Question 2 Osho, After two weeks of hypnosis sessions with kaveesha, i can now see my resistance to relaxation. In looking for a cause for this, i saw that to me, to relax means to be lazy and useless. My family would rather be sick than let go of their so-called power, thinking that being ...

Question 3: Osho, You said the other day that if you were a cab-driver nobody would be able to recognize you. I don’t agree. At lease I for one would recognize you. Madam, I don’t believe you. You don’t know enough about yourself. I appreciate your love for me, but I cannot say that you wou...

Question 2: Can problems be solved through Thinking? Yes, certain problems can be solved through thinking – only those problems which are created by thinking can be solved by it. But no real problem can be solved by it, no lived problem can be solved by it. It is not created by it; it is th...

Question 1: Do positive thoughts bring happenings too? — like wishing for enlightenment. THAT IS TOO MUCH ASKING from positive thoughts because enlightenment is beyond duality: it is neither negative nor positive. When both the polarities are dropped, it happens. With positive thoughts many...

The moment the screen of the mind is empty, a miracle happens. Your consciousness, which was focused on the screen of the mind, finding nothing there, turns upon itself. The circle is complete. It went from you up to the screen, but there is nothing there to stop it, and it comes back to th...

Question 1: Osho, Watching the mind, it seems to me there is an infinite ocean of thoughts. Meditation gives me more peace and grounding, but hearing you speak about enlightenment — it seems to me far, far away. can you give me some advice? Dhyan Jashan, enlightenment is as far away as you ...

Question 1: Osho, I can’t conceive of you ever being unenlightened. Did you really become enlightened only thirty-two years ago? Neither can I conceive it. This is one of the very fundamental things in the nature of enlightenment. Once you are enlightened, you are in a very strange situatio...

[A sannyasin says: I’m a sort of a sentimental person. The mind says one thing and heart says something else. Up to now I’ve been always following the heart and am always at a loss.] One has to be very very alert about one thing: there are things in which the heart will be a failure; never ...

Question 1 : The west has given birth to aristotle, nietzsche, heidegger, camus, berdyaev, marcel and sartre. Is it going to give birth to buddhas by itself or is a communion with the eastern consciousness needed? CHINMAYA, THE BUDDHA-CONSCIOUSNESS is neither Eastern nor Western. It has not...

[A visitor says that he has done therapy, meditations, tantra yoga: I feel now that I’m at a point where I can sense a bit of the life force within me and at the same time I don’t know how to go on.] I understand. Much more is waiting to happen for you. This problem arises only when for the...

Jean Paul Sartre wrote an autobiography. He has called it WORDS. The name is very meaningful. It is the autobiography of every man – words and words and words. You are filled with words, and this process of words continues the whole day, even in the mind. When you are sleeping, you are stil...

Question 7: Am i right to feel that you have travelled the path of gradual enlightenment? Did you dance when the enlightenment happened? I am still dancing. If you have eyes you can see. If you don’t have eyes what can I do? And there is no gradual enlightenment; enlightenment is always sud...

Question 2: Why do Zen monks have to have been living near their masters for ten, twenty, or even for forty years for the sudden enlightenment to happen? Because of their stupidities. You can be enlightened in a single minute; you can wait for forty years. It depends how gross you are. You ...

Mind, this rishi says, is the first disease, the basic disease in a way. Why is mind a disease? -- because mind is just a disturbance. Mind is just a disturbance in consciousness. It is not your nature; it is just a disturbance. The moment there is no disturbance, there is no mind. And this...

Question 5: Does an enlightened person always remain enlightened or can he become unenlightened also? The question is from Deva Swarup Yogiraj. Even an unenlightened person remains enlightened. The only difference is that he does not know it. The enlightened person knows it, and there is no...

Question 1 If enlightenment and samadhi mean total consciousness, cosmic consciousness, all-pervading consciousness, then it seems very strange to call this state of cosmic consciousness centering, as the word `centering' implies one-pointedness. why is cosmic consciousness, or samadhi, cal...

