Osho Quotes

Being is not very far away. It is the deepest part of love, a love that is absolutely pure, unconditional. A love that is absolutely alert, aware, conscious, immediately turns into a tremendous revolution; it opens the doors of the innermost shrine of being. And to reach to your very center is to gain all that life can give to you: all the fragrance, all the beauty, all the joy, all the benedictions.

Love is the goal, life is the journey.

God has never created a poor man. It does not happen - it cannot happen because God creates you out of his richness. How can God create a poor man? You are his overflowing; you are part of existence. How can you be poor? You are rich, infinitely rich - as rich as nature itself.

First they applaud you. Now you have become VICTIM. Just to get their applause, you will lie more and more. You will start fulfilling their expectations and you will become more and more unreal. This is a vicious cycle.

Meaning comes from the unknown, from the stranger, from the unpredictable that suddenly knocks at your door - a flower that suddenly blooms and you never expected it; a friend that suddenly happens to be on the street you were not waiting for; a love that blooms suddenly and you were not even aware that this was going to happen, you had not even imagined, not even dreamed. Then life has meaning. Then life has a dance. Then every step is happy because it is not a step filled with duty, it is a step moving into the unknown. The river is going towards the sea.

Zen gives you tremendous dignity. There is no authority anywhere. Freedom is utter and ultimate.

Love and respect yourself and never compromise for anything. And then you will be surprised how much growth starts happening of its own accord.. as if rocks have been removed and the river has started flowing.

Only laughter makes a man rich, but the laughter has to be blissful.

If you are intelligent, if you are alert, the ordinary becomes the extraordinary.

A man who is fearless is neither coward nor brave for bravery is just a cover up for cowardice.

Whatever is of consequence in life, is always hidden from view. What is manifest is the outer cover; what remains unmanifest is the soul within.

Your whole idea about yourself is borrowed
borrowed from those who have no idea of who they are themselves.

Freedom to dream has not yet been taken away by governments.

Just see the difference - in the ancient days, people used to "fall in love." Now people "make love." You see the difference? Falling in love is being overwhelmed by love; it is passive. Making love is almost profane, almost destroying its beauty. It is active, as if you are doing something; you are manipulating and controlling. Now people have changed the language - rather than using "falling in love" they use "making love.

Just become a little alert and start the change from your side; don't expect it from the other side. It will begin from the other side, too. And it costs nothing to smile, it costs nothing to love, it costs nothing to share your happiness with somebody you love.

What is it that makes you cry? It is only your attachments. What is it that you miss when it is lost? It is the object of your attachment. Ponder over this. Find out what it is that grips your very life, without which you feel miserable and destitute; that is the center of your attachment.

Here is what you should do: make an effort to find out what things it would hurt you to lose. Then, before they are lost, open your hands little by little, relax your grip on them. This is the method for conquering attachment. There is bound to be pain, but you must bear it; this is your penance. It is not necessary to renounce anything. It is not that you should leave your wife and run away to the Himalayas. Remain there, where you are, but gradually stop depending on her. There is no need to cause any pain; your wife need not even know it. There is no need to tell her.


Seek out the attachments. Try gradually to live without the things that you now think you cannot live without. Create such a state within yourself that if and when these things are lost, there is not the slightest tremor within you. Then you will have attained victory over these attachments. This can be possible. It has been possible. And if it has happened to even one, it can happen to all.

The man who had abused him would ask, "I abused you yesterday, why did you not reply yesterday? You are very strange." No one waits for a second when you abuse him. He retorts immediately."
Junnaid answered, "My master taught me not to hurry in anything. Take some time. I must wait a little when someone insults me. If I were to give an immediate answer, the heat of the happening would catch hold of me; the smoke would blind my eyes. So I have to wait and let the cloud pass. When twenty-four hours have passed and the skies are clear again, then I can give my reply in full consciousness. Now I realize how tricky my guru was. Because I have never been able to answer my opponents since then."
Is it possible to hold on to anger for twenty-four hours? It is impossible to maintain it for twenty-four minutes or even twenty-four seconds. The truth is that, even if you hold back and watch for a single second, the anger vanishes.
But you do not wait even for a moment. A person abuses you – as if someone switches the button, and the fan starts whirring. There is not the slightest gap between the two, no distance! And you pride yourself in your alertness! You have no control of yourself. How can an unconscious person be master of himself? Anybody can push the button and goad him into action. Someone comes and flatters you, and you are filled with joy; you are happy. Someone insults you, you are full of tears. Are you your own master or anyone can manipulate you? You are the

