Swami Anand Peter. Anand means bliss. Peter literally means a rock, but symbolically it means eternity. The rock represents the unchanging element. Ordinarily everything is changing, constantly — even rocks are changing. So it is only a metaphor, but it has gre...

Question 2 : 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...

Question : Osho, I can not trust anybody, Why? Sargam, I will just tell you a story. Meditate over it. The hired boy gets the youngest girl in the farmer’s family to go out into the hayloft with him. She comes back and tells her sister, “Say, the hired boy sure...

As long as we are feeling ourselves as bodies, we can never transcend brahman, the universe. The moment we become consciousness, the brahman drops; it becomes brahma. Then there is no universe, then there is just an infinite ocean of consciousness. This infinit...

Bliss is an unboundedness, just like an ocean. It is so vast that one is completely in it. Just as a dewdrop slips from a lotus leaf into the lake and becomes one with the lake, in the same way man has to slip out of the ego and become one with existence, only ...

Meera is a launching place for your pilgrimage. Her scripture is the scripture of love. Perhaps calling it scripture is not right. Take Narada’s BHAKTI SUTRAS — sutras of devotion — that is scripture. There one finds reasoning, method, fixed precepts. It is a s...

Truth is beyond structure. It comes only when you are in an unstructured state of consciousness. It comes only when there is no expectation for it, not even preparation for it, because all preparation is expectation. Truth comes unawares, truth comes as a surpr...

[A sannyasin, who is going to the West to work, says: I feel very sad. There seems to be a sort of bottomless well of doubt and impatience which I can never get over.] I understand. I have been watching it — it is there, and it is there with every intelligent p...

Generosity is the real richness. And to be generous, to share, you don’t need many things. To be generous, you just have to share whatsoever you have. You may not have much – that is not the point. Who has much? Who can ever have enough? It is never much, it is...

Meditate over it as deeply as possible, because it contains one of the most fundamental truths. These four words will have to be understood, pondered over. The first is pleasure, the second, happiness; the third is joy, and the fourth is bliss. Pleasure is phys...

Question : 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 ...

Misery makes you more and more impotent, hollow, it is a kind of negative emptiness. One simply feels useless, meaningless; one does not live, but only vegetates. But that is the story of millions of people: they all live in misery, and to live in misery is to ...

Remember, nobody is an exception. AES DHAMMO SANANTANO — only one law rules all, one eternal law. Whatsoever happens to the ant is going to happen to the elephant too, and whatsoever happens to the beggar is going to happen to the emperor too. Poor or rich, ign...

Anand means bliss, salama means peace. Bliss can have two expressions: either it can be an ecstasy, overflowing, or it can be silence, peace, stillness. If bliss flows outward it is ecstatic. If it simply remains in then it is peace, and peace is a higher state...

Intellect may arrive at certain inferences, but intellect is an unconscious phenomenon. You are almost behaving sleepily. Intelligence is awakening, and unless you are fully awake, whatsoever you decide is bound to be wrong somewhere or other. It is bound to be...

Question : What is the difference between Surrender and Blind Faith or Belief? MANY THINGS HAVE TO BE UNDERSTOOD. First, the difference between faith and belief, and second, the difference between surrender and faith. Belief is always blind and cannot be otherw...

Question : What is Prayer? Prayer is wonder, reverence. Prayer is receptivity for the miracle that surrounds you. Prayer is surrender to the beauty, to the grandeur to this fantastic existence. Prayer is non-argumentative dialogue with existence. It is not a di...

Prayer does not depend on what you say; it depends, rather, on what you are. Worship depends not on what you do but what you are. Religion is involved not with your actions but with you existence. If love is at the center of your being there will be prayer at y...

Two things have to be remembered. One is that faith does not mean belief. Belief is of the mind and faith is of the heart. Faith is a love affair and belief is only an intellectual conviction. Belief can be easily destroyed by arguments; faith can never be dest...

Renounce knowledge! I teach you renunciation of knowledge. I don’t teach you renunciation of the world; that is stupid, foolish, meaningless! I teach you renunciation of knowledge. And a strange thing happens… I have come across people who have renounced the wo...

A person becomes capable of blessing others only when he is full of blissfulness. In fact then one need not bless, blessings go on pouring. Your bliss starts overflowing; you become like a fountain. And you become connected with the inexhaustible source of life...