JESUS SAID: TWO WILL REST ON A BED: THE ONE WILL DIE, THE ONE WILL LIVE. And it is up to you. If you want to remain in trouble, never pay attention to the inner one; if you want to remain always in anguish then remain on the periphery, don't look within. But if you want repose, a peaceful e...

Anand means bliss, nirbeeja means seedless. The word nirbeeja is a very specific word. In Yoga two kinds of samadhi are talked about, two kinds of ultimate states of consciousness. One is sabeeja; it means with seed. Another is nirbeeja; it means seedless, without seed. The sabeeja state of...

Question 1: Osho, Paltudas says, “every art takes place in its own time, so why get impatient? no matter how much you water it, the tree comes into fruition in its own time.” Osho, please say something about impatience on the spiritual path. Is impatience an essential part of human growth? ...

Question 2 Osho, I love the way you demonstrate at every turn just how absolutely untouchable you are. The americans imprison you, torture you, destroy your commune and clearly assume that you will be humiliated by their treatment of you; but instead, that untouchability shines through, and...

Question 1: Osho, What does Enlightenment feel Like? Prem Geetam, enlightenment is not a thought nor a feeling. In fact, enlightenment is not an experience at all. When all experiences have disappeared and the mirror of consciousness is left without any content, utterly empty; no object to ...

Question 2: During my dancing meditation i kept having flashes about What you said concerning the society, drugs, etc. And Wondering that now that i am intoxicated by the ultimate drug, you, Osho, can anyone take that away from me? Bring me down from that eternal high? No one except you. Yo...

[A sannyasin, leaving for three months to earn money, says he feels sad to leave.] So don’t be worried — three months is not a problem, not a problem. Sometimes it is good to be away from here, sometimes very very good and essential for your growth. Otherwise one starts taking me for grante...

Question : Beloved Osho, You said the other day that if you were a cab-driver nobody would be able to recognize you. I don’t agree. At lease I for one would recognize you. Madam, I don’t believe you. You don’t know enough about yourself. I appreciate your love for me, but I cannot say that ...

Question 3: Osho, When i look inside myself, i catch a glimpse of what seems like centuries of conditioning. i feel that i certainly will not become enlightened, although others might. Is this attitude a natural mistrust? Is this attitude a habit i have to break? Osho, will this attitude pr...

The mind is a chattering box. You cannot stop it. The very effort to stop it gives it more nourishment to go on. Millions of people, for centuries have been trying to stop it, and they have all failed, for the simple reason that the desire to stop it is also part of it. It is not beyond it....

Question 1 How can i feel life fresh day by day? please explain. LIFE is fresh but you are stale, and you become stale because you go on carrying the yesterdays. The past functions as a barrier between you and life. Die every moment to the past and then life can be felt and lived as fresh a...

Remember this word ’witness’. This is one of the key words in the search for spirituality. If you can understand this word and practice it, you don’t need anything else. Even this one key will open all the doors of paradise. This is a master key. Any lock can be opened by it. What does it m...

When you are playing, you are not trying to prove that you are somebody. You are at ease, at home. While playing, just for fun, you are not worried what others think about you. Have you seen a father in a mock fight with his child? He will be defeated. He will lie down and the child will si...

Question 10: Will the Western Mind have to expand as the Eastern Mind has? The Western mind can succeed as far as science is concerned, but it cannot succeed in religious consciousness. Whenever a religious mind is born, even in the West, it is Eastern. In Eckhart, in Boehme, the very quali...

Mind is incapable of knowing the truth. It can gather all kinds of information about truth, but to know about truth is not to know truth. To know about love is not to know love. To know love one needs to be a lover. No information can be of any help; one has to go into the experience itself...

Question 4 Osho, i turn at every sound to see if he is there. there is a great waiting full of joy inside me. Osho, where is the beloved one? PARMITA, HE IS EVERYWHERE! HE IS ALWAYS. He is here in me, in you, in all the people who have gathered here. But you must be looking for some God whi...

We go on polishing the mind in schools, colleges, universities, with the hope that we will be able to create an intelligent humanity. Our stupidity is such that for five thousand years we have been doing this and yet we have not realised the fact that humanity has not become intelligent at ...

