Osho Quotes on Freedom
`Freedom` means freedom from the mind. Then you are simply in a silence, and in that silence you melt, you merge with the whole. And to melt and merge with the whole is to be holy. Not by fasting, not by torturing, but by becoming one with the whole, one becomes holy.
-Osho, "The Dhammapada - The Way of the Buddha, Vol 4, #9"
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Your freedom is a supreme value. Nothing is higher than that. But your freedom is possible only if you are not encaged in your habits, unconscious patterns of living. Change your gestalt from unconsciousness to consciousness.
-Osho, "The Dhammapada - The Way of the Buddha, Vol 4, #8"
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Never follow anybody else`s idea -- that is very dangerous because you will become imitative. Always follow your own nature, self-nature; only then will you attain to freedom. It is better to die following one`s nature than to live following somebody`s else`s nature, because that will be a pseudo life. To die following one`s nature is beautiful, because that death too will be authentic.
-Osho, "The Dhammapada - The Way of the Buddha, Vol 4, #10"
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Beware of lust, unconscious sexuality. When sex becomes conscious it has a totally different flavor. It becomes tantra, it is no longer sex. When sex becomes conscious it is love, it is no longer lust. Love brings freedom, and lust simply creates prisons for you.
-Osho, "The Dhammapada - The Way of the Buddha, Vol 7, #3"
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Create inner freedom through witnessing. Sannyas is only for the inner freedom. And live out of inner freedom. And live out of inner freedom and then you will be able to see the interdependence on the outside. It is beautiful and it is a blessing. There is no need to rebel against it. Relax into it, surrender to it. And remember: only a person who is really free can surrender.
-Osho, "The Dhammapada - The Way of the Buddha, Vol 9, #4"
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Remember: there is no other revolution except consciousness. It cuts the desires from the very roots and it brings freedom to you.
-Osho, "The Dhammapada - The Way of the Buddha, Vol 9, #9"
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The most fundamental message of Gautama the Buddha is not God, is not soul... it is freedom: freedom absolute, total, unconditional. He does not want to give you an ideology, because every ideology creates its own slavery. He does not want to give you a religion, because religion binds you. That's exactly the meaning of the English word 'religion' -- that which binds you together. Religion is a bondage, very subtle, so subtle that unless you are very aware you will not be able to see it. He does not want to give you a philosophy of life, because any philosophy given by somebody else is going to fetter you. You have to live according to your own light, not according to somebody else's light.
The whole world is full of slaves for the simple reason that everybody is living according to somebody else. Somebody is living according to Jesus, somebody is living according to Mahavira, somebody is living according to Krishna, somebody is living even according to Buddha.
Buddha says: Be a light unto yourself. Unless you create a light within your own being you will remain a slave, you will be dominated. And there are crafty priests, cunning, very clever, very worldly; and they know, they are very experienced in creating new bondages for you. If you escape from one prison, they immediately create another. They are very clever with words. They go on interpreting words in such subtle ways that you will never be able to understand how these words of the buddhas are being manipulated, distorted. Words that were meant to give you freedom have been made into chains.
But man is very unaware; hence he goes on remaining a victim -- a victim of all kinds of psychological exploitation.
Buddha teaches you freedom as the ultimate goal, the SUMMUM BONUM, the highest good. There is nothing higher than freedom. Every other value is a by-product of freedom; they follow freedom as a consequence.
-Osho, "The Dhammapada - The Way of the Buddha, Vol 10, #3"
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Desire is our imprisonment. The man who wants nothing, who is absolutely contented as he is, is free of all bondage. He has attained to ultimate freedom, nirvana -- and that is the goal of life. And it is only by attaining that freedom that you will know the significance of being, the song of being, the celebration of being. Your life will become a continuous bliss, and not only that YOU will be blissful, you will be able to bless others too. The whole existence will be blessed by you, by your very presence.
