Osho

December 11, 1931 513p Kuchwada, India – January 19, 1990 Pune, India
Path: his own wikipedia, birthchart
Enlightened: March 21, 1953 Jabalpur, India

This page was last updated on 2/4/24.

As far as I am concerned the basic quality of a seeker of truth is to cut himself away from all belief systems, from all borrowed knowledge – in other words, to have the courage to be ignorant rather than to have borrowed knowledge.

Ignorance has a beauty; it is at least yours, authentic, sincere. It has come with you. It is your blood, it is your bones, it is your marrow. Knowledgeability is ugly, absolute rubbish. It has been poured upon you by others, and you are carrying the load of it. And the load is such that it will not give you any opportunity to enquire on your own what truth is.

Your collection of knowledge will answer immediately that this is truth. If you are filled with the Holy Bible, then the question will be answered by the Holy Bible. If you are filled with the vedas, then the question will come out of the vedas. But it will come from some source outside yourself; it will not be your discovery. And that which is not your discovery is not yours.

Truth brings freedom because it is your discovery. It makes you fully into man; otherwise you remain on the level of the animals: you are but you don’t know who you are.

The search for truth is really the search for the reality of your being. Once you have entered your being, you have entered into the being of the whole, because we are different on the periphery but at the center we meet – we are one. You can draw many lines from the periphery of a circle towards the center; those lines on the periphery have a certain distance from each other. But as they come closer to the center the distance goes on becoming less. And when they reach to the center the distance disappears.

At the center we are one. At the periphery of existence we appear to be separate. And to know the truth of your being is to know the truth of the whole. "There is just one quality, one courage: not to be afraid of being ignorant. On that point there can be no compromise, no cheap borrowed knowledge to decorate yourself with as a wise man. That’s enough! Just be pure and natural, and out of that purity, naturalness, ignorance, innocence, the quest is bound to be born.

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.

First go beyond the mind. Then go beyond enlightenment too. Don't get stuck anywhere until you are simply an ordinary part of the existence, with the trees, with the birds, with the animals, with the rivers, with the mountains. You feel a deep harmony- no superiority, no inferiority.

Freedom means you have to control the mind, your so-called mind, which is not yours at all because it has been given to you by others, in fragments. A part of it belongs to your mother, another part to your father, another part to your uncle, and so on and so forth… to the priest, to the teacher, to the neighborhood boy…. You have gathered fragments from all over the world – from the books you have been reading and the films you have been seeing. If you look into it you will be surprised – you don’t have any mind of your own. Everything is borrowed!

How can you be authentic? You are just a piled-up phenomenon, fragments from so many different sources that they can never melt and become one.

But one thing is not borrowed in you and that is your consciousness, that is your awareness. That you have brought with you, that is part of your inner core. Depend on it and never depend on the mind. Become independent of the mind and absolutely dependent on consciousness and you are taking the greatest step of your life.

God is not an experience. No experience as such is spiritual; all experiences are mind games. Beware of it. Whatsoever can be seen will be part of the illusory world. The seer is the truth, not the seen. You can see auras and you can see angels and you can see kundalini rising and you can see inner lights -- but they are all seen. They are not you.

The seer is the witness, and only the witness is the truth. All else is a dream. And there are worldly dreams and there are other-worldly dreams; there are materialistic dreams and there are spiritualistic dreams. One thing has to be remembered always, that whatsoever is seen is worthless -- even if it is God. The God that is seen is worthless.

When all experiences disappear and you are left utterly alone, nothing to see, only emptiness in the hands, no experience at all, then suddenly you realize yourself. Then you turn upon yourself, then you fall into your source. And that is not an experience, it is a realization. That is the difference between the words "experience" and "realization". It is not that you have seen something, experienced something. Now you know who you are.

I don't think existence wants you to be serious. I have not seen a serious tree. I have not seen a serious bird. I have not seen a serious sunrise. I have not seen a serious starry night. It seems they are all laughing in their own ways, dancing in their own ways. We may not understand it, but there is a subtle feeling that the whole existence is a celebration.

It is simply sitting silently, witnessing the thoughts, passing before you. Just witnessing, not interfering not even judging, because the moment you judge you have lost the pure witness. The moment you say “this is good, this is bad,” you have already jumped onto the thought process.

It takes a little time to create a gap between the witness and the mind. Once the gap is there, you are in for a great surprise, that you are not the mind, that you are the witness, a watcher.

