP TO HIM AND SAID, "MAY I BE SO BOLD, SIR, AS TO ASK WHETHER YOU UNDERSTOOD?" THE EMPEROR SHOOK HIS HEAD SADLY. "WHAT A PITY," SAID SHIKO. "FU- DAISHI HAS NEVER BEEN MORE ELOQUENT." TRUTH IS. It simply is, Nothing can be said about it. And all that can be said about it will falsify it. There is no need for any explanation. Unexplained, utterly immediate, truth is. It surrounds you. It is within you, without you. There is no need to come to any conclusion about it. It is already concluded! You are in it. You cannot be without it. There is no way to lose it. There is no way to become distracted from it. You may be fast ...

The pain comes because you are desiring something which is not possible... It doesn’t come from life, it comes from your expectations...!! Life is very shocking, that’s why life is painful! Pain is like fire... It melts the gold, but it purifies it... !! Whatsoever accidental will be burned in it... but whatsoever is essential will come out of purer.. The very darkness will become light and dawn.. ! Osho

H U G G I N G Hugging is the way of the heart. Man needs to be needed. It is one of the most fundamental needs of human beings. Unless one is cared for one starts dying. Unless one feels that he is significant to somebody, at least to somebody, his whole life becomes insignificant. Hence Love is the greatest therapy there is. The world needs therapy because the world is missing Love. In a really Loving World no therapy will be needed at all; Love will be enough, more than enough. Hugging is only a gesture of Love, of Warmth, of Caring. The very feel of the warmth flowing from the other person melts many illnesses in you, melts the ice-like, cold ego. It makes you again a child. Osho Book:  The Wild Geese and the Water, Ch 4, Q 1

Because you cannot understand the really wise men you are puzzled about them. Contradictory things, rumors are spread about them, around and around… So people describe them in these ways: CAUTIOUS – a wise man will look very cautious to you. He is not cautious, he is only alert. There is a difference, a vast difference. When a man is cautious he is afraid. For example, in a dark night, you have lost your way in a forest; you move cautiously. At every step there is danger, death. In that cautiousness a certain alertness comes to you – you may have felt it. Whenever there is danger a certain alertness comes to you, whenever there is danger you become a little more alert – not exactly alert, simply cautious. But to be cautious one has to be a little alert. It comes automatically; that alertness is an automatic shadow of cautiousness. But we don’t know what alertness is, so when we see a wise man, a Buddha, walking, we think he is very cautious. That is our understanding about his aware...

Remember this very fundamental law of life: That Which Is Caused Is Never Eternal,that which is caused is temporal. When the cause will disappear, it will disappear; it is a by-product. That Which Is Uncaused Is Going To Be Forever And Forever,because there is nothing that can destroy it. Your Body Will Die -- It Has Been Caused; the meeting of your father and mother has been the cause of it. Your body will die: one day it was caused. It has a certain energy, a certain life-span, then it will be finished. Every day you are dying, One Day You Will Simply Disappear Into The Grave. But Is That All That You Have? Is that all that your Being is? If you think that you are only the body, then this anxiety, the fear of death can not cease. You will always be in a hurry. You will always have this fear of missing out. The fear is because think that you are only the body and it is getting old, running out of time. Is there not something more? There Is Something In You which was b...

Be A Hollow Bamboo What is to be practiced then? To be more and more at ease. This is one of Tilopa’s special methods. Every master has his own special method through which he has attained, and through which he would like to help others. This is Tilopa’s specialty: Like a hollow bamboo rest at ease with your body. A bamboo: inside completely hollow. When you rest, you just feel that you are like a bamboo: inside completely hollow and empty. And in fact this is the case: your body is just like a bamboo and inside it is hollow. Your skin, your bones, your blood, are all part of the bamboo, and inside there is space, hollowness. When you are sitting with a completely silent mouth, inactive, tongue touching the roof and silent, not quivering with thoughts, the mind watching passively, not waiting for anything in particular, feel like a hollow bamboo.  Suddenly, infinite energy starts pouring within you.  You are filled with the unknown, with the mysterious, wit...

Question : WHAT IS LOVE? To feel it is easy, to define love is difficult indeed. If you ask a fish what the sea is like, the fish will say, ”This is the sea. The sea is all around. And that’s that.” But if you insist – ”Please define the sea” – then the problem becomes very difficult indeed. The finest and the most beautiful things in life can be lived, can be known, but they are difficult to define, difficult to describe. Man’s misery is this: for the last four to five thousand years he has simply talked and talked about something he should have been living earnestly, about something that must be realized from within – about love. There have been great talks on love, countless love songs have been sung, and devotional hymns are continuously being chanted in the temples and in the churches – what all isn’t done in the name of love? – still there is no place for love in man’s life. If we delve deeply into mankind’s languages, we will not find a more untrue word than ”lo...