I have heard that in England there was a great thinker by the name of Edmund Burke. He was once invited to give a lecture in a church in a small village near London. But he was an absent-minded person, so very often he used to forget the time and date of his le...

Question : You say you are a buddha, and his teaching was based on simplicity, a simple life. Yours is based on comfort and luxury. Will you please comment on that? It is a significant question, with tremendous implications to be understood; one is that there i...

Question 5 : What is the difference between Prayer and Meditation? A lot of difference. A great difference. in fact they are absolutely different things. Their movement is in different directions. There are two types of religions in the world: prayer oriented r...

Anand Elles. Anand means bliss; elles comes from the Hebrew root el; el means God. Bliss is God. God is indefinable, but if any definition is possible at all, then bliss is his definition. The definition that comes closest to define God is bliss. Even that fall...

Question 1 How is one who has been trained all his life to analyze and question and doubt to bridge the gap between doubt and trust? DOUBT IS BEAUTIFUL in itself. The problem arises when you are stuck in it. Then doubt becomes death. Analysis is perfect if you ...

Question 1: Will you please explain to me the Lord’s Prayer, as given by Jesus? Meditation can be explained, prayer never. It can be understood, but it cannot be explained. Prayer is something of the heart, very elusive, very indefinable. You can feel it, but y...

[Another indian sannyasin who is involved in film-making, said that he always felt like escaping from whatsoever he was doing to meditate, and when he was meditating he wanted to lie down instead. Osho said that this urge should be resisted, and that the resista...

There are two kings of purity, two kinds of virtue, two kinds of morality. One is the cultivated kind, from the outside — you have to practise it. It is a conditioning. Deep down you remain the same but you cover yourself with a beautiful facade. It is a superf...

Question 2 : Can Trust be Cultivated? A cultivated trust will not be trust; it will be false, it will be insincere. It will just be on the surface; it will never touch your centre. Whatsoever is cultivated remains superficial, because whatsoever is cultivated r...

Bliss is equivalent to god. ‘God’ is a beautiful word but it has become ugly because of wrong associations. It has fallen into wrong company. The priests have exploited it so much that I appreciate very much Friedrich Nietzsche’s declaration that god is dead an...

Question 1: Beloved Osho, What is Simplicity? Colin Doyle, simplicity is to live without ideals. Ideals create complexity; ideals create division in you and hence complexity. The moment you are interested in becoming somebody else you become complex. To be cont...

Consciousness and bliss are two aspects of one phenomenon: from one side it is consciousness, from the other side it is bliss. And exactly in the same way unconsciousness and misery are related, they are aspects of one phenomenon -- from one side unconsciousnes...

Question 2: Osho, I have heard that your sannyasins celebrate death. Paul, you have heard rightly! My sannyasins celebrate everything. Celebration is the foundation of my sannyas -- not renunciation but rejoicing; rejoicing in all the beauties, all the joys, al...

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 ...

These techniques are concerned with emptiness – they are the most delicate, the most subtle. Even to conceive of emptiness seems impossible. Buddha used all these four techniques for his disciples and bhikkus, and because of these four techniques he was totally...

on Ramakrishna Bhakti yoga and Path of Devotion Ramakrishna said that bhakti yoga was the most suitable approach because it was the most suitable for him. That is the basic window through which he came under the sky. It is not a question of an approach being su...

Question 1: What exactly is Intelligence, and what is the relation of the intelligence of the heart to the intelligence of the mind? Punita, intelligence is the inborn capacity to see, to perceive. Every child is born intelligent, then made stupid by the societ...

"ATTRACTION, AND THROUGH IT, ATTACHMENT, IS TOWARDS ANYTHING THAT BRINGS PLEASURE. REPULSION IS FROM ANYTHING THAT CAUSES PAIN." These are your two ways of being here in the world: you are attracted towards something which you feel causes pleasure, you feel rep...

If you can be eloquent but cannot be silent your eloquence is meaningless. Unless words come out of silence they are dead. Unless words come out of your inner emptiness they are not full. When words come out of your inner emptiness they carry a fullness; when t...

