Osho Teachings Osho Discourses Osho Quotes

Question – Beloved Osho, You spoke the other day about the great responsibility we have to get your words out to the world. Can you say some more?

Osho - The most important need of humanity today is to be made aware that its past has betrayed it. There is no point in continuing the past, it will be suicidal.

A new humanity is absolutely and urgently needed. The new humanity will not be a society in the old sense, where individuals are only parts of it. The new humanity will be a meeting of individuals, where individuals are the masters and society is to serve them. It will have many different aspects to it. It will not have so many religions, it will have only a religious consciousness. It will not have a despot God as a creator, because that implies the slavery of man. It will have godliness as a quality of ultimate achievement, a quality of enlightenment. God will be spread all over — in everything, in every being.

The individual, for the first time, will not be programmed; he will be helped to be himself. He will not be given any ideals, any discipline, any certain pattern. He will be given only a tremendous love for freedom, so that he can sacrifice everything, even his own life, but he cannot sacrifice freedom. The new individual will not be repressive; he will be natural, with no inhibitions, expressive of everything that he has. Just the way plants express themselves in different colors, in different fragrances, each individual will be doing the same.

The new individual will not have the false idea that all human beings are equal. They are not. They are unique, which is a far higher concept than equality. Although the new individuals will not be equal, they will have equal opportunity to develop their potential, whatever it is.

There will be no marriage; love will be the only law. Children will be part of the commune, and only the commune will decide who is capable of being a mother and who is capable of being a father. It cannot be at random and accidental. And it will be according to the needs of the earth.

The new humanity will have an ecology in which nature is not to be conquered, but lived and loved. We are part of it — how can we conquer it? It will not have any races, no distinctions between nations, between colors, castes. It will not have any nations, any states. It will have only a functional world government, and the world government will not be chosen by mediocre voters — because they necessarily chose people of their own category.

It will have a totally different pattern. Just as we don’t allow anybody to vote before he is twenty-one years old — he has to be adult — in exactly the same way, unless everybody is well-educated and has at least a bachelor’s degree, he will not be allowed to vote. And the people will vote, not for any party — because there will be no party at all, it will be a no-party system — people will vote directly for individuals.

An education minister, a foreign minister, an interior minister, a president — these people will stand on their individual merit. Just as no voter can have less than a bachelor’s degree, nobody can stand for any post who does not have a doctorate in that particular subject. So all those who will be standing for the post will be experts on the same subject, and the choice will be by the educated, by the intelligent.

And the government will not be in the old sense a government. It won’t have any power, it will be simply functional. It will be the servant of the society in the real sense, not only in words.
Life has so many dimensions, and politics has dominated them all. Looking at a newspaper, somebody on some other planet could not conceive what kind of people live on the earth — only politicians? murderers? suicides? rapists? criminals?… because your newspapers are full of these people, and on top of everything is the politician.

Every creative dimension of life will be brought out into the light, and the ugly aspects don’t need to be advertised. If somebody has murdered, it should be brought to light — not to say that he was a criminal, but to show how the very psychology of the man, the upbringing of the man went wrong, and why he had to commit murder. In his place, with the same background, anybody would have done the same.

So you are not condemning the person, you are condemning the training, the background, the upbringing; this is absolutely scientific.

Why does a man become a rapist? — because his background was creating the energy to be a rapist… although he was trying to be a Baptist, he ended up being a rapist! So the negative part should be brought out, but the individual should never be condemned because no action is equal to the whole individual. The action is a small part of his whole life.

The newspapers should be full of creativity, positivity. Ninety percent of a newspaper should give coverage to musicians, poets, sculptors, dancers, actors, philosophers and only ten percent should be given to the politicians and the negative elements. The negative elements should be analyzed so the individual is not condemned. And the politicians should only be given space as information, not more than that. If they are doing something good it should be said, if they are doing something not good it should be said — but they should not be dominating our whole life.

The new humanity will have to change the whole structure of its education. It will not be ambitious, it will not create a desperate desire in everybody to become somebody powerful. On the contrary, it will create creators. It will create people who know how to rejoice. Its basic function should be to teach people the art of living, loving, laughing, the capacity to sing, dance, paint.