I am not an Indian and I am not a German and I am not a Chinese. I claim the whole world as mine, and I would like nations to disappear. And if India really feels it has some claim to being spiritual, then let India disappear first. That will be proof. Let India disappear as a nation; let it become an international land. That will be proof, concrete proof. But people go on talking about non-violence in India, and go on preparing for war. They go on talking about brotherhood and the unity of all religions, and just go on doing the opposite of it. Because I am exposing things as they are, because I am functioning like an x-ray, they are angry. Nobody likes the x-ray, because it reveals your bones, your skeleton, your skull; and you have been thinking yourself so beautiful and all that comes out is just a skeleton? So this is you? You become angry, you become annoyed. Their annoyance with me is understandable. I perfectly understand it. India has lived for a thousand years under sla...

Now try to understand Tilopa’s sutra: IF ONE SEES NOUGHT WHEN STARING INTO SPACE; IF WITH THE MIND ONE THEN OBSERVES THE MIND, ONE DESTROYS DISTINCTIONS AND REACHES BUDDHAHOOD. IF ONE SEES NOUGHT WHEN STARING INTO SPACE.... This is a method, a tantra method:  to look into space, into the sky, WITHOUT SEEING; to look with an empty eye. Looking, yet not looking for something: just an empty look. Sometimes you see in a madman’s eyes an empty look – and madmen and sages are alike in certain things. A madman looks at your face, but you can see he is not looking at you. He just looks through you as if you are a glass thing, transparent; you are just in the way, he is not looking at you. And you are transparent for him: he looks beyond you, through you.  He looks without looking AT you; the ”at” is not present, he simply looks. Look in the sky without looking for something, because if you look for something a cloud is bound to come: ”something” means a clo...

"Your inner being is nothing but the inner sky. Clouds come and go, planes are born and disappear, stars arise and die, and the inner sky remains Lhe same, untouched, untarnished, unscarred. "We call trat inner sky satsfuz, the witness, and that is, the whole goal of meditation. "Go in, enjoy the inner sky. Remembel whatsoever you can see, you are not it. You can see thoughts, then you arc not thoughs; you can see your feelings, then you are not your feelings; you can see your dreams, desires, memories, imaginations, prrojections, then you arc not them. Go on eliminating all that you can see. Then one day a tremendous moment arises, the most significant moment of one's life, when there is nothing left to be rejected. "All the seen has disappealed and only the seer is there. The seer is the empty sky. 'To know it is to be fearless, and to know it is to be full of love. To know il is o be God, is o be immortal." Osho ...

Don't allow the fear to overpower you, allow love to overpower you. Love comes from the center, fear always comes from the periphery; don't allow this periphery to be dominant. And what have you got to lose? Even if there is no rebirth -- there is rebirth -- but I say even if there is no rebirth and you simply die, what have you got to lose? What will be lost? What has the river got that is worth preserving? The life through the hills has been just a struggle; the life through the plains has been just a dirty passage. What has the river got to lose in the ocean? Nothing. So think about it. What have you got to lose if you come closer? - your suffering? your madness? What have you got to lose? There is nothing to lose, but we never look within to see that we have got nothing to lose because that too gives fear. You like to think that you have got much to lose, that a treasure is there, and you will never look. There is no treasure, the house is empty; there has ne...

Question : BELOVED OSHO, I FEEL I WANT TO BE CLOSE TO YOU, BUT AT THE SAME TIME I WANT TO RUN AS FAR AWAY FROM YOU AS I CAN. I DON'T UNDERSTAND THIS FEAR, SINCE I AM NOT AWARE OF A FEELING LIKE THIS ABOUT ANYONE ELSE. It is natural, it is not something exceptional. Whenever you have a feeling to be closer to a man like me the fear will come, because to be close to me means to be dead, to be close to me means losing yourself. It is the same fear that grips a river when it comes to the ocean -- the banks will be lost, the river will be lost -- and every river tries to go back. But there is no way. If you feel a deep urge to come closer to me there is no way now to escape. You may try but you will be a failure; others have tried, others will go on trying. If you have a deep urge to come closer to me, you will have to come. You can only delay it; by escaping, struggling, you can delay it. You can postpone it, that's all, because the deep urge iscoming from your v...

