Question : Osho, Would you please say something about Sincerity? MAN can live in two ways: either he can live according to the dictates of others — the puritans, the moralists — or he can live according to his own light. It is easy to follow others, it is conve...

Man lives in lies. He believes they are the only truth. And once you believe in a certain lie you make it a truth. But it is an invented truth, and it cannot liberate you and it cannot help you to know god — because truth is another name for god. People are Chr...

Question 6: Osho, What is wrong with knowing more and more about God? Can it not help the seeker? Kamalesh, knowing and knowledge are different. I am all for knowing and I am all against knowledge. Knowing is your insight, it is your capacity to see, it is phil...

Osho on Innocent Question 1 Beloved Osho, What is Innocence and What is the way to become Innocent? Sonja, innocence is your very nature. You do not have to become it, you are already it. You are born innocent. Then layers and layers of conditioning are imposed...

[A sannyasin says he has a tension in his head and: ’I am not very loving and… I don’t feel very good about myself’.] Mm… that may be the tension – because love is a release. If you are loving you remain relaxed. If you are not loving you become tense. Tension ...

A repressed person is carrying the same world as you. Just an opportunity is needed, a provocation, and immediately the real will come out. That’s why monks disappear from the world — because there are too many provocations, too many temptations. It is difficul...

Question : Osho, What is the point of the Physical Universe, If man’s destiny is ultimately to Transcend it? That is the point: otherwise, how will you transcend? The universe is needed to transcend. The misery is needed to transcend, the darkness is needed to ...

Question 5: Osho, I know I should be unattached. Now I judge myself for having bought beautiful orange material rather than having the courage to run around like some do in some dirty rag. Now at least have the courage to wear those beautiful orange things. I’m...

Question : You said, “Teaching is the best way of learning but you have also said, “The world is irreligious because of too many preachers. “Would you please speak on the subtle difference between helping others and trying to change others. THERE IS A VAST DIFF...

The real thing is not what you are giving — pearls and holiness and love — and TO WHOM you are giving; that is not the point. The point is that you are giving. When you have, give it. Gurdjieff used to say, “All that I hoarded was lost, and all that I gave is m...

Just to be enlightened is not enough. A mere enlightenment will give you all the joys of the world, but you will become absolutely dumb. You will not say anything, you will not find any way to express. Before enlightenment the master has to prepare the people w...

Question 1: Does there ever come a moment when one knows why things are this way and not that way? NO, THAT MOMENT NEVER COMES. That moment cannot come, knowledge is impossible. Life is a mystery — the more you know about it, the more mysterious it becomes. You...

Knowing always becomes knowledge — and you have to be alert not to allow it. One of the most delicate situations on the path of a seeker: knowing always becomes knowledge - because the moment you have known something, your mind collects it as knowledge, as expe...

Existence loves us all. We are here, that is enough proof, otherwise we would not have been here at all; we have been chosen to be by existence. It is not our choice, we have not created ourselves; it is the decision on the part of the whole. And existence goes...

Question : On the path of surrender, How does the Seeker come to the right technique out of One hundred and twelve methods? On the path of will there are methods – these one hundred and twelve methods. On the path of surrender, surrender itself is the method, t...

I am unable to give you the truth. If anyone says he is capable of giving it to you, you can be certain he has begun by giving you an untruth. No one has the capacity to give the truth. This is no comment on the capacity of the giver, it only shows that truth i...

Deva Marc. Deva means divine; marc means war -- divine war. There is a constant war between the evil and the good, between the forces of darkness and the forces of light, between that which brings you down and that which uplifts you. One has to be very consciou...

Question : Does the Universe Love me? It is a wrong question to ask. You should ask the other way round, “Do you love the universe?” because universe is not a person. It cannot love you. It has no center, or you can say “everywhere it has the center,” but it is...

Question 1: Osho, What is Renunciation? What is its place in your religion? THE idea of renunciation is one of the fundamentals of all pseudo-religions. Its phenomenology has to be understood very deeply. All the religions have been preaching a division between...

Question 6: To follow jesus a deep trust, surrender and love is needed but today a deep skepticism is prevalent all over the world. what is the way? This is from Swami Yoga Chinmaya. Think about yourself. Is deep skepticism within you? That’s the question to be...