There will be people who have to be trained for technology, science, but even those who are being trained for technology and science or medicine should not be kept completely unconscious of the beautiful side of life. They should not become robots — because what you do, you become. If you are continuously researching about objects, soon you forget that you are a subject; you become an object.

And each individual who enters a school, college, or university should have hypnotic sessions in which he can be encouraged to meditate — so meditation comes from within him, it is not imposed from the outside. It is not compulsory to meditate, but it becomes compulsory to meditate because it is coming from the inside.

And that is the beauty of hypnosis, that it can put the seed in your very heart, and when things come from there you never feel that something has been forced on you. And things like meditation cannot be forced; then there is resentment. But hypnosis is a great art: it can help man drop all kinds of resentment, all kinds of jealousies, hatred, competition. It can clean man’s inner shrine so completely that everybody grows up and does not only grow old.

So when I said the word has to be spread, I meant that the new man is an absolute necessity. The old is dead or is dying… cannot survive long. And if we cannot produce a new human being, then humanity will disappear from the earth — and that will be ugly.

And I told you to spread the word because they are trying every hindrance to keep me from approaching people. But I will approach people. They are mediocre politicians: they cannot prevent me. They can delay me, but they cannot stop me unless some idiot goes absolutely mad and kills me.

In that case you have the word. And if I am not there, your responsibility becomes great. When I am here your responsibility is none; I can do it alone without any difficulty. But if I am not here then your responsibilities tremendously increase. Then each of you has to represent me, and we have to see how many people they can crucify.

But the word has to go out because the word cannot be crucified. Ways and means have to be found for the word to reach to every corner of the earth, to every human being who can understand.

Source – Osho Book “The Path of the Mystic”

Question – Beloved Osho, Is the Watcher amused?

Osho – The watcher cannot do anything except watch. If it is amused, it has lost its watching. There may be amusement but that will be part of the mind. The watcher will watch it, too.
The watcher cannot do anything else but be a watcher. The moment it does anything else, the watcher slips back and it is the mind.

The watcher is not amused. And there is nothing in the world for the watcher to be amused about. The world is so miserable that if the watcher could weep and shed tears that may have been the right thing for it to do, but it has no eyes, no tear glands.

So remember it: even when you are feeling blissful, it is not the watcher who becomes blissful. The watcher is still watching the blissfulness. Whatever happens, the watcher simply reflects it. That’s why, ultimately, when everything has gone, only the watcher remains. Its experience can be compared with no experience of your mind. Blissfulness, ecstasy, benediction — they are all below it; it is always behind them. It is simply the watching.

There is one temple in India. In that temple there is no statue. Just on a marble rock there are two eyes. They signify the watcher. No expression in those eyes.

That’s why the ultimate experience cannot be expressed, because it is only a mirror which reflects nothing. So the watcher is not amused. He is the mind which can be amused. The watcher is still watching it.

Source – Osho Book “The Path of the Mystic”

Question – Beloved Osho, Is it really true that God is also searching for me? Can I wait for him to find me?

Osho – Sat Vijaya, it is absolutely true that just as you are seeking God or truth or the beloved, he is also seeking you. The search is never one-sided. And any search that is one-sided is never going to be fulfilled. But your question is, “Can I wait for him to find me?” — then he will also wait to search for you.

Search has to be from both sides; otherwise both sides will be waiting. Existence has a balance about everything. Your waiting is not enough; your longing, your search is categorically needed.
One of the Sufis’ sayings is: if you take one step towards God, he takes one thousand steps towards you. But at least one step on your side is absolutely necessary. And your one step is far more important than the one thousand steps of God, because by “God” is not meant any person; by God is meant the intelligence of this whole universe, the consciousness of the whole universe.

You have a very small proportion of consciousness. Your one step is far bigger than the one thousand steps of God, because existence has infinite intelligence. So waiting alone won’t do. Just waiting is a state which is not alive; there has to be tremendous longing, a thirst from every pore of your being. Unless God becomes a question of your life and death, the meeting is not possible.