The natural desire of the human mind is to become special - to become special in the ways of the world, to have many degrees, to have much political power, to have money, wealth - to be special.
The mind is always ready to go on some ego trip. And if you are fed up with the world, then again the ego starts finding new ways and new means to enhance itself - it becomes spiritual. You become a great mahatma, a great sage, a great scholar, a man of knowledge, a man of renunciation; again you are special.
Unless the desire to be special disappears, you will never be special. Unless you relax into your ordinariness, you will never relax.

If you take a mental case into a Zen monastery, they put him in isolation for three weeks; nobody talks to him - just the opposite of psychoanalysis - nobody talks to him, nobody listens to him. They just keep him isolated; somebody goes, absolutely silently, and puts the food there, comes back. He has to live with himself for three weeks ... and miracles have been happening down the ages. Just putting him there for three weeks in isolation, slowly he cools down - no psychoanalysis, no therapy, just isolation. In fact, he was suffering too much from people, from the stress of being in a crowd continually.

Our mind is continuously overflooded with ideas, emotions, sentiments.
By and by relax, be empty.

One just needs a little alertness to see and find out: Life is really a great cosmic laughter.

If this is possible - to have space and togetherness both - then the winds of heaven dance between you. Love one another, but make not a bond of love. It should be a free gift, given or taken, but there should be no demand. Otherwise, very soon you are together but you are as apart as faraway stars. No understanding bridges you; you have not left the space even for the bridge. Let it rather be a moving sea between the shores of your souls. Don't make it something static. Don't make it a routine. Let it rather be a moving sea between the shores of your souls. If freedom and love together can be yours, you don't need anything more. You have got it - that for which life is given to you.

You never suffer nearly as much as you imagine you suffer. You never suffer the illnesses you most dread nor the miseries that you fear.

There is no sorrow except in captivity.

You have to be grateful to existence that it has chosen you to be a passage for a few beautiful children. But you are not to interfere in their growth, in their potential. You are not to impose yourself upon them. They are not going to live in the same times, they are not going to face the same problems. They will be part of another world. Don´t prepare them for this world, this society, this time, because then you will be creating troubles for them. They will find themselves unfit, unqualified.

One Jewish lady was talking to the neighbor, and she said, "The psychoanalyst who is treating my son has said that my son suffers from an Oedipus complex." And the neighbor lady said, "Oedipus schmoedipus! Doesn't matter as long as he is a good boy and loves his mother!

Real love is considerate but has no concern.

Enjoy this moment because it may not come again.

A beggar came to an emperor's palace. The emperor was just in the garden so he heard the beggar. The man on the gate was going to give something, but the beggar said, "I have one condition. I always take from the master, never from servants."
The emperor heard. He was taking a walk so he came to look at this beggar, because beggars don't have conditions. If you are a beggar how can you have conditions? "Seems to be a rare beggar." So he came to look – and he WAS a rare beggar. The emperor had never seen such an emperor-like man before; he was nothing. This man had some glory around him, a grace. Tattered his dress was, almost naked, but the begging bowl was very very precious.
The emperor said, "Why this condition?"
The beggar said, "Because servants are themselves beggars and I don't want to be rude to anybody. Only masters can give. How can servants give? So if you are ready, you can give and I will accept it. But then too I have a condition, and that is: my begging bowl has to be completely filled."
A small begging bowl! The emperor started laughing. He said, "You seem to be mad. Do you think I cannot fill your begging bowl?" And then he ordered his ministers to bring precious stones, incomparable, unique, and fill the begging bowl with them. But they got into a difficulty, because the more they filled the begging bowl, the stones would fall in it and they would not even make a sound, they would simply disappear. And the begging bowl remained empty.