Truth is all around, but your interpretations are YOUR interpretations. God is speaking all the time, but you hear not, or even if you hear, you hear something else. You hear according to you, your mind comes in, and hence you go on missing. Unless the mind is dropped you will not be able t...

Question 3: Osho, What is the difference between “Easy” and “Lazy”. Satyam Svarup, the difference between easy and lazy is the difference between the positive and the negative. Easiness is a positive feeling; it is not empty. You are overflowing with energy, but you are simply enjoying the ...

Question 1: Osho, How does watching lead to no-mind? I am more and more able to watch my Body, my thoughts and feelings and this feels beautiful. But moments of No thoughts are few and far between. When i hear you saying ”meditation is Witnessing,” I feel I understand. But when you talk abo...

Samadhi is a word very difficult to translate into English; there exists no parallel. But in Greek there is a word which is parallel; that word is ataraxia. The Greek word means quiet, calm, of deep inner contentment. That is the meaning of samadhi so contented, so deeply contented, that no...

The mind has a persistent habit to go on believing in itself — even against all facts. Even if your old mind goes on giving you nothing but misery and hell, you go on believing in it. People say that this is an age of unbelief. I don’t see it. The same old belief in the mind continues. Some...

Samadhi is a word very difficult to translate into English; there exists no parallel. But in Greek there is a word which is parallel; that word is ataraxia. The Greek word means quiet, calm, of deep inner contentment. That is the meaning of samadhi so contented, so deeply contented, that no...

If you can create a center outside – anywhere: in the mind, in the heart, or even outside on a wall – and if you concentrate totally on it and you bracket out the whole world, you forget the whole world and only one point remains in your consciousness, suddenly you will be thrown to your in...

Question 1: Osho, What is the most significant thing about Enlightenment? THE most significant thing about enlightenment is that it is the most insignificant thing in the world. The scriptures are full of great attributes, qualities, about enlightenment. It is the highest peak human conscio...

[The sannyasin says: My tendency is to always be serious when it comes to the business of enlightenment.] Not even there! If you are serious anywhere else, it is not so dangerous. But if you are serious when it comes to enlightenment, then it is absolutely wrong. Anywhere you can be forgive...

Question 1: Osho, You took my heart and now it is too late; i am enjoying aloneness and laziness so much that sometimes i think there must be something wrong with me. i feel i am at the beginning of a new journey, and there is a question that keeps on coming up: what is the difference betwe...

Listen to the mind for the outside world, don’t listen to the mind for the inside – simply put it aside. There is no need to fight with it, because if you fight with it it may influence you. You simply put it aside. That’s what faith is. Faith is not a fight with the mind. If you fight, the...

My whole vision is of a human being, totally alive, intensely alive, enjoying everything that life makes available, and enjoying it with grace, with gratitude towards existence. And that's what loving yourself means. It means that you have thrown all the garbage of religious rejection, repr...

Being is one, the world is many…and between the two is the divided mind, the dual mind. It is just like a big tree, an ancient oak: the trunk is one, then the tree divides into two main branches, the main bifurcation, from which a thousand and one bifurcations of branches grow. The being is...

Question 1 Part of a discourse given by osho on june 2, 1971 in bombay, india, and based on an interview by ma ananda pratima. Awakening is possible even in a single moment. In that single moment, one can explode into the divine. That is possible, but generally it never happens. One has to ...

YOU HAVE MANY MINDS but you have only one heart. Have you observed this fact? You don’t have one mind; you are multi-psychic, you have many minds. They constantly change — every moment your mind changes. One moment it is full of doubt, another moment it is full of belief, and another moment...

Question 1: Beloved Osho, How does watching lead to no-mind? I am more and more able to watch my Body, my thoughts and feelings and this feels beautiful. But moments of No thoughts are few and far between. When i hear you saying ”meditation is Witnessing,” I feel I understand. But when you ...