Almost everybody will be prepared to wait — that means on your laundry list, God is the last item, when you have done everything of the world. And that is not possible, even in eternity; something or other will be left undone. God has to be your first priority. It has to become a kind of haunting in your heart. Breathing in, breathing out, there has to be a rememberance: whatever you are doing is nonessential, and the essential part is to go deep down in meditation.

Never think of God as someone outside you. That is a wrong beginning — because where will you search for him? The outside is so vast; you don’t have the address or the phone number. In the infinity of existence, in which direction will you search for him? How will you find that you are on the right path? Millions of paths… how are you going to choose? What will be the criterion?

Because of this misconception that God is outside, religions became organized around priesthood, around a holy book, around certain dogmas — because that at least gives you some feel for where you have to search: you have to go to the church, you have to do a certain prayer, you have to go to the synagogue, you have to find your path in the holy scriptures. The idea of God outside has led the whole of humanity into tremendous confusion.

He is within you. Better will be if I say: He is your within, your very interiority, your very center of being. You are on the periphery of your individuality. Move inwards.

First you will meet the thoughts. Don’t get involved in them, just ignore…. Buddha has used the word upeksha, ignoring, as a certain guaranteed method; otherwise you are going to get caught in the net of thoughts. Don’t fight, just go on your way as if mind is empty. And if you can ignore the mind it becomes empty.

The more attention you pay to the mind, the more nourishment you give to the thoughts. If you can pass the boundary of the mind without disturbing — and it is not an arduous thing, just a little knack of ignoring — then you will come into the world of feelings, emotions, moods, which are more subtle than the thoughts. You have entered from the mind and its territory into a deeper area of your being, the heart.

Continue the same method, ignore your sentiments, emotions, moods, as if they don’t belong to you. As you pass the boundary of the heart you enter the boundary of your own being. That is the temple of God. And the moment you enter the temple, certainly he takes those one thousand steps towards you.

Those one thousand steps are symbolic. He comes towards you as light, as the very essence of beauty, as blissfulness, as silence, as peace. And he comes with so much force, almost like a flood, that you are drowned in it.

You will find God, but you will have to lose yourself; that is the price. It is not much. How much do you think your cost-price is? In fact, any animal in the world is more costly than man. When man dies, nobody is ready to purchase him. When an elephant dies, then thousands of rupees…. When any animal dies, even the dead animal has some utility. It is only man who dies, and all that you can do is either burn him or bury him — just to get rid of him. Rather than bringing some money to you after death he withdraws ome money from your pocket.

So there is no need to be afraid if you are lost, drowned, because in the temple of God only one can exist — either you or he. Duality is not possible there, because duality is conflict. And the experience of God is that of immense harmony. That harmony can be achieved only if you allow yourself to be drowned in the flood that comes from all sides — of joy, of bliss, of ecstasy. The feel of dying in the flood of God is the most exquisite and the most sweet experience — the last, the highest, the greatest; there is nothing beyond it.

But it is not going to happen by just waiting. You will have to go inside your own being. He is present there always; he is your life, he is your all. You are just a small ray of light from that immense source. So when you get drowned in him, it is just that the ray has returned back to the sun. One has come home.
If God is understood the way I am telling you…. And I am not a thinker; it is not my hypothesis, it is my experience. I have passed through that death and I have found that it appears to be death from one side, but from the other side it is resurrection. You disappear as a small creature and become a vast creativity. You don’t lose anything and you gain everything.

But the organized religions don’t want you to be aware of this fact, because their whole business depends on an outside God. Then the priest is needed, the temple is needed, the mosque is needed, the church is needed; then the HOLY BIBLE is needed, then some interpreters are needed, and then all the millions of priests around the world become your mediators with a fictitious God somewhere in the sky.

The Vatican pope has declared it a sin to confess directly to God; you have to confess to the priest. And of course it has to be a catholic priest — only he is authorized to have a direct communication with God. You cannot pray directly, you cannot ask forgiveness directly.

