The politicians have always been stupid; this is nothing new. Otherwise why should they be politicians? They would have been poets, they would have been mystics, they would have been painters, they would have been musicians, they would have been dancers. But when a person cannot be anything, when he has no talents, no intelligence, then, t...

Question : Osho, Please talk about the Misuse of Power. Shantam Divyama, there is the famous statement of an English philosopher: “Power corrupts, absolute power corrupts absolutely.” I do not agree with him. My analysis is totally different. Everybody is full of violence, greed, anger, passion — but has no power; so he remains a saint. To...

Truth is the most obvious and the most simple thing in existence. This has created tremendous difficulty – the mind is not interested in the obvious. The mind is not excited by the simple, because deep down mind is nothing but your ego, and the nourishment of the ego comes from the challenge of the far away. The more arduous, the more tort...

Question 4: Osho, Is there such a thing as personal power which is different from power over others? What is the relationship between power and responsibility? They are two totally different things: personal power and power over others. Not only are they different, they are diametrically opposite. The person who knows himself, understands ...

Appearances are very deceptive. Appearances may give you respectability but they cannot give you contentment. And some day or other, in some way or other, the truth has a way of surfacing. Truth cannot be repressed forever. If it can be repressed forever, eternally, then it is not truth. In the very definition of truth one should include t...

Question 4 Osho, Is there such a thing as personal power which is different from power over others? what is the relationship between power and responsibility? They are two totally different things: personal power and power over others. Not only are they different, they are diametrically opposite. The person who knows himself, understands h...

Money, power, prestige — they all make you cunning. Seek pleasure and you will lose your innocence; and to lose your innocence is to lose all. Jesus says: be like a small child, only then can you enter into my kingdom of God. And he is right. But the pleasure-seeker cannot be as innocent as a child. He has to be very clever, very cunning, ...

Question 3 Osho, I am afraid of being nobody. Would you please commend? Shunyam Anukant, everybody is afraid of being nobody. Only very rare and extraordinary people are not afraid of being nobody. A Gautam Buddha is needed to be a nobody. A Nobody is not an ordinary phenomenon; it is one of the greatest experiences in life -- that you are...

[A sannyasin, returned from the West, says she is not ready to live in the West. She has a strong desire to be loved, feels a desperation that she hasn’t been loved. Osho says that is one of the basic problems that touches everyone…. ] … because we live in a society which is absolutely loveless, so everybody is hungry for love, desperately...

Buddha says: MASTER YOURSELF.... If you are at all interested in mastery -- and who is not interested? -- then become interested in self-mastery. Don't waste your time in trying to dominate others. The effort to dominate others creates political conflict; the whole world is full of it. Even in personal relationships politics enters and des...

The ego goes on agreeing for wrong things, because the ego can exist only with the wrong. It feeds on the wrong. So whenever you feel that your ego is fulfilled, beware! — you have eaten something wrong, you have swallowed something wrong. Whenever you feel egoless, relax — now you have eaten the right, something which is in tune with your...

A man constructs his own world. What I am, is my contribution to the world. And by that very offering I become a participant in the creation of the world, in the creation of my environment. In that respect every man is a creator. It is essential to understand that each individual is a contributor to the ugliness of the world, that each ind...

Question 2: Osho, What is ambition? To live without ambition seems frightening, like starting a new life up from the beginning. Latifa, Ambition is the greatest poison there is. It brings all other poisons in: greed, violence, competitiveness, struggle, a constant state of war with everybody else. It does not allow you any space for love t...

Question 5: What is the difference between being special and being unique? BEING unique is everybody’s nature, being special is relative. When you start feeling that you are special you are comparing yourself with somebody. Special: in comparison to somebody; unique: there is no comparison. Unique means you are alone as you are – how can y...

Bliss makes one victorious. Money cannot make one victorious; at the most It covers up your property It does not make you rich, remember. It simply helps you to forget your poverty, That’s all — poverty remains, persists But becomes repressed. Wealth is a way to repress poverty Power is a way To repress your inferiority complex, But you re...

