Question : Osho, What is the difference between human nature, instinct, and habit? Are there any means by which they can change or not? Sahabzadev Hasan, habit is not nature, it is nurture. You learn it by imitation. By seeing people doing things, you start doing them. By seeing what makes people successful, you follow them. It does not co...

There is nothing wrong in enjoying this world and its joys. I don't see there is anything wrong in enjoying food or clothes, or having a cozy house, or having a beautiful wife or husband. I don't see anything unspiritual in it. All depends on you. You can make it unspiritual, you can make it spiritual. When shivering cold, sitting in medit...

[A visitor says he has bone cancer in his foot. The doctors tried several treatments but say the foot will have to be amputated. He said he felt angry with them. Osho checks his energy, and tells him he thinks it a good idea that the foot is removed…. ] Don’t be afraid – removing it will solve the problem. And not removing it for a long ti...

Medicine and Meditation: The Two Poles of One Science My beloved ones. Man is a disease. Diseases come to man, but man himself is also a disease. That is his problem, and that is also his uniqueness; that is his good fortune, and that is also his misfortune. No other animal on earth is such a problem, such an anxiety, such a tension, such ...

[A sannyasin had come to darshan two weeks ago saying that he was overeating. Osho suggested he chew his food more carefully, at least forty times for each mouthful, and that he spend a certain time each day having food fantasies. He reports to Osho: I have chewed the food very slowly, and at first I was very sad, but now that has gone and...

Question 1 Osho, You were just talking about food, and now in the west food is a big cult. it's one of the things coming in as a basis of spirituality. You said if we're natural, we'll know what to eat and when to eat, but now we are out of touch with our childlike nature. Also, many religions say that the food you eat does make a differen...

Question 3: Beloved Osho, I am obsessed with food. i eat too much and have gained enormous weight. can you help me to reduce my weight? Sangito, this is strange, coming to me from California just to reduce your weight. In California there are far more facilities available to reduce weight. I know it because I had to send Mulla Nasruddin to...

Osho Quotes on Body I say unto you: The body is your greatest friend. Take care of your body. ♦ Your body is giving you the right indication; the body is very wise. The mind is a very late arrival. The body has lived millions of years, it knows what is needed. It is the mind that interferes. Mind is very immature, body is very mature. List...

[A sannyasin asks about fasting] No need... no need. Your body need not go on a fast. A fast is needed only when the body has too much fat; otherwise it is a torture, it is masochism. Never be a masochist, and be very alert -- in India there are many masochist mahatmas; in fact all the masochists in India have become mahatmas. It is easy f...

Question 2 Osho, Oh that i could have died of the shame that you've been nauseated by me... Thank you for such a drastic reason to give up non-vegetarian habits. it hasn't arisen out of my own awareness yet and i suspect this was my conditioning. my childhood was ruled by jewish dietary laws and rituals -- there were so many foods forbidde...

Don't depend on the body and don't remain confined to the body. Use it, respect it, love it, care for it, but remember: you have to leave it one day. It is only a cage, it will be left behind, and the bird will be gone. Before that happens, take care of the bird too. Cleanse your consciousness, because that will be going with you. Your und...

Give the body abundant love, on getting which it becomes vibrant, alive. Its slumbering potentialities are awakened. But remember that neither the so-called debauchee nor the so-called abstainer loves the body in the real sense. The contempt of the libertine for his own body is manifest in the lack of his own self-restraint. It is out of t...

on Reincarnation and Vegetarianism The Second thing that Pythagoras also introduced into Western consciousness was the idea of reincarnation. That too is somehow related with vegetarianism. You will be surprised again: all the vegetarian religions believe in reincarnation, and all the non-vegetarian religions believe only in one life. This...

My discipline is: Do whatsoever you like -- but do it with self-remembering; remember yourself that you are doing it. Walking, remember that you are walking. You need not verbalize this because verbalization will not help; that itself will become a distraction. You need not walk and say inside, "I am walking," because if you say, "I am wal...

Question : Osho, It always amazes me how chemicals can have such a drastic effect, not only on the body, but also on the mind. For example, my new birth control pill contains double the amount of estrogen as my old one; and immediately upon taking it, it threw my body and personality into chaos — not just physical symptoms such as nausea, ...