Bliss needs great courage. Any courage can afford misery — that’s why there are so many miserable people. It costs nothing to be miserable, it is not a risk at all. It is very convenient to be miserable; in fact, comfortable to be miserable. It feels secure to ...

One has to be detached from the world – but not out of any fear. If you give up anything out of fear it will not really be given up, it will chase you, it will follow you. If you are scared of anything, it will scare you more. If you run away from anything, it ...

That’s my whole teaching, celebration; not worship but celebration. When you worship, you start making a hierarchy; the lower and the higher. When you worship you put something on top of other things. When you worship, something becomes sacred and something bec...

Question 1: Beloved Osho, I Trust you unconditionally. At the same time, I don’t believe you. Can you speak about Trust and Belief? Baby, that is really great! Just groovy. I don’t believe in my own statements either! We are in perfect agreement. I trust myself...

Man can live in a violent way. That’s how many people live: aggressive – aggressive with others, aggressive with themselves. And those who are aggressive with others and with themselves are bound to be aggressive with existence itself. The relationship between ...

Question : Osho, What is Home? There is no home, there are only houses. We try to make homes out of houses, but in fact, home is projection – there is only a house – it feels cold. We need a home: we want something cozy, something that belongs to us, something ...

Question 7: I believe in God, And it is not out of fear. Why do you say that all belief is out of fear? Then why do you believe? You don’t know. If you know, there is no need to believe. All belief is out of ignorance Belief MEANS ignorance. Buddha knows, he do...

Question 4: Osho, What is prayer? It is a tremendously significant question because I do not have a God, but I still have some place for prayer in my vision, in my approach. Prayer ordinarily is towards the concept of a God. I do not think that is a right kind ...

There is a lot of difference between intellect and intelligence. Intellect is logical; intelligence is paradoxical. Intellect is analytical; intelligence is synthetical. Intellect divides, cuts into pieces to understand a thing. Science is based on intellect, d...

[A journalist, who came to do an article on Osho, has decided to take sannyas.] Good! I was waiting and waiting for you!… I recognise my people when they come to me. And it is very natural to hesitate, very natural to think and waver; it is very natural to be a...

Sannyas is a journey from misery to bliss. We are living in misery. Sometimes it is less, sometimes it is more; when it is less you don’t feel it so much but the difference is only of degree. You are never really blissful and the moments that you call moments o...

Question 2 : Osho, Can you talk about the relationship between silence and blissfulness? Is silence all that is needed? Does everything else follow? Prem Samarpan, there is no relationship between silence and blissfulness; they are two names of the same thing. ...

Question 3: Somewhere there is that fear which makes me closed and hard and sad and desperate and angry and hopeless. It seems to be so subtle that I don’t even get really in touch with it. How can i see it more clearly? The only problem with sadness, desperate...

Just the other day I saw a panel on the TV. One rabbi, one Protestant priest and one Catholic monk were discussing me. And they came to the conclusion... the rabbi suggested, "It is time now -- we should make an effort to have a dialogue with this man." I could...

Trust is the greatest thing in the world that can happen to a man, because it is the most impossible thing. To trust somebody else is almost impossible, because doubt continues. Howsoever you trust, the other is the other. Who knows? How can you penetrate the o...

A DRUNKEN MAN HAS TO BE LED BY A YOUNG BOY, WHOM HE FOLLOWS STUMBLING AND NOT KNOWING WHITHER HE GOES, FOR HIS SOUL IS MOIST. SOULS TAKE PLEASURE IN BECOMING MOIST. A DRY SOUL IS WISEST AND BEST. Just as I said yesterday, human consciousness can follow two ways...

The ultimate state of consciousness is not a serious phenomenon. It is not sombre, it is not sad. It is full of joy, full of laughter, full of celebration, full of song and dance, because it is a fulfillment: you have come to the ultimate peak of your being. An...

Question 2: Osho, What kind of trust do you have in someone who is cheating you, murdering you? I could not understand. I do not understand myself – but what to do? I have only trust to offer because I don’t have any distrust in me. You ordinarily think that tr...

Question 1: Why doesn’t trust arise out of the decision to trust? TRUST IS NOT A DECISION ON YOUR PART. You cannot decide for it. When you are finished with doubting, when you have come to see doubt through and through and you are completely convinced of the fu...