SPEAK THE TRUTH, GIVE WHATEVER YOU CAN, NEVER BE ANGRY. THESE THREE STEPS WILL LEAD YOU INTO THE PRESENCE OF THE GODS. Speak the truth, whatsoever the cost. It is going to cost you much, because the world lives in lies. People are brought up in such a way that ...

You are looking at a flower: look at the flower, feel the beauty of it, but do not use the word beauty, not even in the mind. Look at it: let it be absorbed in you, go deeply into it, but do not use words. Feel the beauty of it, but do not say, ”It is beautiful...

Question : What can i do with a beggar? whether i give him a rupee or not, he will remain a beggar all the same. THE beggar is not the problem. If the beggar was the problem then everybody who passes by would feel the same. If the beggar was the problem then be...

Whatsoever you do will need much visible and invisible help. Sometimes you may not be even aware, but many currents of help are around you, helping you; many sources are just pouring down upon you. You will become aware only in the end when you have achieved. T...

Question : Many people are in Silence now. Do you recommend this? What is the purpose? Can it be helpful? I don’t recommend, but they understand. I don’t recommend anything in particular – except understanding. But if you understand, you would love silence. I d...

Question : Osho, What is Compassion? Anand Shama, We know what passion is hence it is not very difficult to understand what compassion may be. Passion means a state of biological fever — it is hot. You are almost possessed by biological, unconscious energies. Y...

Question : Osho, Someone once told me the saying: “all that you put into the lives of others comes back into your own. “it has been with me ever since, and i feel it to be true. Can you please talk about this? it keeps coming up a lot for me. Prem Kendra, the s...

Question 6: Osho, What is wrong with knowing more and more about God? Can it not help the seeker? Kamalesh, knowing and knowledge are different. I am all for knowing and I am all against knowledge. Knowing is your insight, it is your capacity to see, it is phil...

Deva Nisarga…. Nisarga means to be natural, to be spontaneous, to be simple and poor. And blessed are the poor – only they shall inherit the kingdom of God. Only the poor are rich. This inner poverty is really an inner richness. When you simply move with nature...

The rishi says that knowledge must cease, because only then is knowing possible. Knowledge means the accumulation of dead experiences – of your own, or of others, but knowledge means the dead past. Knowledge is always of the past. Knowing is always here and now...

Knowledge borrowed from others is untrue, knowledge gathered from the outside is untrue. It hides your ignorance but it does not make you wise. It covers up your wounds but it does not heal. In a way it is very dangerous because one tends to forget one’s wounds...

Question 2 Osho, Because i am only a beginner in the search for reality, could you define for me the four terms: truth, god, spiritual, fact. Ken Jones, if you are only a beginner in the search, please come back, don't go ahead. Don't become more of an expert i...

Question 3 : Why are you so much against logic? Because it is logical to be against logic. Logic proves nothing, that’s why I am against logic. It only pretends to prove; it proves nothing. It is an empty game, verbal. But the pretension is such that millions o...

on Receptivity Question : Please, Osho, What is Receptivity? Ananda Vandana, RECEPTIVITY is a state of no-mind. When you are utterly empty of all thought, when consciousness has no content, when the mirror reflects nothing, it is receptivity. Receptivity is the...

Question 2: Osho, You said that awareness created centering and crystallization, but i personally feel that awareness brings a feeling of deep void within me. Please explain the relationship between centering and inner void. As man is, he is without a center --...

Life is god's grace, ant so is death. Love is god's grace, and so is all that ever happens, good and bad too. The whole duality of existence is god's grace. One who understands this is not only grateful for all that is good but is also grateful for all that app...

Man is caught in a universal deception. And when everybody is caught in the same deception, it becomes difficult to see. You have to find out if the clothes of knowledge – which you have thought of as clothes – are really clothes, or are you standing naked in i...

Only self knowledge can make you master of your inner powers. Only self knowledge fills your life with light, knowledge and splendor. The day you become capable of awakening, or becoming aware, you will realize that you were always a king. You will wonder. You ...

Anand means bliss or blissful, and sugatta is a name of buddha. Literally it means well gone, because in india we call those people well-gone who are not going to come back again, who are gone forever. They have gone so well that they will not be returning. It ...