And this process of watching is the very alchemy of real religion. Because as you become more and more deeply rooted in witnessing, thoughts start disappearing. You are, but the mind is utterly empty.

That’s the moment of enlightenment. That is the moment that you become for the first time an unconditioned, sane, really free human being.

Lao Tzu has said: “Seek and you will miss. Do not seek and you will find.” Now, this is one of the most significant statements ever made. In the very seeking you have missed. If you seek, you have taken a wrong standpoint. In the very seeking you have accepted one thing: that you don’t have that which you seek. That is where the fault lies. You have it: you already have it. The moment you start searching for something, you will become neurotic, because you cannot find it - there is nowhere to look, because it is already there.
It is like a man who is searching for his glasses. His glasses are already on his eyes, on his nose, and he is looking through those glasses and searching! Now he will never find them, unless he remembers that all search is futile unless he remembers: ‘if I can see, then my glasses must be already there in front of my eyes, otherwise how could I see?’
In our very seeing, the truth is hidden. In our very search, the treasure is hidden. The seeker is the sought; that is the problem, the only problem that human beings have been trying to solve and about which they have been growing more and more puzzled. The sanest attitude is that of Lao Tzu. He says: “Stop searching and be. Just be, and you will be surprised: you will find it!”

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.

Love and ego cannot go together. Knowledge and ego go together perfectly well, but love and ego cannot go together, not at all. They cannot keep company. They are like darkness and light: if light is there darkness cannot be. Darkness can only be if light is not there. If love is not there the ego can be; if love is there the ego cannot be. And vice versa, if ego is dropped, love arrives from all the directions. It simply starts pouring in you from everywhere.

Love and the earth becomes a paradise again. And the immense beauty of love is that it has no reference. Love comes from you for no reason at all. It is your outpouring bliss, it is your sharing of your heart. It is the sharing of the song of your being. And sharing is so joyful – hence one shares. Sharing for sharing’s sake, for no other motive.

Meditation is just a courage to be silent and alone. Slowly slowly, you start feeling a new quality to yourself, a new aliveness, a new beauty, a new intelligence - which is not borrowed from anybody, which is growing within you. It has roots in your existence.

Nirvana is a state of unconditional acceptance. Wherever you are, if you can accept your life with totality, with joy, with gratitude, if you can see your life as a gift, then nirvana is never a problem. The problem arises only because you don’t accept your life, you reject life.

No society wants you to become wise: it is against the investment of all societies. If people are wise they cannot be exploited. If they are intelligent they cannot be subjugated, they cannot be forced into a mechanical life, to live like robots. They will assert themselves - they will assert their individuality. They will have the fragrance of rebellion around them; they will want to live in freedom.

Freedom comes with wisdom, intrinsically. They are inseparable, and no society wants people to be free. The communist society, the fascist society, the capitalist society, the Hindu, the Mohammedan, the Christian – no society likes people to use their own intelligence because the moment they start using their intelligence they become dangerous – dangerous to the establishment, dangerous to the people who are in power, dangerous to the “haves”; dangerous to all kinds of oppression, exploitation, suppression; dangerous to the churches, dangerous to the states, dangerous to the nations.

In fact, a wise man is afire, alive, aflame. He would like rather to die than to be enslaved.

Death will not matter much to him, but he cannot sell his life to all kinds of stupidities, to all kinds of stupid people. He cannot serve them.

Nobody is superior, nobody is inferior, but nobody is equal either. People are simply unique, incomparable. You are you, I am I. I have to contribute my potential to life; you have to contribute your potential to life. I have to discover my own being; you have to discover your own being.
— Osho

Only in deep humility can love be received.

Receptivity is a state of no-mind. Receptivity is the door to the divine. Drop the mind and be receptive.

Shiva says, become loving. When you are in the embrace, become the embrace. Become the kiss. Forget yourself so totally that you can say, “I am no more. Only love exists.” Then the heart is not beating, but love is beating. Then the blood is not circulating, but love is circulating. Then eyes are not seeing, love is seeing. Then hands are not moving to touch, love is moving to touch.

Take life easily, lovingly, playfully, non-seriously. Seriousness is a disease,the greatest disease of the soul; and, playfulness the greatest health.

That is the simple secret of happiness. Whatever you are doing, don’t let past move your mind; don’t let future disturb you. Because the past is no more, and the future is not yet. To live in the memories, to live in the imagination, is to live in the non-existential. And when you are living in the non-existential, you are missing that which is existential. Naturally you will be miserable, because you will miss your whole life.