Bliss is a bridge, misery is a wall. It is everyone’s experience that whenever one feels miserable one does not want to relate with anybody; one wants to close one’s doors and hide somewhere. Just the opposite happens when you are blissful. You cannot hide some...

Mind cannot comprehend him, but he can comprehend the mind. Mind is included in him – everything is included; even the stone is included in him. But the stone cannot include him: this is the point. Draw a big circle and then draw a small circle in it. The big c...

Question 8 Beloved Osho, Yes, yes, yes, Osho. Yes. Mukta, that’s what prayer is. Prayer consists of only one single word. That is the meaning of AMEN: it means yes. If you have said yes with your total heart, you have said all that can be said, that need be sai...

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 ...

Faith will not divide you with anyone; it will unite you with someone. Belief will not unite you with anyone; it will simply divide you with everyone. Ideas, ideology, is divisive. Faith is unitive. Have faith. That means: be ready to fall in love with someone,...

Osho Quotes on Devotion Devotion, the path of devotion, is the path of surrender. ♦ The feminine mind will need a path of devotion -- the path of Narad, Meera, Chaitanya, Jesus. ♦ Love is freedom, but not total. If love becomes devotion, then it becomes total f...

[A sannyasin said that Ma Vipassana who is seriously ill is his friend; he would like to do something but feels helpless.] It is good to feel helpless… prayer arises out of helplessness. And that helplessness will help your ego to drop. If you can do something ...

The Spiritual Search starts as a seeking for eternal bliss, as a seeking for eternal liberation, as a seeking for divine light and divine life. But the center remains with you. In the beginning it is a self-centered search. Whatsoever you are seeking you are se...

The sutras: It is not iron that imprisons you Nor rope, nor wood, But the pleasure you take in gold and jewels, In sons and wives. It is not Iron that Imprisons you… your prison is not that gross, it is very subtle. It is not so visible, it is very invisible. I...

Question : The other day you said that belief was like a lantern in the hands of the blind. May i know what faith is? Faith is like eyes: you see yourself. Belief is like a lantern in a blind man’s hand: he cannot see, he cannot even use the lighted lantern. Ev...

Question : When does the boat reach the other Shore? Deva Vigyan, there is no other shore, this is the only shore there is. And it is not a question of reaching somewhere else, it is a question of awakening here and now. It is never there, it is always here; it...

I have a friend in Jabalpur, who is the richest man in that state, and the biggest manufacturer of beedies in the whole world. He used to come here, he used to come to my camps, and then he became a minister. Then he started becoming afraid of me. All politicia...

THEY DELIGHT IN MEDITATION. This is a very significant sutra; remember it. Buddha says: THEY DELIGHT IN MEDITATION. It is easy to meditate if you don't want to be blissful -- it is very easy to meditate. If you want just to be blissful and you don't want to be ...

When a scientist looks at a certain thing he looks with a rational eye; he wants to know what it is. When a poet looks at the same thing he looks with the aesthetic eye; he wants to enjoy it. When a devotee looks at the same thing he looks with the eye of devot...

It is absolutely necessary that God should be dead. But I want you to know my understanding. It was good of Friedrich Nietzsche to declare God dead. I declare that he has never been born. It is a created fiction, an invention, not a discovery. Do you understand...

In the search for the first principle silence is the door -- the only door. And except it there is no way to approach the first principle. The first principle can be known only when you move to the primordial state of your being. Thinking is secondary. Existenc...

Question 1: How should I Pray? I don’t know how to properly express this love that I feel into Prayer PRAYER is not a technique, it is not a ritual, it is not a formality. There is no pattern to it. It is a spontaneous outpouring of the heart, so don’t ask how,...

Man can come to truth only through meditation. Truth is not something that mind can know. Mind can theorise about it, but ‘about’ means around — and mind goes about and about, around and around. It moves in a circle, it never reaches the centre. Its very nature...

Shraddho means loving trust. There are three words which are synonymous in the dictionary but not in actual experience. One is belief, the second is faith, the third is trust. In actual experience they have nothing to do with each other – not only that: they ar...

Question : Osho, Why do all buddhas say the same thing? Vinod, Truth is one. Even if it is said differently, it is the same truth. Languages may differ, metaphors may differ parables may differ, but if you really look a little deep, then all parables, all langu...