The pure heart is a basic condition for bliss to happen, but by purity I don’t mean something moral; by purity I mean innocence. A moralist is never innocent, he is very calculating. His morality is nothing but his calculation. He is bargaining with God, he is ...

Question : What is a Mystic? I don't know, Purna, and nobody else knows either. That's why a mystic is called a mystic. Something indefinable, something very elusive, something that cannot be grasped, that cannot be comprehended. Not that it is something specia...

KILL OUT DESIRE FOR SENSATION. We live for sensations, we hanker for sensations. We go on seeking newer and newer sensations; our whole life is an effort to obtain new sensations. But what happens? The more you seek sensations, the less sensitive you become. Se...

Like this, such things are given which have no value. You give away in charity that which is useless. You do not have to make much effort to fast – it is only a little trouble to the body. You can do austerities also because it satisfies your ego. But the one a...

In India, the ancient story of the Hindu religion is that Rama, their incarnation of God, was fighting against Ravana, who ruled over Sri Lanka, Ceylon, and was nothing but the devil incarnate. And this is absolutely false. He was one of the most learned men th...

We attach a lot of value to ourselves; and the more value we attach to our little selves, the more restless we become; and the more we suffer and the possibility of realizing Truth gets less and less. He who is tranquil and filled with peace, can realize Truth....

Question 2 Osho, Because i am only a beginner in the search for reality, could you define for me the four terms: truth, god, spiritual, fact. Ken Jones, if you are only a beginner in the search, please come back, don't go ahead. Don't become more of an expert i...

Question 4: Osho, What is the difference between religious scriptures like the gita, the koran, the bible, etc. and the upanishads? First, THE UPANISHADS are not religious scriptures. They are poetic expressions of those who have known. They are not Hindu, they...

Question : You said that god is the creative process. Then why are things created? What is the purpose of creation, or is it something that just exists? If God exists as a person then the question why becomes relevant. If God is a person then we can ask, ”why h...

The basic thing to be understood about these centers is this: whenever you are centered within, the moment you are centered, whatsoever may be the center, you fall down to the navel. If you are centered at the heart, the heart is irrelevant – centering is meani...

Animals don’t know. Man knows but his knowing is only information, accumulation of facts, accumulation of theories, ideologies, philosophies — it is all borrowed. And the borrowed always becomes a burden. It never brings freedom. By ‘divine knowing’ I mean you ...

Meditation means no-thought, no-mind, no words. They have all been left behind; one has come to an immense, infinite silence. But that silence is not dead, it is a singing silence. It is throbbing, pulsating with life. It has a dancing quality to it. You cannot...

All knowledge is borrowed. Truth is never borrowed, truth cannot be borrowed. Nobody can give it to you, nobody can take it away from you either. But knowledge can be given and taken. The universities knowledge, and the mystery schools deal in truth. But becaus...

All that you know, all that you think of as knowledge is rubbish. Know it as rubbish and drop it. All that is borrowed, all that is learned from others — and all that you know is learned from others — has to be dropped. It is humiliating: to carry it and to dec...

Question 2: Osho, Sometimes it seems as if you are more surrendered to us than we are to you. Please comment. It is true. I am not surrendered to you, to my people particularly. But because I have got rid of the ego, I am simply surrendered to the whole of exis...

Jaya means inner victory, conquering oneself, and ananda means bliss – bliss that comes out of conquering oneself. And that is the only bliss there is. You can conquer the whole world and you will remain miserable; of course your misery will become a thousand-f...

You are the way and you are the goal. And there is no distance between you and the goal. You are the seeker and you are the sought. There is no distance between the seeker and the sought. You are the worshiper and you are the worshiped. You are the disciple and...

Knowledge is the curse, the calamity, the cancer. It is through knowledge that man becomes divided from the whole. Knowledge creates the distance. You come across a wildflower in the mountains, you don’t know what it is, your mind has nothing to say about it, t...

A temple is under construction. I pass by it and think: ”The temples are many; perhaps the number of persons visiting them has gone down; but then why is this new temple being constructed? And this is not alone. There are many other temples under construction. ...

Emptiness Has Its Own Fullness Question 1: Beloved Osho, For years I have contemplated what seems to me to be the basic message for well-being: love yourself. When I was a therapist, all day hearing, “I hate myself; I feel sorry for myself; I am proud of myself...