There are things which, if you talk about them, if you start exhibiting them, the energy that is needed to nourish them starts moving into exhibiting them. The seed needs to be hidden in the soil. It should not be brought out again and again; if you bring it out you will kill it. And these spiritual experiences are like great seeds. The disciple has to learn the art of keeping secrets.

Truth cannot be sought - one can simply be receptive, that´s all. One can open the doors and wait. One can say only this much, “If the divine guest comes, you will be received, welcomed. I don´t know who you are, and I don´t know your address and I cannot even send an invitation. But whosoever you are, and whomsoever it concerns, if you come, my doors will be open - you will not find them closed.” That´s all that a seeker can do. And that´s all that is needed to be done. More than that is not possible and is not needed.

So let this posture be your deep attitude. One has to become receptive. The search for truth is not a male search. It is a feminine search - just like feminine energy - receptive. Meditativeness is simply a deep receptivity, a readiness, an open door.

The capacity to be alone is the capacity to love. It may look paradoxical to you, but it is not. It is an existential truth: only those people who are capable of being alone are capable of love, of sharing, of going into the deepest core of the other person—without possessing the other, without becoming dependent on the other, without reducing the other to a thing, and without becoming addicted to the other. They allow the other absolute freedom, because they know that if the other leaves, they will be as happy as they are now. Their happiness cannot be taken by the other, because it is not given by the other.

Truth is not a discovery; it is a rediscovery. It was already there in the first place. When you came into this world it was with you, when you were born into this life it was with you, because you are it. It cannot be otherwise. It is not something external, it is intrinsic to you; it is your very being.

When you remove passion and attachment from love, when your love is pure, innocent, formless, when you give in love and don't demand, when love is only a giving, when love is an emperor, not a beggar; Then you are liberating this bird of love into the open sky. Then you are strengthening its wings. Then this bird can set out on the journey to the infinite.

When your efforts drop, suddenly meditation is there - the benediction of it, the blessedness of it, the glory of it. It is there like a presence - luminous surrounding you and surrounding everything. It fills the whole earth and the whole sky. That meditation cannot be created by human effort; human effort is too limited. That blessedness is so infinite, you cannot manipulate it. It can happen only when you are in a tremendous surrender.
When you are not there, only then can it happen. When you are a no-self, no desire, not going anywhere; when you are just here now, not doing anything in particular, just being - it happens. And it comes in waves and the waves become tidal. It comes like a storm and takes you away into a totally new reality.

Your so-called religions have made you very tense, because they have created guilt in you. My effort here is to help you get rid of all guilt and all fear. I would like to tell you: there is no hell and no heaven. So don’t be afraid of hell and don’t be greedy for heaven. All that exists is this moment. You can make this moment a hell or a heaven – that certainly is possible – but there is no heaven or hell somewhere else. Hell is when you are all tense, and heaven is when you are all relaxed. Total relaxation is paradise.

Zen is not effort. Effort is tension, effort is work, effort is to achieve something. Zen is not something to achieve. You are already that. Just relax, relax so deeply that you become a revelation to yourself.

Osho Enlightenment March 21, 1953
~ Discipline of Transcendence, V2,11

I went to sleep near about eight. It was not like sleep. Now I can understand what Patanjali means when he says that sleep and samadhi are similar. Only with one difference -- that in samadhi you are fully awake and asleep also. Asleep and awake together, the whole body relaxed, every cell of the body totally relaxed, all functioning relaxed, and yet a light of awareness burns within you... clear, smokeless. You remain alert and yet relaxed, loose but fully awake.

The body is in the deepest sleep possible and your consciousness is at its peak. The peak of consciousness and the valley of the body meet.

I went to sleep. It was a very strange sleep. The body was asleep, I was awake. It was so strange -- as if one was torn apart into two directions, two dimensions; as if the polarity has become completely focused, as if I was both the polarities together... the positive and negative were meeting, sleep and awareness were meeting, death and life were meeting. That is the moment when you can say the creator and the creation meet.

Near about twelve my eyes suddenly opened -- I had not opened them. The sleep was broken by something else. I felt a great presence around me in the room. It was a very small room. I felt a throbbing life all around me, a great vibration -- almost like a hurricane, a great storm of light, joy, ecstasy. I was drowning in it.

It was so tremendously real that everything became unreal. The walls of the room became unreal, the house became unreal, my own body became unreal. Everything was unreal because now there was for the first time reality.

Mumbai, 2/22/12