No injustice ever takes place in this universe. Whatsoever happens is always just and right, for there is no human being sitting up there doing either justice or injustice. The universe is ruled by certain laws, and these laws constitute religion.

Repentance can become a very, very deep phenomenon in you if you understand the responsibility. Then even a small thing, if it becomes a repentance
not just verbal, not just on the surface; if it goes deep to the roots, if you repent from the roots; if your whole being shakes and trembles and cries, and tears come out; not only out of your eyes but out of every cell of your body, then repentance can become a transfiguration.

When somebody comes with a conclusion, then he looks through that conclusion and chooses only things which support his position.
Logic is a prostitute.
It can help anybody - for or against, it has no problem.

Millions of beauties and splendors are waiting for you. You go on moving around and around, never entering into the temple of life. The door is the heart.

The first thing to be remembered continuously is courage.
The second thing: make all the effort that is possible.
The third thing, which is more difficult than these two, is to always remember that whatsoever happens, it never happens because of you.

It is not that you fall in love with a beautiful person; the process is just the opposite. When you fall in love with some person, the person looks beautiful. It is love that brings the idea of beauty in, not vice versa.

At the deepest core of your being you are part of eternity, you are not part of time. You exist in time, but you belong to eternity. You are a penetration of eternity into the world of time. You are deathless, living in a body of death. Your consciousness knows no death, no birth. It is only your body that is born and dies. But you are not aware of your consciousness; you are not conscious of your consciousness.

The one you are looking for is you.

If you are a parent, you will need enough courage not to interfere. Open doors of unknown directions to the child, so he can explore. He does not know what he has in him, nobody knows. He has to grope in the dark. Don't make him afraid of darkness, don't make him afraid of failure, don't make him afraid of the unknown. Give him support. When he is going on an unknown journey, send him on with all your support, with all your love, with all your blessings. Don't let him be affected by your fears. You may have fears, but keep them to yourself. Don't unload those fears on the child because that will be interfering.

Everything is infinite because everything is divine. Everything is unbounded because everything participates in the nature of existence. Boundaries are created by our senses; they are not there at all. Everything is joined with everything else, but our senses create boundaries. It is as if you look out of a window and it gives a frame to the sky. The sky is unframed, but the frame of the window becomes the frame of the sky.

The stupid mind thinks only in terms of possession. The man of insight thinks of utility.

It is said that before entering the sea
a river trembles with fear.

She looks back at the path she has traveled,
from the peaks of the mountains,
the long winding road crossing forests and villages.

And in front of her,
she sees an ocean so vast,
that to enter
there seems nothing more than to disappear forever.

But there is no other way.
The river can not go back.

Nobody can go back.
To go back is impossible in existence.

The river needs to take the risk
of entering the ocean
because only then will fear disappear,
because that's where the river will know
it's not about disappearing into the ocean,
but of becoming the ocean.

Man is a question mark ... and it is a blessing - celebrate it. It is a blessing because only man is a question mark; no dog is, no tree is. The rose bush is beautiful but not as beautiful as man, and the moon is beautiful but not as beautiful as man - because they are unconscious. Only man is consciously on a quest. And how can you be on a quest if you don't have a question mark in your being?

It is your life – you have to be respectful towards it. It is your life – you have to trust it and you have to go with it, wherever it leads. Even if you have to go astray, go. There is nothing wrong in going astray, because only those who go astray come back. Even if you have to commit an error, do it – because only by mistakes do we learn, and there is no other way to learn.
Those people who never commit mistakes never learn anything, they never grow. All growth needs the courage to commit mistakes.
From this moment only do that which you like to do, whatsoever the cost.