Osho Quotes on Ambition When ambition enters, creativity disappears -- because an ambitious man cannot be creative, because an ambitious man cannot love any activity for its own sake. While he is painting he is looking ahead; he is thinking, 'When am I going to get a Nobel Prize?' When he is writing a novel, he is looking ahead. He is alwa...

Question : What is your view of being successful in ordinary life? - i am afraid you are against success! I AM NEITHER AGAINST ANYTHING NOR FOR ANYTHING. Whatsoever happens, happens. One need not choose — because with choice is misery. If you want to be successful then you will remain miserable. You may succeed, you may not succeed; but on...

You should not try to influence anybody, and you should be alert that you are not influenced by others. The ego can do both but it cannot remain in the middle. The ego can try to influence, then it feels good, dominating, but remember that the ego also feels good being dominated. The masters feel good because so many slaves are dominated, ...

Try to understand why there is ambition within us. What is the reason for our running so madly? The reason is that the more a person is suffering from inferiority, the more ambitious he becomes. The more inferiority you experience, the more you feel that you are nothing, the more you will become ambitious. Why? Through ambition, you want t...

Unless Ambition is Killed, you will remain in misery. Ambition is the source of all miseries. What is ambition? ’A’ wants to be ’B’, the poor wants to be rich, the ugly wants to be beautiful. Everyone longs to be someone else, something other than what he is. No one is content with himself. That’s what ambition is. Whatsoever you are, you ...

Question 2: Osho, It seems to me that human beings feel that just to be themselves is not enough. why do most people have such a compulsion to reach power and prestige and so on, rather than just being simple human beings? It is a complicated question. It has two sides, and both have to be understood. First: you have never been accepted by...

People say that they want to stop, but they are not yet tired – so they say one thing and they do just the opposite. Because to stop running means to stop ambition. To stop running means to stop desire. To stop running means to drop the future completely – to live here and now. Then there is no running. If there is a then and there, one ru...

[A sannyasin says: I don’t really want to change at all. I’ve been looking inside, and what I’m really up to is adjusting the environment, and manipulating most of the time, keeping myself really well defended.] Mm, it’s good that you have become aware of it. You were not aware of it before and this is a good insight. Now things will start...

Pleasure is momentary, of time, for the time being; bliss is nontemporal, timeless. Pleasure begins and ends; bliss abides forever. Pleasure comes and goes; bliss never comes, never goes -- it is already there in the innermost core of your being. Pleasure has to be snatched away from the other; you become either a beggar or a thief. Bliss ...

LIFE CAN BE LIVED IN TWO WAYS. One is that of the soldier, and the other, that of the sannyasin. Either you can fight with life or you can relax with life. Either you can try to conquer life or you can live in a deep let-go. The path of the soldier is the wrong path, because it is impossible to conquer life — the part cannot conquer the wh...

Question 5 Beloved Osho, How can we avoid being Authoritative? It is very simple. The people who are authoritarian are the people who are suffering from an inferiority complex. To hide their inferiority they impose their superiority. They want to prove that they are somebody, that their word is truth, that their word is law. But deep down ...

8. I call the wheel of life – going round and around on the axle of ambition – hell. It is this fever of ambition that poisons life. Among the most serious diseases and mental troubles that man has known, there is no greater disease than ambition – because a mind which is disturbed by the winds of ambition is not destined to have peace, mu...

Question 4 Osho, Is it true that power-oriented people were needed to create this commune? Is it also true that meditative and loving people cannot create such beautiful and rich communes? Please comment. Power-oriented people can create much, but their creation is basically criminal. And sooner or later, it is going to fall apart. Meditat...

Question 2 Individual freedom and authority on one side, and authoritarianism and dictatorship on the other side, move man's life and his aspirations. Please comment on this. It is the same problem, the same question, phrased differently. Society is authoritarian; the church is authoritarian; the educational system is authoritarian. They a...