Lack of awareness is when you take your body as yourself. Ninety percent of your lives’ miseries are because of this: lack of awareness. You take the body as yourself and then you suffer. You are suffering in a dream. The body is not yours. Soon it will not be yours. Where were you when you...

Mind is mischief; there is no other mischief. Mind is the source of all mischief. A master is a master only because he has ceased to be dominated by the mind. A master is a master of himself; he is no longer unconscious. Whatsoever he does, he does it knowingly. Whatsoever he is, he is perf...

Question 2: Is there an Intellectual path to Enlightenment? First, there is no path. The very idea of a path is fallacious. The path necessarily leads you away — the path necessarily takes you from this to that, from here to there, from now to then. There is no need for any path for enlight...

These are the two attitudes open to man: the attitude of a warrior and the attitude of a lover. It is your choice - you can choose. But remember... certain consequences will follow. If you choose the path of the warrior and you become a fighter with everything that surrounds you, you will a...

Question 4: Can we not love and accept our head, our mind, our ego, as part of the whole life? Why reject them? I have not told you to reject them. How can you reject something which is not? I have been telling you only to see, to look into them. I am not telling you to reject them – reject...

Always remember it: whenever you come to an enlightened man, whatsoever you say is not the point. He talks out of his heart. In fact, he does not answer your questions; he answers you, your deepest need, about which you yourself are not aware. It happens so many times when I am answering yo...

Question 5: Osho, What is a Contemporary Mind? Contemporary mind is a contradiction in terms. Mind is never contemporary, it is always old. Mind is past — past and past and nothing else; mind means memory. There can be no contemporary mind; to be contemporary is to be without mind. If you a...

Question 1: Is it possible to have an Original Thought? It is impossible, absolutely impossible to have an original thought. Because mind is memory, mind is the past, mind is that which you have already known, it is a borrowed thing, and whatsoever the mind can do can only be a repetition; ...

Question 1: How does one feel after the Sahasrar begins to open? After the sahasrar opens, there should be no feeling but inner silence and void. The feeling will be acute in the beginning – when you feel it for the first time it will be very acute – but the more you know it, the less acute...

It is one of the deep-rooted habits of the mind always to divide things. The moment you divide things you are in trouble – and mind wants you to be always in trouble; otherwise it has no function. The greatest trouble the mind can create is the longing for home. I call it the greatest troub...

Question 3: What constitutes the behaviour of an enlightened man? An enlightened man is all emptiness. What constitutes an emptiness? It has no ‘constitutes’ in it; hence it is empty. A man who is enlightened has no character. Let me repeat it: an enlightened man has no character at all. He...

Mind is always old. Even a one-day-old child has a one-day-old mind, because mind means the past. It accumulates the past; it is accumulative it goes on accumulating experiences and everything that happens. It is always old and it goes on becoming older and older. But the heart is always yo...

Question 1 Osho, Can you please speak on discipline and meditation? Niten, it is a very strange question because every day, morning and evening, I am speaking on discipline and meditation. If anybody reads your question, he will think that for the first time I have to speak on discipline an...

The world is there because of you – you create it, you are a creator. Every single being creates a world around himself, it depends on his mind. The mind may be illusory, but it is creative – it creates dreams. And it is up to you to create a hell or heaven. If you leave this world you will...

There are a few people who have come to me not searching, just accidentally; a friend was coming and they thought, ‘Okay, let us go and see what is there.’ They were looking in a book store and they came across one of my books, and my picture attracted them; or they liked the title of the b...

Question 7: I often take drugs. once when i was attending the discourse, i closed my eyes and suddenly felt the same as i feel on a drug trip. osho, is there any relation or similarity between samadhi and drugs? There is and there is not. There is because drugs create a false SAMADHI, a pse...

Question 3: Beloved Osho, You said the other day that if you were a cab-driver nobody would be able to recognize you. I don’t agree. At lease I for one would recognize you. Madam, I don’t believe you. You don’t know enough about yourself. I appreciate your love for me, but I cannot say that...

[Another sannyasin says: For two days after doing the gourishankar meditation I came into a space I don’t know, and I came in contact with so much fear…. I’d like to stay here but sometimes after this experience I become so frightened.] Don’t be worried. That experience has to be accepted. ...