People sometimes ask me , what religion are you ? i always answer by saying, 'i am a little part of all religions and and a big part of no religion

The truth is, Krishna was born much ahead of his time. All great persons are born ahead of their time, and all insignificant people are born after their time. It is only mediocre people who are born in their time.

You can either be a person who is a coward, afraid, ready to submit, surrender, a person who has himself no dignity, no respect for his own being - or you can be fearless. But then you are going to be a rebel, you cannot avoid that. Either you can be a man of faith or you are going to be a rebellious spirit.

you cannot understand a thing, you begin to abuse it because it insults you. You cannot understand it! You? YOU cannot understand it? That is impossible. Something must be wrong with the thing itself. One begins to abuse, one begins to talk nonsense, and then he feels, "Now it is okay.

It is not the truth which has to be sought, it is you who have to be brought home.

Even if they can find a lover they demand perfection, and the love is destroyed because of that demand.

Meditation is a science, not a superstition. Meditation

The choice between good and evil is all a matter of doctrine. In reality, one always has to choose between the greater evil and the lesser evil. Every choice in life is relative. It is not a question of whether what Krishna did was good or bad. The question is whether it would have resulted in good or bad had he not done what he did. The question would be much easier if it was a simple choice between good and bad, but this is not the case in reality. The realities of life are that it is always the choice between greater evils and lesser evils.

How can I light a candle? Before I light this candle, this darkness needs to be thrown out.

Watchfulness, or alertness, or awareness, or consciousness, are all different names of the same phenomenon of witnessing. That is the key word. Miss

Love is the true God - not the God of theologians, but the God of Buddha, Jesus, Mohammed, the God of the Sufis.

If you enjoy being with somebody, you would like to enjoy it more and more. If you enjoy the intimacy, you would like to explore the intimacy more and more. And there are a few flowers of love that bloom only after long intimacies. There are seasonal flowers, too; within six weeks they are there, in the sun, but within six weeks again they are gone forever. There are flowers that take years to come, and there are flowers that take many years to come. The longer it takes, the deeper it goes. But it has to be a commitment from one heart to another heart. It has not even to be verbalized, because to verbalize it is to profane it. It has to be a silent commitment; eye to eye, heart to heart, being to being. It has to be understood, not said. Forget relationships and learn how to relate. Once

When death is certain, fear disappears. Fear is only there because of death. But when death is certain and there is no way to avoid it, what is the point of being afraid?

There is great difference between trust and belief.
Trust is personal,
Belief is social.

It is jealousy, possessiveness, hatred, anger, violence; it is a thousand and one things except love. It masquerades as love - because all these things are so ugly they cannot exist without a mask.

The whole world may say there is light and there is rainbow in the sky and the sun is rising,
but if my eyes are closed what does it mean to me?
The rainbows, the colors, the sunrise,
the whole thing is non-existential to me.
My eyes are closed, I am blind.
And if I listen to them too much,
and if I start believing in them too much,
and if I borrow their words and I also start talking about the rainbow that I have not seen,
about colors which I cannot see,
about the sunrise which is not my experience,
I may be lost in the forest of words.

You were born as a no-mind. Let this sink into your heart as deeply as possible because through that, a door opens. If you were born as a no-mind, then the mind is just a social product. It is nothing natural, it is cultivated. It has been put together on top of you. Deep down you are still free, you can get out of it. One can never get out of nature, but one can get out of the artificial any moment one decides to.

Don't be an interpreter of reality, be a visionary. Don't think about it, see it!

If you hate somebody, first you have to wound your own soul in so many ways; you have to be so full of poison that you can throw poison on others.

Take hold of your own life.
See that the whole existence is celebrating.
These trees are not serious, these birds are not serious.
The rivers and the oceans are wild,
and everywhere there is fun,
everywhere there is joy and delight.
Watch existence,
listen to the existence and become part of it.

Intellect can be helpful, but it needs consciousness to be its master; otherwise it can behave in a very stupid way. It can misunderstand things, it can misrepresent things. It needs a master to guide it, to give it a sense of direction. That master is your being.