What you eat makes your mind, makes your body, makes your senses, gives you qualities Question 7: Please comment on these statements: "survival of the fittest," and "you are what you eat." "Survival of the fittest" appears to be true, but only to the superficial eye, because man is not the strongest animal on the earth. Why he has survived...

Question : The bauls celebrate their lives in their bodies. Could you say more about this? Americans cherish their bodies with health food, rolfing, massage, etc. But i don’t think this is the same as the bauls. Could you please comment? THERE IS A LOT OF DIFFERENCE, and the difference is not only quantitative, it is qualitative. The moder...

If he wants to be a vegetarian… Jainas and Buddhists have been vegetarians for twenty-five centuries. No Jaina has ever thought that he could be anything other than vegetarian, but now questions arise. Not a single vegetarian has been able to receive a Nobel Prize – strange. You have the purest minds; those meat-eaters have thick skulls. Y...

Osho Quotes on Health A totally new kind of education is needed in the world where fundamentally everyone is introduced into the silences of the heart – in other words, into meditation – and where everybody has to be prepared to be compassionate to his or her own body. It is a living organism, and it has done you no harm. It has been conti...

Question 3 Beloved Osho, Why are all your disciples vegetarian? I do not believe in vegetarianism, because I do not believe in anything. My disciples are vegetarian not as a cult, not as a creed. They are vegetarians because their meditations make them more human, more of the heart, and they can see the whole stupidity of people killing li...

Vegetarianism is of immense help in Meditation Pythagoras' contribution to Western Philosophy is immense. It is incalculable. For the first time he introduced vegetarianism to the West. The idea of vegetarianism is of immense value; it is based on great reverence for life. The modern mind can understand it far better now we know that all f...

[A sannyasin says he has a lot of tension in his back and neck – tension that is so painful at times that it totally occupies his attention…. It comes in the silent parts of the meditations. Osho asks him for details, and then checks his energy.] It is concerned with meditation, so don’t think about it as a disease or as if something is wr...

[At a previous darshan a sannyasin, who was crippled by polio four years ago, said he disliked the constant attention his disability received. Osho suggested he wear a sign ’I am crippled. Please don’t ask me about my leg. Thank you!’ Tonight he said it helped him to accept his situation, but he still feels frustrated; he wants to dance to...

I had a strong hatred for milk because it is non-vegetarian When you are eating delicious food, with spices and all kinds of things, made to be tasty, perfumed, you are losing something that you don't know. You are destroying your taste buds. They are not meant for such strong things; they are very small, and very delicate. I discovered th...

[A sannyasin says he has been feeling very miserable. Last night he stayed up to look after his son who was sick. He has heartburn often and thinks it is repressed anger. Osho checks his energy.] Nothing to be worried about…. Just ordinary cycles of misery and happiness. I don’t see that there is really any cause for it. One thing you have...

Vegetarianism Pythagoras’ contribution to western philosophy is immense. It is incalculable. For the first time he introduced vegetarianism to the West. The idea of vegetarianism is of immense value; it is based on great reverence for life. The modern mind can understand it far better now we know that all forms of life are interrelated, in...

Question 2: So many dishes in the ashram kitchen contain onions. Remembering that Raman Maharshi said to avoid chillies, excess of salt, onions, etc, I am struck with the question: Is the kitchen sabotaging our possibilities of enlightenment? That’s my whole work here. To sabotage all your possibilities of enlightenment. If your desire for...

on Cow Slaughter and Hindu Theory of evolution Question 5: What do you think about Cow worship? As Darwin says that the monkey is man's predecessor in physical evolution, you say that the cow precedes man in the evolution of the soul. How is it that among all animals the cow comes so close to man spiritually? Or is it that we call the cow ...

[A sannyasin says she has been working as a prostitute in the West. Returning there now to earn money to return here, she wonders whether to return to prostitution or not. A voice inside her says no – on the other hand it is a quick way to make money…. ] Then do something else, mm? do something else… because prostitution is a betrayal of t...

Humanity has invented many new diseases which were not prevalent before. In the old scriptures, ayurvedic scriptures, many diseases are not mentioned. People think they are not mentioned because ayurveda was not yet enough of a science, so they could not diagnose those diseases. That is not true; ayurveda became a perfect science. But thos...