The mind is always indecisive. That is one of the basic characteristics of the mind, indecisiveness. The moment a resolution arises in you the mind disappears. To be decisive is to go beyond the mind; to remain indecisive, hesitant, divided, is to live in the mind. Resolution means totality...

Question 5: How is it that I am still Lost? Nobody can answer that question for you. You are lost; you must be knowing. You must be playing hide-and-seek. I know that you know. You want to be lost, that’s why you are lost. The moment you decide not to be lost, nobody is hindering you, nobod...

[Note: This is a translation from the Hindi Neo-Yoga Sutras, which is in the process of being edited. It is for research only.] My Beloved Ones, Yesterday, I talked of four sutras of Yoga. Today, I would like to talk to you on the fifth sutra. The fifth sutra of Yoga is: What is in the atom...

Through all three states – wakefulness, dreaming and deep sleep – turiya, the fourth state, runs like a thread through the beads of a mala. Even while you sleep there is someone awake within. When you dream there is someone witnessing the dream. When you are awake during the day there is a ...

Question 2: You suggest that we become fully-merged, that we drown. How can we do this? I tell you from my own experience that there is no easier path than merging with one’s own self. The only thing one has to do is stop seeking for the support of anything on the surface of the mind. By ca...

Adhyas, or illusion, means seeing what is not there. Shankara loved this word very much and for the Upanishads it is very fundamental. Adhyas means projection, seeing what is not there: what is seen is not really there, you are projecting it from within. You are the cause of the projection....

Question 2: When the internal talking stops, is this enlightenment? Parivesh, when the internal talking stops, who cares? Who is there to care? Who is there to raise the question ‘Is this enlightenment’? If you can still ask the question, then it is internal talking continuing. If you can s...

Question 2: Osho, My mind, the monster, distracts me even when i’m sitting in discourse. It simply takes over and thinks all sorts of silly thoughts and by the time discourse is over i get the feeling i missed another golden opportunity to be with you, drink from you, tune in with you. This...

Question 6: How is one to Stop Worrying? This is from “Pathik the Pathetic.” He unnecessarily goes on becoming pathetic. Now, “how to stop worrying?” What is the need to stop worrying? If you start trying to stop worrying, you create a new worry: how to stop worry. Then you start worrying a...

We are gods. If we know that, we live an ecstatic life; if we don’t know, we live in agony. The only difference is of knowing; there is no qualitative difference between you and Christ, except just a very simple difference that he knows who he is and you are unaware of the fact. He has the ...

Question 4 Osho, I have come here in search of nirvana but now all that i want is to be a part of your buddhafield, i don't care a bit about nirvana anymore. please accept me, although i'm not worthy of it. Aruna bharti, It is one of the most significant things to understand that the very d...

Anand means bliss, vasant means spring – bliss spring. And when bliss comes it comes like a spring. It was not there and suddenly it is there; suddenly the whole climate is different. It takes you unawares. It comes very unexpectedly, and one never knows from where it will start and begin, ...

Question 7: What is Nirvana? This story is about NIRVANA… this ancient Buddhist story. An exceptionally beautiful young woman, Enyadatta, enjoyed nothing quite as much as gazing at herself in the mirror. She was a little crazy, as all human beings are. When she looked into her mirror one mo...

Question 4: Two mornings ago i slept through the lecture and woke up at the end with the word ‘single-mindedness’ on my mind. so what to do? Be single-minded. The message is so clear; what is there to ask? Your being has given you a great message. Sometimes it happens after deep sleep that ...

Without meditation one is bound to live in misery. One can cover it up, one can find a few consolations, one has to find a few consolations otherwise life would be intolerable. One has to remain occupied so that one does not feel the inner emptiness. And people find a thousand and one occup...

And with the second question, it is also asked: CONTEMPLATION AND CONCENTRATION ARE MENTAL PROCESSES. HOW CAN MENTAL PROCESSES HELP IN ACHIEVING A STATE OF NO-MIND? The question is significant. Mind asks, how can mind itself go beyond mind? How can any mental process help to achieve somethi...