I'm simply saying that there is a way to be sane. I'm saying that you can get rid of all this insanity created by the past in you. Just by being a simple witness of your thought processes.

It is simply sitting silently, witnessing the thoughts, passing before you. Just witnessing, not interfering not even judging, because the moment you judge you have lost the pure witness. The moment you say "this is good, this is bad," you have already jumped onto the thought process.

It takes a little time to create a gap between the witness and the mind. Once the gap is there, you are in for a great surprise, that you are not the mind, that you are the witness, a watcher.

And this process of watching is the very alchemy of real religion. Because as you become more and more deeply rooted in witnessing, thoughts start disappearing. You are, but the mind is utterly empty.

That's the moment of enlightenment. That is the moment that you become for the first time an unconditioned, sane, really free human being.

Now they are a circle, and they vibrate together, they pulsate together. Their hearts are no longer separate, their beats are no longer separate, they have become a melody, a harmony. It is the greatest music possible, all other musics are just faint things compared to it, shadow things compared to it.

The only thing in your hands is your life - make it as rich as possible.

Watch, become alert, observe, and go on dropping all the reactive patterns in you. Each moment try to respond to the reality - not according to the ready-made idea in you but according to the reality as it is there outside. Respond to the reality! Respond with your total consciousness but not with your mind. And then when you respond spontaneously and you don't react, action is born. Action is beautiful, reaction is ugly. Only a man of awareness acts, the man of unawareness reacts. Action liberates. Reaction goes on creating the same chains, goes on making them thicker and harder and stronger. Live a life of response and not of reaction.

Dance while you are alive. Breathe blissfully while you are alive. Sing while you are alive. Love, meditate while you are alive.

I would like Epicurus and Buddha to become one.

So next time you come to me with any problem, just first inquire inside whether you would like it to be solved, because be aware: I can give a solution. Are you really interested in solving it or just talking about it? You feel good talking about it. Go

One has to get rid of the self. Once the self is thrown away, nothing is lacking. You start overflowing and blossoms start falling on you.

Consciousness is yours. Conscience is given by the society.

Remember, truth cannot be conquered. One has to surrender to truth, one has to be conquered by truth.

The first step in awareness is to be watchful of your body. Slowly,slowly one becomes alert about each gesture,each movement. And as you become aware, a miracle starts happening: many things that you used to do before simply disappear. Your body becomes more relaxed,your body becomes more attuned, a deep peace starts prevailing even in your body, a subtle music pulsates in your body.

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.

Gandhi said, "I'm going to throw all the arms into the ocean and send all the armies to work in the fields and in the gardens." And Louis Fischer asked, "But have you forgotten? Somebody can invade your country." Gandhi said, "We will welcome them. If somebody invades us, we will accept him as a guest and tell him, 'You can also live here, just the way we are living. There is no need to fight.'" But he completely forgot all his philosophy - that's how revolutions fail. It is very beautiful to talk about these things, but when power comes into your hands . . . First, Mahatma Gandhi did not accept any post in the government. It was out of fear, because how was he going to answer the whole world if they asked about throwing the weapons into the ocean? What about sending the armies to work in the fields? He escaped from the responsibility for which he had been fighting his whole life, seeing that it was going to create tremendous trouble for him. If

Sex is animal, love is human, compassion is divine. Sex is physical, love is psychological, compassion is spiritual.

When I say maturity, I mean an inner integrity. And this inner integrity comes only when you stop making others responsible, when you stop saying that the other is creating your suffering, when you start realizing that you are the creator of your suffering. This is the first step towards maturity: I am responsible. Whatsoever is happening, it is my doing.
You feel sad. Is this your doing? You will feel very much disturbed, but if you can remain with this feeling, sooner or later you will be able to stop doing many things. This is what the theory of karma is all about. You are responsible. Don't say society is responsible, don't say that parents are responsible, don't say the economic conditions are responsible, don't throw the responsibility onto anybody. YOU are responsible.

