osho quotes

Fighting

One moment it was there, another moment it is gone. One moment we are
here, and another moment we have gone. And for this simple moment, how
much fuss we make! How much violence, ambition, struggle, conflict,
anger, hatred, just for this small moment! Just waiting for the train
in a waiting room on a station, and creating so much fuss: fighting,
hurting each other, trying to possess, trying to boss, trying to
dominate - all that politics. And then the train comes and you are
gone forever.

Osho Take it Easy, Volume 1 Chapter 13

Sorrow

This pain is not to make you sad, remember. That's where people go on
missing.... This pain is just to make you more alert--because people
become alert only when the arrow goes deep into their heart and wounds
them. Otherwise they don't become alert. When life is easy,
comfortable, convenient, who cares? Who bothers to become alert? When
a friend dies, there is a possibility. When your woman leaves you
alone--those dark nights, you are lonely. You have loved that woman so
much and you have staked all, and then suddenly one day she is gone.
Crying in your loneliness, those are the occasions when, if you use
them, you can become aware. The arrow is hurting: it can be used. The
pain is not to make you miserable, the pain is to make you more aware!
And when you are aware, misery disappears.

Osho Take it Easy, Volume 2 Chapter 12

Creativity

Creativity is the quality that you bring to the activity that you are
doing. It is an attitude, an inner approach - how you look at
things....
Not everybody can be a painter - and there is no need also. If
everybody is a painter the world will be very ugly; it will be
difficult to live! And not everybody can be a dancer, and there is no
need. But everybody can be creative.
Whatsoever you do, if you do it joyfully, if you do it lovingly, if
your act of doing is not purely economical, then it is creative. If
you have something growing out of it within you, if it gives you
growth, it is spiritual, it is creative, it is divine. You become more
divine as you become more creative.
All the religions of the world have said God is the creator. I don't
know whether he is the creator or not, but one thing I know: the more
creative you become, the more godly you become. When your creativity
comes to a climax, when your whole life becomes creative, you live in
God. So he must be the creator because people who have been creative
have been closest to him. Love what you do. Be meditative while you

Existence

You are not accidental. Existence needs you. Without you something will be missing in existence and nobody can replace it. That's what gives you dignity, that the whole existence will miss you. The stars and sun and moon, the trees and birds and earth - everything in the universe will feel a small place is vacant which cannot be filled by anybody except you.

This gives you a tremendous joy, a fulfillment that you are related to existence, and existence cares for you. Once you are clean and clear, you can see tremendous love falling on you from all dimensions.

Osho God is Dead: Now Zen is the Only Living Truth Chapter 1

Transformation

A master in Zen is not simply a teacher. In all the religions there are only teachers. They teach you about subjects which you don't know, and they ask you to believe because there is no way to bring those experiences into objective reality. Neither has the teacher known them - he has believed them; he transfers his belief to somebody else.

Zen is not a believer's world. It is not for the faithful ones; it is for those daring souls who can drop all belief, unbelief, doubt, reason, mind, and simply enter into their pure existence without boundaries. But it brings a tremendous transformation.

Hence, let me say that while others are involved in philosophies, Zen is involved in metamorphosis, in a transformation. It is authentic alchemy: it changes you from base metal into gold. But its language has to be understood, not with your reasoning and intellectual mind but with your loving heart. Or even just listening, not bothering whether it is true or not. And a moment comes suddenly that you see it, which has been eluding you your whole life. Suddenly, what Gautam Buddha called "eighty-four thousand doors" open.

Osho Zen: The Solitary Bird, Cuckoo of the Forest Chapter 6

The Creator

There are two types of creators in the world. One type of creator works with objects - a poet, a painter, they work with objects, they create things. The other type of creator, the mystic, creates himself. He doesn't work with objects, he works with the subject; he works on himself, his own being. And he is the real creator, the real poet, because he makes himself into a masterpiece.

You are carrying a masterpiece hidden within you, but you are standing in the way. Just move aside, then the masterpiece will be revealed. Everyone is a masterpiece, because God never gives birth to anything less than that. Everyone carries that masterpiece hidden for many lives, no knowing who they are and just trying on the surface to become someone.

Drop the idea of becoming someone, because you are already a masterpiece. You cannot be improved. You have only to come to it, to know it, to realize it. God himself has created you; you cannot be improved.

Osho Ah, This! Chapter 1

Breakthrough

To transform breakdowns into breakthroughs is the whole function of a master. The psychotherapist simply patches you up. That is his function. He is not there to transform you. You need a meta-psychology, the psychology of the buddhas.

It is the greatest adventure in life to go through a breakdown consciously. It is the greatest risk because there is no guarantee that the breakdown will become a breakthrough. It does become, but these things cannot be guaranteed. Your chaos is very ancient - for many, many lives you have been in chaos. It is thick and dense. It is almost a universe in itself. So when you enter into it with your small capacity, of course there is danger. But without facing this danger nobody has ever become integrated, nobody has ever become an individual, indivisible.