Ordinarily the mind is always conscious of pain, never conscious of bliss. If you have a headache you are conscious of it. When you don’t have a headache you are not conscious of the well-being of the head. When the body hurts you are conscious of it, but when ...

Mallik is a name for God, a Sufi name. It means exactly what the English word ”lord” means – the master of all. Love is the god or the goddess, because there is nothing higher than love. Love is the supreme-most experience. Everything else is in the service of ...

Sannyas is not prayer with sadness, seriousness. It is not prayer as a ritual, as a formality. It is prayer as playfulness. It is prayer as cheerfulness. The birds in the morning singing — that is prayer. They are not Christians, they are not Hindus, they are n...

Question 2: Osho, The other day you talked so beautifully about the sadness which follows the first experience of our innermost silence. Is it necessarily so, that when I first experience this silence, I also feel with my whole being that I am absolutely alone ...

Question : Yesterday you said that an inward traveller has only direction and not destination. Will you please further clarify the distinction between the two? THE DISTINCTIOIN IS VERY SUBTLE, but it is the same distinction as there is between the mind and the ...

The devotee — the real follower — is constantly watching what he is doing, how he is doing, why he is doing. Even in small matters he de-automatizes himself. Walking, he does not just walk; he walks with meditative awareness. He knows that he is walking. Eating...

Bliss is the greatest blessing in life. Without knowing bliss one lives in vain; in fact one does not live but only vegetates, one only dies. What we ordinarily call life is nothing but a gradual process of death. From the moment of birth we start dying. Every ...

Question 1: What is the difference between Surrender and Blind Faith or Belief? Many things have to be understood. First, the difference between faith and belief, and second, the difference between surrender and faith. Belief is always blind and cannot be other...

The devotee — the real follower — is constantly watching what he is doing, how he is doing, why he is doing. Even in small matters he de-automatizes himself. Walking, he does not just walk; he walks with meditative awareness. He knows that he is walking. Eating...

Bliss and awareness are two sides of the same coin: become blissful and you will be aware, or become aware and you will be blissful. One can do both simultaneously — and that’s the best course because then things happen in a faster way. Then it is not such a lo...

He has abandoned worldly possessions to become a beggar. Why abandon worldly possessions? The worldly possessions can be abandoned in two ways. Again you have to understand: the man who has lived his whole life in collecting possessions can abandon them out of ...

A blissful person is inevitably good, inevitably virtuous, and a miserable person is bound to be evil. A miserable person may try to do something good but he cannot. You cannot give to people what you have not already got within you; you can give only that whic...

Bliss needs great courage. Any courage can afford misery — that’s why there are so many miserable people. It costs nothing to be miserable, it is not a risk at all. It is very convenient to be miserable; in fact, comfortable to be miserable. It feels secure to ...

God can be worshipped either out of fear or out of love. If the worship is out of fear it is false, it is a sheer wastage of time. The worship is true and significant only when it is out of love, when it is out of bliss, when it is out of gratitude. One should ...

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...

WHEN KNOWLEDGE IS DESTROYED, THE DREAM IS SEEN. If knowledge of the soul does not penetrate you, and if the flame within does not get its fuel, then dreams arise in your life; then desires arise, and your life loses its way and staggers there in the darkness. T...

Faith is not belief. Many people misinterpret faith as belief. Religious people misinterpret it, anti-religious people misinterpret it; both are agreed on one thing, that faith means belief. Faith does not mean belief at all. Belief is of the head and faith is ...

Question : Osho, Is Vairagya, Nonattachment, a method, a means, an intermediate stage, or an end in itself? It is all – because means and ends are not two things. The way and the goal are not two things. The way is just the beginning of the goal, and the goal i...

Thinking is a flow -- belief is stagnation. Thinking is a constant transcendence of oneself. Belief is to be imprisoned in oneself. So from wheresoever thinking begins, in the end it leads to the central and ultimate truth. Belief prevents one from reaching tha...

Osho on Devotion Devotion is the refined quality of love. It has nothing to do with to whom. It is not a question of to whom it is addressed: Jehovah, God, Jesus, Buddha. It is not a question of it being addressed. Devotion is a quality in your heart. You feel ...