Do you see the cunningness, the meanness, the whole strategy of exploitation? The priest becomes more important than God himself. On the one hand these people go on calling you children of God, and on the other, children cannot directly communicate with their father; a priest is needed as a mediator. The reality is, there is no God outside; it is the invention of the priest. And he has invented a great business. For centuries he has been exploiting men, whether they are Hindus or Mohammedans or Christians or Jews — it does not matter.

There is only one thing every religion insists: that a direct relationship with God is not possible. They don’t give any reasons why. I have seen trees praying directly to God; the rivers and the mountains and the stars don’t have any priests, the flowers and the birds don’t have any priests. Do you think this whole existence except man is not related to God? It is more related to God than man. It is only man who has gone astray.

Have you ever heard in any religion, in any country, a story that God expelled a few trees out of the garden of Eden? Or a few animals, or a few birds? It is only man who is expelled. The story is significant. It simply means that the whole of existence is rooted in God. Only because man has a thinking mind, he has wandered far away. Mind is capable of wandering anywhere — you can be sitting here and your mind may be wandering somewhere in America or somewhere in Germany, or somewhere in Japan, or maybe on the moon…. There are all kinds of lunatics.

It is very rarely that you are here, very rare to be in the place where you are. Your mind is always wandering somewhere else. It is never here, it is never now. This wandering mind has taken you away from your own inner being. And this has become a great opportunity for exploitation. All over the world, like mushrooms, priests and religions and holy books have appeared.

There are three hundred religions in the world. They differ on every point except one point, and that is, the priest is an absolute necessity. Any intelligent person can see that these religions are not for you, these religions are for the priesthood. They are parasites — catholic parasites, protestant parasites, Hindu parasites, they come in all sizes and all shapes!

My effort here is to make you free from the chains of the priesthood. The moment you are free from the chains of the priesthood, you are no longer Christian, no longer Hindu, no longer Jew. You are simply and purely human beings. You have already come very close to your home; the priest was distracting you.

An ancient story says that the old devil is sitting under a tree, having his morning tea, and a young disciple comes running, very much disturbed. He says, “What are you doing? You are sitting here, drinking tea, and our whole business is in difficulty. One man on the earth has found the truth!”

The old guy laughed. He said, “You are too young, you don’t know all the secrets. Don’t be worried, my people have reached there.” The young disciple could not believe his eyes, could not believe his ears. He said, “I am coming from there, I have not seen anyone of our people.”

The old devil said, “There is no need to send our people. I have created the priests. And they are surrounding the man. Now they have become a wall between the man and the people. Whatever the man says, the priest will interprete it and distort it.

“Truth has been found many times,” said the old devil, “but while priests exist, truth will be found and lost again, because the priests immediately start interpreting, making organized religions around the truth — churches, temples, mosques — and the truth is lost in their interpretations, in their commentaries.
“What commentaries can they make? They don’t know the truth. Truth needs no commentary, it is pure experience. Either you know it or you don’t know it. there is no third position. That’s why I’m so much at ease. Just sit down and have a cup of tea.”

The story is significant. Beware of the priests, beware of organized religions, beware of others telling you what is truth. Nobody can tell it to you. You will have to find it yourself.
And it is so close to you that you have not to go on a faraway journey. You have to go in silence, in profound peace, beyond words and beyond feelings, and suddenly you find the temple of consciousness. And as you enter into it you disappear.
Only God is. That is your authentic reality. God is your very soul.

Source – Osho Book “Razor’s Edge”

Question – Beloved Osho, When I was a student at a Japenese Buddhist University, I heard the word Consciousness. Beloved Osho, What does it mean?

Osho – Kranti Satbodha, consciousness you already have, but only in a very small proportion. It is just like an iceberg — one tenth is above water and the rest is under water. Just a little bit is conscious in you.

I am saying something and you are listening to it; without consciousness it is not possible. These pillars of Chuang Tzu Auditorium are not listening — they don’t have consciousness. But we are aware only of a very small piece of consciousness.
Meditation is the whole science of bringing more and more consciousness out of darkness.

The only way is to be as conscious as possible twenty-four hours a day. Sitting, sit consciously, not like a mechanical robot; walking, walk consciously, alert to each movement; listening, listen more and more consciously, so that each word comes to you in its crystal clear purity, its definitiveness. While listening, be silent, so that your consciousness is not covered by thoughts.