Zen, or meditation, is the method which will help you to go through the chaos, through the dark night of the soul, balanced, disciplined, alert. The dawn is not far away, but before you can reach the dawn, the dark night has to be passed through. And as the dawn comes closer, the night will become darker.

Osho Walking in Zen, Sitting in Zen Chapter 1

Aloneness

When you are alone you are not alone, you are simply lonely - and there is a tremendous difference between loneliness and aloneness. When you are lonely you are thinking of the other, you are missing the other.

Loneliness is a negative state. You are feeling that it would have been better if the other were there - your friend, your wife, your mother, your beloved, your husband. It would have been good if the other were there, but the other is not. Loneliness is absence of the other.

Aloneness is the presence of oneself. Aloneness is very positive. It is a presence, overflowing presence. You are so full of presence that you can fill the whole universe with your presence and there is no need for anybody.

Osho The Discipline of Transcendence, Volume 1 Chapter 2

Integration

The conflict is in man. Unless it is resolved there, it cannot be resolved anywhere else. The politics is within you; it is between the two parts of the mind. A very small bridge exists. If that bridge is broken through some accident, through some physiological defect or something else, the person becomes split, the person becomes two persons and the phenomenon of schizophrenia or split personality happens.

If the bridge is broken - and the bridge is very fragile - then you become two, you behave like two persons. In the morning you are very loving, very beautiful; in the evening you are very angry, absolutely different. You don't remember your morning...how can you remember? Another mind was functioning - and the person becomes two persons. If this bridge is strengthened so much that the two minds disappear as two and become one, then integration, then crystallization, arises.

What George Gurdjieff used to call the crystallization of being is nothing but these two minds becoming one, the meeting of the male and the female within, the meeting of yin and yang, the meeting of the left and right, the meeting of logic and illogic, the meeting of Plato and Aristotle.

Osho Ancient Music in the Pines Chapter 1

The Rebel

People are afraid, very much afraid of those who know themselves. They have a certain power, a certain aura and a certain magnetism, a charisma that can take out alive, young people from the traditional imprisonment....

The enlightened man cannot be enslaved - that is the difficulty - and he cannot be imprisoned.... Every genius who has known something of the inner is bound to be a little difficult to be absorbed; he is going to be an upsetting force. The masses don't want to be disturbed, even though they may be in misery; they are in misery, but they are accustomed to the misery. And anybody who is not miserable looks like a stranger.

The enlightened man is the greatest stranger in the world; he does not seem to belong to anybody. No organization confines him, no community, no society, no nation.

Osho The Zen Manifesto: Freedom from Oneself Chapter 9

Exhaustion

A man who lives through conscience becomes hard. A man who lives
through consciousness remains soft. Why?--because a man who has some
ideas about how to live, naturally becomes hard. He has continuously
to carry his character around himself. That character is like an
armor; his protection, his security; his whole life is invested in
that character. And he always reacts to situations through the
character, not directly. If you ask him a question, his answer is
ready-made. That is the sign of a hard person--he is dull, stupid,
mechanical. He may be a good computer, but he is not a man. You do
something and he reacts in a well- established way. His reaction is
predictable; he is a robot. The real man acts spontaneously. If you
ask him a question, your question gets a response, not a reaction. He
opens his heart to your question, exposes himself to your question,
responds to it....

Osho Take it Easy, Volume 1 Chapter 13

Abundance

In the East people have condemned the body, condemned matter, called matter "illusory," maya - it does not really exist, it only appears to exist; it is made of the same stuff as dreams are made of. They denied the world, and that is the reason for the East remaining poor, sick, in starvation.

Half of humanity has been accepting the inner world but denying the outer world. The other half of humanity has been accepting the material world and denying the inner world. Both are half, and no man who is half can be contented. You have to be whole: rich in the body, rich in science; rich in meditation, rich in consciousness. Only a whole person is a holy person, according to me.

I want Zorba and Buddha to meet together. Zorba alone is hollow. His dance has not an eternal significance, it is momentary pleasure. Soon he will be tired of it. Unless you have inexhaustible sources, available to you from the cosmos itself...unless you become existential, you cannot become whole. This is my contribution to humanity: the whole person.