All knowledge is borrowed. Truth is never borrowed, truth cannot be borrowed. Nobody can give it to you, nobody can take it away from you either. But knowledge can be given and taken. The universities knowledge, and the mystery schools deal in truth. But becaus...

[A sannyasin expresses concern about being a sannyasin in the West. She works in a personnel at a university. Osho says that is good work, and love is needed more than expertise…. ] The therapist, the counsellor, has to love the patients so deeply, so totally, ...

Bliss is a by-product of trust, of total trust in existence or in God. God is not a person but the impersonal presence. The very life of existence is God, the living energy is God. And to trust in it means to stop struggling against it. Struggling against it cr...

26 Evening has merged into night. Some people have come. They say, "You teach nothingness. But the thought of nothingness. terrifies us. Is there nothing we can hold on to?" I tell them that courage is certainly essential for a leap into the void. But those who...

Question 7: Who is a Baul? Please tell us the definition. IT should have been asked in the beginning; now this is going to be last. But in a way, it is good. If in the beginning you had asked about the definition of a Baul, it would have been almost impossible ...

Question 2: Osho, Sometimes it seems as if you are more surrendered to us than we are to you. Please comment. It is true. I am not surrendered to you, to my people particularly. But because I have got rid of the ego, I am simply surrendered to the whole of exis...

The people who are miserly will remain miserly, even in their sharing. If you look deep down you will find they are trying to bargain for something, there is some business hidden in it. The priests go on telling people, “If you give to poor people here, you wil...

[A sannyasin who is returning to the west says she is afraid about meeting her old friend who is a marxist: He is in search of truth and I too. He has found something and I have found something. He has known me for so long and has given me so much love… ] I kno...

Question 1: Is self-actualization a basic need? There are many questions. The first: IS SELF-ACTUALIZATION A BASIC NEED OF MAN? First, try to understand what is meant by self-actualization. A. H. Maslow has used this term "self- actualization." Man is born as p...

Buddha says There are needy people all around. There are ill people, there are poor people, there are paralyzed people and blind and deaf and lame. If you start serving all these people you will forget the real work. That’s what has happened to the Christian mi...

Fighting with god is like hitting your head against the wall: it is not going to do any harm to the wall, only your head will be destroyed. You will lose your sanity. To be in tune with god means to find a door. You can go through it and then there is no need t...

A GREAT HASSID MYSTIC, Zusya, was dying. His old aunt was always worried about Zusya because he was not following the traditional Jewish religion . . . she was very much worried about him. She was an old woman with all the old orthodox thoughts. At his deathbed...

Question : I feel empty. I cry. What’s next? This emptiness is negative. Otherwise you will not cry; you will laugh. This emptiness is like loneliness, not like aloneness. This emptiness is not a deep presence; it is simply absence. This emptiness is only death...

Once you become alive, once your life energy arises, you will suddenly feel that you fit with existence, but you don’t fit with the society. And I tell you: if you don’t fit with the society, don’t bother about it, because ultimately it means nothing. The only ...

Whenever you are unable to share, whenever you are unable to practise charity, note down — you must be poor. You may have much in the eyes of others, but deep down you must be poor if you cannot share. You possess only that which you can give. Only by giving do...

[Osho suggested to a sannyasin to start a small meditation centre.] It will be good for you also. This is my observation, that there are many things that you learn only when you start teaching them. The best way to learn a thing is to teach it. And you grow mor...

Remember this – that beauty of truth, authenticity. Become more authentic and you will have a flowering. And the more authentic you become, by and by you will feel many things are falling away – of their own accord. You never made any effort to do it; they are ...

[A woman sannyasin says: I’m miserable. I want to keep being cuddled by a woman and I’m not getting it. I keep withdrawing from everything around me.] You have to learn to give. You only ask – and that creates the trouble. It is not a question of man or woman; ...

Surrender is the greatest gamble. Surrender means putting the mind aside completely. Surrender means going mad. I say surrender means going mad, because all those who live in their logic and in their minds will think you have gone mad. To me it is not madness. ...

Receptivity 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 ...

We are here — that is more than enough proof that existence needs us. We are fulfilling a certain need; we are not useless, we are not accidental as science goes on telling people. In these three hundred years science has created one great problem for every hum...