Just this moment, if you are silent and conscious you can hear small insects singing their song in the trees. The darkness is not empty, the night has its own song; but if you are full of thoughts then you cannot listen to the insects. This is just an example.

If you become more and more silent, you may start listening to your own heartbeat, you may start listening to the flow of your own blood, because blood is continuously flowing all through your body. If you are conscious and silent, more and more clarity, creativity, intelligence, will be discovered. There are millions of geniuses who die without knowing that they were a genius. There are millions of people who don’t know why they have come, why they lived and why they are going.

It happened… George Bernard Shaw was traveling from London to some other place in England. The ticket checker came and Bernard Shaw looked in all his pockets, opened his suitcase — he was perspiring — the ticket was missing.

The ticket checker said, “I know you, everybody knows you, there is no need to be worried. You must have put it somewhere, don’t be so tense”. Bernard Shaw said, “Who is being tense about the ticket?” The ticket checker said, “Then why are you perspiring and looking so nervous?”

He said, “The problem is that now the question arises of where I am going. It was written on the ticket. Now, are you going to tell me where I am going? Who is going to tell me?” The ticket checker said, “How can I tell you where you are going?”

So Bernard Shaw said, “Then you should go and leave me alone. I have to find the ticket. It is a question of life and death. Where am I going? I must be going somewhere, because I have come to the station, purchased the ticket, entered the compartment. So one thing is certain, I must be going somewhere.”

This is the situation most people never come to know — their consciousness is a hidden treasure. One does not know what it contains unless you awaken it, unless you bring it into light, unless you open all the doors and enter into your own being and find every nook and corner. Consciousness in its fullness will give you the idea of who you are, and will also give you the idea of what your destiny is, of where you are supposed to go, of what your capacities are. Are you hiding a poet in your heart, or a singer, or a dancer, or a mystic?

Consciousness is something like light. Right now you are in deep darkness inside. When you close your eyes there is darkness and nothing else.

One of the great philosophers of the West, C.E.M. Joad, was dying, and a friend, who was a disciple of George Gurdjieff, had come to see him. Joad asked the friend, “What do you go on doing with this strange fellow, George Gurdjieff? Why are you wasting your time? And not only you… I have heard that many people are wasting their time.”

The friend laughed. He said, “It is strange that those few people who are with Gurdjieff think that the whole world is wasting its time, and you are thinking that we are wasting our time.” Joad said, “I don’t have much longer to live; otherwise I would have come and compared.”

The friend said, “Even if you have only a few seconds more to live, it can be done here, now.” Joad agreed. The man said, “You close your eyes and just look inside, and then open your eyes and tell me what you find.”

Joad closed his eyes, opened his eyes and said, “There is darkness and nothing else.” The friend laughed and he said, “It is not a time to laugh, because you are almost dying, but I have come at the right time. You said that you saw only darkness inside?” Joad said, “Of course.”

And the man said, “You are such a great philosopher; you have written such beautiful books. Can’t you see the point, that there are two things — you and the darkness? Otherwise, who saw the darkness? Darkness cannot see itself — that much is certain — and darkness cannot report that there is only darkness.” Joad gave it consideration and he said, “My God, perhaps the people who are with Gurdjieff are not wasting their time. This is true, I have seen the darkness.”

The friend said, “Our whole effort is to make this “I,” the witness, stronger and more crystallized, and to change the darkness into light. And both things happen simultaneously. As the witness becomes more and more centered, the darkness becomes less and less. When the witness comes to its full flowering, that is the lotus of consciousness — all darkness disappears.”

Satbodha, we are here in a mystery school, doing nothing else than bringing more and more crystallization to your witness, to your consciousness; so that your inner being, your interiority, becomes a light, so full and overflowing that you can share it with others. To be in darkness is to be living at the minimum. And to be full of life is to live at the maximum.

Source – Osho Book “The Razor’s Edge”

Excerpts from an Interview with Mike Wolfe
KBND Radio, Bend, Oregon