Osho Communism and Zen Fire, Zen Wind Chapter 2

Postponement

Postponement is simply stupid. Tomorrow you will also have to decide,
so why not today? And do you think that tomorrow you will be wiser
than today? Do you think that tomorrow you will be livelier than
today? Do you think that tomorrow you will be younger than today,
fresher than today? Tomorrow you will be older, your courage will be
less; tomorrow you will be more experienced, your cunningness will be
more; tomorrow death will come closer--you will start wavering and
being more afraid. Never postpone for the tomorrow. And who knows?
Tomorrow may come or may not come. If you have to decide you have to
decide right now. Dr. Vogel, the dentist, finished his examination on
a pretty young patient. "Miss Baseman," he said, "I'm afraid I'm going
to have to pull out your wisdom teeth!" "Oh, my!" exclaimed the girl.
"I'd rather have a baby!" "Well," said Dr. Vogel, "could you make up
your mind so that I can adjust the chair?" Make up your mind. Don't go
on postponing infinitely.

Osho Dang Dang Doko Dang Chapter 8

Ordinariness

Sometimes it happens that you become one, in some rare moment. Watch the ocean, the tremendous wildness of it--and suddenly you forget your split, your schizophrenia; you relax. Or, moving in the Himalayas, seeing the virgin snow on the Himalayan peaks, suddenly a coolness surrounds you and you need not be false because there is no other human being to be false to. You fall together. Or, listening to beautiful music, you fall together. Whenever, in whatsoever situation, you become one, a peace, a happiness, a bliss, surrounds you, arises in you. You feel fulfilled. There is no need to wait for these moments--these moments can become your natural life. These extraordinary moments can become ordinary moments - that is the whole effort of Zen. You can live an extraordinary life in a very ordinary life: cutting wood, chopping wood, carrying water from the well, you can be tremendously at ease with yourself. Cleaning the floor, cooking food, washing the clothes, you can be perfectly at ease--because the whole question is of you doing your action totally, enjoying, delighting in it.

Osho Dang Dang Doko Dang Chapter 3

The Fool

A fool is one who goes on trusting; a fool is one who goes on trusting
against all his experience. You deceive him, and he trusts you; and
you deceive him again, and he trusts you; and you deceive him again,
and he trusts you. Then you will say that he is a fool, he does not
learn. His trust is tremendous; his trust is so pure that nobody can
corrupt it.
Be a fool in the Taoist sense, in the Zen sense. Don´t try to create a
wall of knowledge around you. Whatsoever experience comes to you, let
it happen, and then go on dropping it. Go on cleaning your mind
continuously; go on dying to the past so you remain in the present,
herenow, as if just born, just a babe.
In the beginning it is going to be very difficult. The world will
start taking advantage of you...let them. They are poor fellows. Even
if you are cheated and deceived and robbed, let it happen, because
that which is really yours cannot be robbed from you, that which is
really yours nobody can steal from you.
And each time you don´t allow situations to corrupt you, that
opportunity will become an integration inside. Your soul will become
more crystallized.

Osho Dang Dang Doko Dang Chapter 2

Politics

Anybody who can be a good pretender, a hypocrite, will become your
leader politically, will become your priest religiously. All that he
needs is hypocrisy, all that he needs is cunningness, all that he
needs is a facade to hide behind. Your politicians live double lives,
your priests live double lives--one from the front door, the other
from the back door. And the back-door life is their real life. Those
front-door smiles are just false, those faces looking so innocent are
just cultivated. If you want to see the reality of the politician you
will have to see him from his back door. There he is in his nudity, as
he is, and so is the priest. These two kinds of cunning people have
dominated humanity. And they found out very early on that if you want
to dominate humanity, make it weak, make it feel guilty, make it feel
unworthy. Destroy its dignity, take all glory away from it, humiliate
it. And they have found such subtle ways of humiliation that they
don't come in the picture at all; they leave it to you to humiliate
yourself, to destroy yourself. They have taught you a kind of slow
suicide.

Intensity

Zen says: Think of all the great words and great teachings as your deadly enemy. Avoid them, because you have to find your own source. You have not to be a follower, an imitator. You have to be an original individual; you have to find your innermost core on your own, with no guide, no guiding scriptures. It is a dark night, but with the intense fire of inquiry you are bound to come to the sunrise.

Everybody who has burned with intense inquiry has found the sunrise. Others only believe. Those who believe are not religious, they are simply avoiding the great adventure of religion by believing.

Osho Zen: Turning In Chapter 10

Rebirth

In Zen you are coming from nowhere and you are going to nowhere. You
are just now, here, neither coming nor going. Everything passes by
you; your consciousness reflects it but it does not get identified.
When a lion roars in front of a mirror, do you think the mirror roars?
Or when the lion is gone and a child comes dancing, the mirror
completely forgets about the lion and starts dancing with the
child--do you think the mirror dances with the child? The mirror does
nothing, it simply reflects. Your consciousness is only a mirror.
Neither do you come, nor do you go. Things come and go. You become
young, you become old; you are alive, you are dead. All these states
are simply reflections in an eternal pool of consciousness.

Osho Osho Live Zen, Volume, 2 Chapter 16