Osho Quotes & Sayings
Enjoy the top 100 famous quotes, sayings and quotations by Osho.
Famous Quotes By Osho
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. — Osho
The great appeal of drugs in the West is only because the West has succeeded in destroying the right hemisphere completely because of compulsory education. — Osho
Spontaneousness is thought to be madness. Formalities are thought to be sanity. Just the opposite is the reality. — Osho
The intelligent person will go inward first. Before going anywhere else, you will go into your own being. That is the first thing, and it should have the first preference. Only when you have known yourself can you go anywhere else. Then wherever you go you will carry a blissfulness around you, a peace, a silence, a celebration. — Osho
I love this world because it is imperfect. It is imperfect, and that's why it is growing; if it was perfect it would have been dead. Growth is possible only if there is imperfection. I would like you to remember again and again, I am imperfect, the whole universe is imperfect, and to love this imperfection, to rejoice in this imperfection is my whole message. — Osho
Knowing it, you know the very heartbeat of existence. Knowing it, you have known all that is worth knowing, and you have achieved all that is worth achieving. It opens doors to all the mysteries of existence, to all the treasures of existence which belong to you. Outside you are simply a beggar. Even your greatest intellectuals are just playing with words. — Osho
Intellect is not going to be your home. It is a small instrument, to be used only for passing from instinct to intuition. So only the person who uses his intellect to go beyond it can be called intelligent. Intuition is existential. Instinct is natural. Intellect is just groping in the dark. The faster you move beyond intellect, the better; intellect can be a barrier to those who think nothing is beyond it. Intellect can be a beautiful passage for those who understand that there is certainly something beyond it. — Osho
What you call poetry and passion are nothing but lies - with beautiful facades. Out of your hundred poets, ninety-nine are not really poets but only people in a state of turmoil, emotion, passion, heat, lust, sexuality, sensuality. Only one out of your hundred poets is a real poet. And the real poet may never compose any poetry, because his whole being is poetry. The way he walks, the way he sits, the way he eats, the way he sleeps - it is all poetry. He exists as poetry. He may create poetry, he may not create poetry, that is irrelevant. But what you call poetry is nothing but the expression of your fever, of your heated state of consciousness. It is a state of insanity. Passion is insane, blind, unconscious - because it gives you the feeling as if it is love. Love — Osho
It is a very mad world. Blind people are leading other blind people. And nobody raises the question: where are we going and why? — Osho
The more ideals you have the more will be your suffering and the more will be your hypocrisy, because if you cannot fulfill the ideals, then at least you have to pretend. — Osho
It is beautiful to be alone, it is also beautiful to to be in love, to be with people. And they are complementary, not contradictory. — Osho
Life is not a problem. To look at it as a problem is to take a wrong step. It is a mystery to be lived, loved, experienced. — Osho
The trouble lies deeper, deeper than your mind, and you have to go deep within yourself. — Osho
Remember one thing. That you should not leave the Earth until you have made it a little more beautiful. A little lovelier. A little more loving. — Osho
But these trees don't grow impatiently. They move with a grace, with patience, with trust. There is no hurry anywhere else except in your mind. If you really want to be in a state of peace and joy, you will have to unlearn your old habit for achieving things quickly — Osho
The small flower is as total as the sun. — Osho
Meditation is witnessing. To meditate means to become a witness. Meditation is not a technique at all! This — Osho
Here, fire turns into water;
Here, the dancing of the rain declares the sun.