Question : Osho, Your way is the way of the heart, and the outside world is the way of the head. Will it ever be possible that man can function from a blend of both head and heart, or must the two always remain totally divorced? will it always be essential to make a conscious choice for one...

The root problem of all problems is mind itself. The first thing to be understood is what this mind is, of what stuff it is made; whether it is an entity or just a process; whether it is substantial, or just dreamlike. And unless you know the nature of the mind, you will not be able to solv...

Question 3: Is all Mind made out of the same material – Stupidity? Yes. Mind is stupid. There is no mind which is intelligent. Mind cannot be intelligent; mind is stupidity. To say “stupid mind” is not right; it is repetitive because “stupidity” and “mind” both mean the same thing. Why is m...

Question 2 Osho, What is hell? Is there really such a place? RELIGION HAS SURVIVED UP TO NOW because of your fear and greed -- the false religion I mean, of course. The true religion has nothing to do with fear and greed. In fact, the true religion means transcending fear and greed. Fear an...

To truth there cannot be many ways. To truth there is only one ultimate way. Reduced to its simplicity, it is dis-identifying yourself from the body and the mind and just being a witness, without any judgment, without any appreciation, without any activity on your part — just a reflecting m...

[The sannyasin says he is a gardener.] Very good! That may be one of the causes why you are so simple. Gardeners, farmers, fishermen, woodcutters, have a totally different kind of energy – the best kind of energy. When a politician comes he carries such a nuisance inside him, such a decepti...

Question 3: Osho, I’m in a hurry to become enlightened. What should i do? Chitten, first just listen carefully to this small story. The plane had just taken off and the captain was telling the passengers about the altitude of the plane, the cruising speed etcetera. But he forgot to switch o...

Question 1 Listening to you in the discourse, it is the pauses, the gaps, between two sentences, two words, that roll in my ears like thunder, tearing me open and tearing me apart. I am being taken to a space beyond tears or laughter by your silence. what is happening to me? Prem Das - I am...

Question 2 Beloved Osho, The other morning before lecture, i suddenly felt an overwhelming urge to touch, with great gratitude, the floor where you walk. in that moment, i heard again that voice — it still sounds like your voice: “if you can kiss in gratitude the place on earth where i have...

Anand means bliss, Arthur means strong, brave, courageous, valorous. Bliss is available only to those who are ready to risk all. Without risking all that you have, you cannot attain to God. There is no possibility of reaching God half-heartedly. One cannot grow in a lukewarm way. You have t...

Meditation is rest, absolute rest, a full stop to all activity — physical, mental, emotional. When you are in such a deep rest that nothing stirs in you, when all action as such ceases, as if you are fast asleep yet awake, you come to know who you are. Suddenly the window opens. It cannot b...

One of the qualities that has disappeared from the modern man is patience. He is in too much of a hurry, so much so that he cannot enjoy anything. While he is eating he is thinking of something else; he is in a rush. And when he reaches that place which he was thinking about while eating he...

How you look at things depends on you, not on things. Unless you come to a point where you drop the interpreting mind and look direct, look immediate, mind is your mediator. It brings you things distorted, it brings you things mixed with interpretations. They are not pure. So the only way t...

Buddha says: IT IS VERY DIFFICULT TO BE THOROUGH IN LEARNING AND EXHAUSTIVE IN INVESTIGATION. You have not even been thoroughly aware of your life, which is the most important thing here. You have not even investigated it -- what it is. You have taken it for granted, on the surface. All you...

The result-oriented mind is a stupid mind. It goes on sacrificing the present for the future. Sacrificing! – and the sacrifice is absolutely non-creative. It goes on postponing. This is not respect for the future – it is just a way to avoid the present. The result-oriented man always puts h...

Deva means divine and dheeraj means patience — divine patience. And that is very significant to remember. On the path nothing more is needed than patience. Man can do everything that he is capable of, but still there is no necessity that the ultimate happens; it may happen, it may not. We c...