You ask me: OSHO, I MYSELF AM A QUESTION. Beautiful -- that's how it should be. the most fundamental question: Who am I? WHO? Let your consciousness penetrate into it, like a deep arrow going deeper and deeper and deeper When the consciousness has become a fire, an intense light, the question starts disappearing. And when the question has disappeared, you cannot say who you are, but you know. It is not a knowledge; it is a knowing. You cannot answer, but you know. You can dance it; you cannot answer it. You can smile it; you cannot answer it. You will live it, but you cannot answer it.                                OSHO                                          Come Follow To You, Vol 3                            Chapter ...

Osho Kundalini Meditation This meditation lasts for one hour and has four stages, three with music, and the last without. Kundalini acts like an energetic shower, softly shaking you free of your day and leaving you refreshed and mellow. First Stage: 15 minutes Be loose and let your whole body shake, feeling the energies moving up from your feet. Let go everywhere and become the shaking. Your eyes may be open or closed. “Allow the shaking; don’t do it. Stand silently, feel it coming and when your body starts trembling, help it but don’t do it. Enjoy it, feel blissful about it, allow it, receive it, welcome it, but don’t will it. “If you force it will become an exercise, a bodily, physical exercise. Then the shaking will be there but just on the surface; it will not penetrate you. You will remain solid, stone-like, rock-like within. You will remain the manipulator, the doer, and the body will just be following. The body is not the question – you are the question. “Wh...

I have heard a very beautiful story. Some years ago a successful American had a serious identity crisis. He sought help from psychiatrists but nothing came of it, for there were none who could tell him the meaning of life -- which is what he wanted to know. By and by he learned of a venerable and incredibly wise guru who lived in a mysterious and most inaccessible region of the Himalayas. Only that guru, he came to believe, would tell him what life meant and what his role in it ought to be. So he sold all his worldly possessions and began his search for the all-knowing guru. He spent eight years wandering from village to village throughout the Himalayas in an effort to find him. And then one day he chanced upon a shepherd who told him where the guru lived and how to reach the place. It took him almost a year to find him, but he eventually did. There he came upon his guru, who was indeed venerable, in fact well over one hundred years old. The guru consented to help him, ...

WHEN RABBI BIRNHAM LAY DYING, HIS WIFE BURST INTO TEARS. HE SAID, 'WHAT ARE YOU CRYING FOR ? MY WHOLE LIFE WAS ONLY THAT I MIGHT LEARN HOW TO DIE.' LIFE is in living. It is not a thing, it is a process. There is no way to attain to life except  by living it, except by being alive, by flowing, streaming with it. If you are seeking the  meaning of life in some dogma, in some philosophy, in some theology, that Is the sure  way to miss life and meaning both. Life is not somewhere waiting for you, it is happening in you. It is not in the future as a goal to be arrived at, it is herenow, this very moment -- in your breathing, circulating in your blood, beating in your heart. Whatsoever you are is your life, and if you start seeking meaning somewhere else, you will miss it. Man has done that for centuries. Concepts have become very important, explanations have become very important -- and the real has been completely forgotten. We don't look to that wh...

17 May 1995 Mahaparinirvan day of Ma Amrit Sarswati (Osho's Mother) A Miracle Happened My mother was just telling me yesterday... that when I was five months old in her womb, a miracle happened. She was going from my father′s house to her father′s house; and it was the rainy season. It is customary in India for the first child to be born at the maternal father′s home, so although it was the rainy season and very difficult - no roads, and she had to go on a horse - the sooner she went, the better; if she waited longer then it would have become more difficult, so she went with one of her cousin-brothers. In the middle of the journey was a big river, the Narmada. It was in flood. When they reached the boat, the boatman saw that my mother was pregnant, and he asked my mother′s cousin-brother, "What is your relationship?" He was not aware that he would get into trouble so he simply said, "We are brother and sister." The boatman refused; he said, "I ...

Osho talks about Mother Teresa Mother Teresa was awarded the Nobel Prize for her charitable work in India, which Osho criticizes. At the end of December 1980, Mother Teresa writes to Osho. The politicians and the priests have always been in deep conspiracy, they have divided man. The politician rules the outside and the priest rules the inside: the politician the exterior and the priest the interior. They are joined in a deep conspiracy against humanity—they may not even be aware of what they are doing. I don't suspect their intentions; they may be absolutely unconscious. Just the other day I received a letter from Mother Teresa. I have no intention of saying anything against her sincerity; whatsoever she wrote in the letter is sincere, but it is unconscious. She is not aware of what she is writing; it is mechanical, it is robot-like. She says, 'I have just received a cutting of your speech. I feel very sorry for you that you could speak as you did. Reference: the Nobel P...