[Osho speaks to a sannyasin who just arrived to take care of his wife who lies very ill in a local hospital.] She will survive – just wait; help her. You have come, that’s very good. Just be as loving to her as possible. And death, when it is around, or when one feels that it is around, is a great opportunity to be loving, because when we ...

Vegetarianism is a by-product of Meditation Question 3: Beloved Osho, Why are all your Disciples Vegetarian? I do not believe in vegetarianism, because I do not believe in anything. My disciples are vegetarian not as a cult, not as a creed. They are vegetarians because their meditations make them more human, more of the heart, and they can...

Question 2: Osho, Is Meditation enough to be whole and healthy? Please explain. The word “meditation” and the word “medicine” come from the same root. Medicine means that which heals the physical, and meditation means that which heals the spiritual. Both are healing powers. Another thing to be remembered: the word “healing” and the word “w...

"Respect for life - Just as you want to live, everybody else wants to live" Question : Beloved Osho, In existence only the animal kingdom is capable of eating itself for food. A cabbage cannot eat a carrot for lunch, but man has even been known to eat his fellow man for dinner. The man of zen has dissolved into the vast existence and choos...

Question 3: One day, as you talked about the new commune, I feel as though someone was hitting me again and again in my stomach until i thought i would vomit. Was that you? It it was, What are you up to? HAVE YOU EVER HEARD that St. John of the Cross used to vomit during his ecstasies? Vomit can be of infinite significance. It can be a kin...

Osho Quotes on vegetarian Food Life in its infinite forms exists as one organic unity. We are part of it: the part should feel reverence for the whole. That is the idea of vegetarianism. It simply means: don’t destroy life. It simply means: life is God — avoid destroying it, otherwise you will be destroying the very ecology. ♦ Jainism is t...

[A sannyasin asked about a friend who was paralysed, and wondered if anything could be done to help. Osho suggested the friend should become a sannyasin, and then continued…. ] If you are lying in bed all day and you can’t move, you will continuously want to, because movement is life. Nothing else is so important as movement. Rocks are dea...

Before you can understand this sutra, many more things have to be understood. The body has been very much misused. You have mistreated your own body. You don't know the mystery of the body itself. It is not just the skin; it is not just the bones; it is not just the blood. It is a great organic unity, a great dynamism. For centuries man th...

Question 3 Beloved Osho, The religion is dead. then is there any need of meditation? My God! It seems it is the same idiot who is asking all these questions. Because the religion is dead, now only meditation is left. I had to destroy everything nonessential, so you don't get lost in nonessentials as all other people in the world have. They...

Question 2: What about Food? Is it not absolutely essential to be a Vegetarian for Spiritual Growth? What you do is never essential, what you are is always essential. Being is essential, doing is not essential. Being is essential, having is not essential. Consciousness is essential, character is not essential -- because it is not character...

on Importance of Trees and Ecological balance on earth Friends, today I am going to talk first about religion and the crime that it has committed against humanity, nature, environment, ecology. Religion's crimes are many, innumerable, but the worst crime is that it has placed man at the center of existence. It has given the idea to the who...

One very great painter not much known in the West, although he was a Western man – he lived in the Himalayas. He was a Russian, Nicholas Roerich, and he belonged to the czar’s family. So while the revolution was happening and nineteen members of the czar’s family were slaughtered, even a six-month-old child – sometimes these revolutions ca...

[A sannyasin says he has a lot of tension in his back and neck – tension that is so painful at times that it totally occupies his attention…. It comes in the silent parts of the meditations. Osho asks him for details, and then checks his energy.] It is concerned with meditation, so don’t think about it as a disease or as if something is wr...

The body is a momentary phenomenon. One day it was not, one day it will not be again. It exists only for the time being — it is like foam; looks so beautiful from the shore, the foam, the white foam of a wave. And if the sun has risen, around the foam can be created a rainbow; looks so beautiful, looks like diamonds, looks so white and so ...

Now, we have to go into an enquiry about the bodies. Man is not one body, man has many bodies – layers of bodies. The body we know is only the outermost; inside it there is another, and inside that, another. Rishis have divided these layers into five. The first is known as the food body, the physical body. Ordinarily, we remain attached to...