They say: Think twice before you jump. I say: Jump first and then think as much as you want!

Everybody is trying to dominate. That is the nature of the ego: to make every effort to dominate the other – whether the other is husband, wife, or children, or friends, makes no difference – to dominate, to find ways and means to dominate.

And if everybody is trying to dominate and you are also trying to dominate there will be struggle. The struggle is not because others are trying to dominate; the struggle is because you are not trying to understand how the ego functions.

You drop out of it! The others cannot be changed, and you will be unnecessarily wasting your life if you try to change the others. That is THEIR problem. They will suffer if they are not understanding, why should you suffer? You simply understand that everybody is trying to dominate, "I drop out of it, I will not try to dominate"... your struggle disappears. And a very beautiful thing happens.

There is a deep urge in man to know things which are worthless, to know things which make you feel special - because only you know those things and nobody else does. Man wants to be special, and nothing makes you more special than so-called esoteric knowledge. That is why esoteric knowledge remains important. All kinds of rubbish go on in the name of esoteric knowledge - that the earth is hollow, that inside the earth there are great civilizations. And there are people who still believe in it, and in many more such stories.

If one is not a meditator, howsoever good one is it is all useless.

So the first thing to remember is how not to allow words unnecessarily. When there is a need, you can use them, but when there is no need remain empty, remain nonverbal, mouna, remain silent.

Love is the opposite of [lust]: respecting the other as an end unto himself or herself. When you love someone as an end unto himself, then there is no feeling of hurt; you become enriched through it. Love makes everybody rich.

Find ecstasy within yourself. It is not out there. It is in your innermost flowering. The one you are looking for is you.

Remember, it is ultimately your mind which makes anything attractive or unattractive. It is you who is the deciding factor.

You meet everybody in the world and you never meet yourself.

All possible resources have to be used, so that you can learn to use your anger in such a way that it becomes compassion, to use your sex in such a way that it becomes love, to use your greed in such a way that it becomes sharing. Every energy that you have can become its polar opposite, because the polar opposite is always contained in it. Your

In the old days prime ministers were not chosen by the vote of the people, because how can you choose by the vote of the people? How can people choose their leaders? They would like to, but they are not capable. Democracy is just a dream, it has not happened anywhere – it cannot happen. And wherever it happens it creates trouble; the medicine proves more dangerous than the disease itself.

Remember, if you cannot live with yourself, you cannot live with anyone else. The capacity to be alone is the capacity to love. It may look paradoxical to you, but it is not. It is an existential truth: only those people who are capable of being alone are capable of love, of sharing, of going into the deepest core of the other person - without possessing the other, without becoming dependent on the other, without reducing the other to a thing, and without becoming addicted to the other.

Creativity is the greatest rebellion in existence.

Life is a mystery, not a riddle. It has to be lived, not solved.

Truth cannot be raided; it is attained through surrender, not through struggle. It is conquered through total surrender.

What is needed is that you become aware of your aloneness, which is a reality. And it is so beautiful to experience it, to feel it, because it is your freedom from the crowd, from the other. It is your freedom from the fear of being lonely.

There is no one lonelier than God!

You have to remember that freedom is the highest value and if love is not giving you freedom then it is not love. Freedom is a criterion: anything that gives you freedom is right, and anything that destroys your freedom is wrong. If you can remember this small criterion your life, slowly, will start settling on the right path about everything: your relationships, your meditations, your creativity, whatever you are.

Only foolish people believe. A man of understanding has faith not belief. Faith is different. Faith means trusting life, trusting it so absolutely that one is ready to go with it anywhere.

When your consciousness is simply there without content, that contentless purity is what Tantra calls real experience.

I cannot conceive that the man who dropped the bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki was a machine. He also had a heart, just like you. He also had his wife and children, his old mother and father. He was as much a human being as you are - with a difference. He was trained to follow orders without questioning, and when the order was given, he simply followed it.