-Osho, "The Dhammapada - The Way of the Buddha, Vol 10, #3"
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Buddha says: Meditation brings two things. It brings wisdom, it brings freedom. These two flowers grow out of meditation. When you become silent, utterly silent, beyond the mind, two flowers bloom in you. One is of wisdom: you know what is and what is not. And the other is of freedom: you know now there are no more any limitations on you, either of time or of space. You become liberated. Meditation is the key to liberation, to freedom, to wisdom.
-Osho, "The Dhammapada - The Way of the Buddha, Vol 9, #7"
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Become aware, awake. Then you will see that everything comes and goes, all things come and pass. Life is a flux. Your consciousness is the only thing that is immovable, that is eternal. To attain it is freedom. To attain it is the goal of life. If you miss it you have missed your life and you have missed a tremendously great gift, a great opportunity.
-Osho, "The Dhammapada - The Way of the Buddha, Vol 7, #3"
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All meditations are nothing but efforts to bring you to the present. When you live in the present moment, with no past hanging around you, with no future projection, you are free from life and death, you are free from body and mind. You are free -- simply free -- you are freedom.
-Osho, "The Dhammapada - The Way of the Buddha, Vol 5, #3"
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Buddha says the greatest joy in life is freedom: freedom from all prejudices, freedom from all scriptures, freedom from all concepts and ideologies, freedom from all desires, freedom from all possessiveness and jealousy, freedom from all hatred, anger, rage, lust... in short, freedom from everything, so that you are just a pure consciousness, unbounded, unlimited.
That is the greatest joy, and it is possible -- it is within everybody`s grasp. You just have to grope for it a little. The groping will be in the dark, but it is not far away. If you try, if you make an effort, you are bound to find it. It is your birthright.
-Osho, "The Dhammapada - The Way of the Buddha, Vol 6, #5"
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Beware of dreams! And watch your dreams day in, day out, because they are continuously there. You can watch them, and by watching them you will become unidentified with them, you will become a mirror reflecting them. And this brings great freedom. Freedom from dreams is freedom from the world.
-Osho, "The Dhammapada - The Way of the Buddha, Vol 5, #9"
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Remember, until you become a buddha you have wasted your life. Buddhahood is your flowering, your fragrance. A tree is fulfilled when it blooms, and a man is fulfilled when he releases the fragrance of buddhahood, when he becomes luminous; then he comes to know who he is. In knowing that, all is known. In knowing that, God is known. In knowing that, truth is achieved -- you become the truth, and truth liberates. Truth is freedom.
-Osho, "The Dhammapada - The Way of the Buddha, Vol 7, #1"
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The man who is asleep reacts; he knows nothing of action. And reaction is a binding: it binds you into new prisons, new chains. Response is out of freedom, hence it brings more freedom. Reaction is out of the past; you act according to your memories, built-in by your experiences, conditionings. You react not to the present, not in the present. You don`t reflect the real situation as it is; you go on interpreting it according to your past, your past experiences.
The man who is awake is like a mirror: he reflects that which is the case. HE IS AWAKE.
-Osho, "The Dhammapada - The Way of the Buddha, Vol 6, #1"
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Hell means nothing but misery; it is a psychological state of misery, a state of negativity, a state of darkness, of utter loneliness. And heaven is joy, happiness, health, light. But there is a third word, moksha. Moksha means freedom, freedom from both heaven and hell, freedom from pain and pleasure -- because pain binds you as much as pleasure binds you. Pain may be an ugly chain and pleasure may be a beautiful chain, decorated, maybe made of gold, but it chains you. Hell may be a poor place and heaven may be a very rich place but poverty and riches are two aspects of the same coin. One has to be free of both.
When you are free of both, you are free of mind, because mind lives in the duality of heaven and hell, of darkness and light, of misery and happiness, of day and night, of life and death. When you have transcended both and reached to the third which is beyond, which is transcendental, it is moksha. Moksha means nirvana; it is cessation of the ego, and meeting and merging into the universal. That has been the goal of the Eastern mystic.
-Osho, "The Dhammapada - The Way of the Buddha, Vol 9, #3"