My beloved bodhisattvas.... Yes, that's how I look at you. That's how you have to start looking at yourselves. Bodhisattva means a buddha in essence, a buddha in seed, a buddha asleep, but with all the potential to be awake. In that sense everybody is a bodhisa...

A king heard that one part of his kingdom was almost in a chaos. People were fighting with each other. They were hurting each other in every way possible. He was worried. He sent a special messenger to this part with a magic glass. The magic glass had the quali...

Osho on Bauls The Bauls are called Bauls because they are mad people. The word 'Baul' comes from the Sanskrit root VATUL. It means: mad, affected by wind. The Baul belongs to no religion. He is neither Hindu nor Mohammedan nor Christian nor Buddhist. He is a si...

[To a new sannyasin Osho says:] Raise your hands and close your eyes. Feel like a bird flying into the sky; these are your wings. If you start feeling like moving upwards, allow the body. If the hands start moving upwards, allow them; if the body starts swaying...

Bliss is the juice of life. Bliss has already been given to you. It is your very center; without it you cannot exist at all. It is an undercurrent; we exist because of it. Existence is impossible, you cannot exist even for a single moment, if bliss disappears a...

Remember this. It is impossible to help others till you have obtained some certainty of your own. Resist the temptation to help others. It is evil unless you have obtained some certainty of your own. Don't try to be a guru, don't try to be a helper. because you...

Renunciation means: wherever you are, there is no need to renounce the things because in the first place you never possessed them. It is foolish to talk about renunciation. It means as if you were the possessor and now you are renouncing. How can you renounce s...

Existence has no language… and if you depend on language there can be no communication with existence. Existence is a mystery, you cannot interpret it. If you interpret, you miss. Existence can be lived, but not thought about. It is more like poetry, less like ...

Truth is a discovery And naturally all that we know about truth Has to be dropped Because we have not discovered it. Anybody else truth is not your truth And can never be your truth. To believe in others’ truths Is to remain in bondage. Meditation is the way of...

Before you start helping others, live it in all possible ways. Walk meditatively, eat meditatively, sit meditatively, even sleep meditatively. Let meditation be spread all over your life. It should become a twenty-four-hour phenomenon, like breathing — so much ...

KNOWLEDGE IS not enough, to rely on it is dangerous. Knowledge is borrowed, it is not knowing. Knowing grows with you, knowing is a growth, an evolution, knowledge is implanted within you from me outside, knowledge is borrowed, it is counterfeit. It looks like ...

Question 1 : Osho, Is there Quality in Nothingness? Anudeya, NOTHINGNESS CAN EITHER BE just emptiness or it can be a tremendous fullness. It can be negative, it can be positive. If it is negative it is like death, darkness. Religions have called it hell. It is ...

Mercy can be of two kinds. It can be very egoistic, then it only appears as mercy but is not; unless mercy is absolutely egoless it is not authentic. And the difference is very subtle: from the outside there is no difference at all but one can feel the differen...

We enter today into one of the most beautiful worlds, that of a small document called the. It is strange because it has appeared many times and disappeared many times; hence nobody exactly knows who wrote it. Truth has the capacity to appear again and again; be...

Question 2 Osho, We can practice right behavior, and behavior according to duty, but then we will be wearing false faces, as we are inwardly, as you say, a madhouse. so should we act as we feel, or act as we ought? The first thing to be understood: you have to ...

Question 2 : Osho, Though your emphasis has been for us, as individuals, to go within to save ourselves, I guess I am still naïve enough to feel that our love, our dancing, our joy could still save this beautiful planet. Can you please say something about this?...

THEN AND THERE HE BECAME A DISCIPLE. Whenever you come against something like this -- a real patience, a real substantial silence -- deep down something is touched in your heart also. Deep down you are no more the same. Something real has penetrated like a ray ...

We use two words: BRAHMAN for universe, for the embodied form, and BRAHMA for the innermost center of consciousness. As long as we are feeling ourselves as bodies, we can never transcend brahman, the universe. The moment we become consciousness, the brahman dro...

Osho on Hasidism "A few things about Hasidism. First, the word ‘hasid’ comes from a Hebrew word which means pious, pure. It is derived from the noun ‘hased’ which means grace. This word ‘hasid’ is very beautiful. The whole standpoint of Hasidism is based on gra...