There's no opposition in existence, no contradiction;
Everything supports everything else. — Osho
Challenge everything for the Truth. Only those who challenge everything for the Truth are the blessed ones. — Osho
Just look at life with more playful eyes. Don't be serious. Seriousness becomes like a blindness. Don't pretend to be a thinker, a philosopher. Just simply be a human being. The whole world is showering its joy on you in so many ways, but you are too serious, you cannot open your heart. — Osho
Life begins where fear ends. — Osho
Life is beautiful because it is insecure. Life is beautiful because there is death. Life is beautiful because it can be missed. If you cannot miss it, everything is forced upon you, then even life becomes an imprisonment. You will not be able to enjoy it. Even if you are ordered to be blissful, commanded to be free, then bliss and freedom both are gone. "Will existence protect me when I allow myself to let go?" Try! Only one thing I can say to you. ... I am not talking to your fear, remember. Only one thing I can say to you - all those who have tried have found that it protects. But I am not talking to your fear. I am simply encouraging your adventure, that's all. I am persuading, seducing you toward adventure. I am not talking to your fear. All those who have tried have found that infinite is the protection. — Osho
Taoists don't have any maps. — Osho
Because if you are serious, they think you're valuable; if you go on laughing and you make your life fun, they think you're a fool. — Osho
Just try to understand a simple fact: human beings are human beings. Once in a while everybody gets bored being with the same person all the time. Be factual; don't live in fictions. Once in a while, everybody gets fed up; that does not mean your love has stopped, it simply means a little change is needed. It is good for your health, it is good for your partner's health. You both need a little holiday from each other. Why not do it consciously? — Osho
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. — Osho
A sailor was stranded on a desert island and managed to survive by making friends with the local natives - such good friends, in fact, that one day the chief offered him his daughter for an evening's entertainment. Late that night, while they made love, the chief's daughter kept shouting, "Oga, boga! Oga, boga!" The arrogant sailor assumed this must be how the natives express their appreciation when something is fantastic. A few days later the chief invites the sailor for a game of golf. On his first stroke, the chief hit a hole in one. Eager to try out his new vocabulary, the sailor enthusiastically shouted "Oga boga! Oga boga!" The chief turned around with a puzzled look on his face and asked, "What you mean, 'wrong hole'? — Osho
The crowd is blind. And to have eyes in this crowd is to be condemned, is to be crucified. — Osho
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. — Osho
Life is also a great instrument. You have to learn how to play upon it. Nothing has to be cut, destroyed, repressed, rejected. All that existence has given to you is beautiful. If you have not been able to use it beautifully, it simply shows that you are not yet artful enough. We have all taken our lives for granted, and that is wrong. We are given only a raw possibility. We have been given only a potential for life; we have to learn how to actualize it. All — Osho
The creative person has to dissolve all should and should nots. He needs freedom and space, vast space; he needs the whole sky and all the stars. Only then can his innermost spontaneity start growing. — Osho
Remember, that which appeals to the ego cannot help your spiritual growth. — Osho
People have been trying to destroy fear, trying to destroy anger, trying to destroy sexuality, trying to destroy greed, this and that. The whole world has been working to destroy your energies, and what is the result? Man has become a mess. Nothing is destroyed, all is still there; only things have become confused. There is no need to destroy anything because nothing can be destroyed in the first place. — Osho
Be a man: accept the challenge of the unknown, of the beyond. Let it become a great dream in your being. — Osho
Even if they say you are rebellious, criminal, bad, evil, let them think it. Even if they put you on the cross let them do it, but you remain true to yourself. — Osho
A man who is 100% sane is dead. — Osho
Fame is foolish, it is pointless, meaningless. Even if the whole world knows you, how does it make you richer? How does it make your life more blissful? How does it help you to be more understanding, to be more aware? To be more alert, to be more alive? — Osho
Just being alive is such a gift, but nobody ever told you to be thankful to existence. On the contrary, everyone was grumpy, complaining. Naturally, if everything surrounding your life from the very beginning goes on pointing out to you that you are not what you should be, goes on giving you great ideals that you have to follow and you have to become, your isness is never praised. What is praised is your future - if you can become someone respectable, powerful, rich, intellectual, in some way famous, not just a nobody. — Osho
Love the person, but give the person total freedom. Love the person, but from the very beginning make it clear that you are not selling your freedom. — Osho
Truth cannot be decided by the vote of the majority because truth is utterly individual and private. — Osho
And if you have loved a man or a woman, you will want to give the other person as much freedom as possible. If love cannot give freedom, then it is not love. — Osho
One thing is certain: Existence is overflowing. With everything it is luxurious. It is not a poor existence, no. Poverty is man's creation. — Osho
Try it. What I am saying is experimental. You can do it, it is not a question of believing me. You have been fighting with your fear; accept it, and see what happens. Just sit silently and accept it, and say, "I have fear, so I am fear." In that very meditative state, "I am fear," freedom starts descending. When the acceptance is total, freedom has arrived. — Osho
See the rhythm:
when in love, you would like to be alone; when alone, soon you would like to be in love.
Lovers come close and go away, come close and go away
there is a rhythm. Going
away is not anti-love; going away is just getting your aloneness again, and the beauty of
it and the joy of it. — Osho
Live more, and live more intensely . Live dangerously. It is your life, don't sacrifice it for any sort of foolishness that has been taught to you. It is your life, live it. Don't sacrifice it for words, theories, countries, politics. Don't sacrifice it for anybody. — Osho
Love a woman as a goddess, then love becomes worship. — Osho
I don't see the point in being afraid of death, because in the first place I don't know what is going to be. And secondly, there are only two possibilities: Either I will survive - then there is no question of fear. Or I will not survive - then too there is no problem of fear. If I don't survive there is no problem - when I am not, there cannot be any problem, and if I survive as I am here, if my consciousness survives, there is no problem because I am still there. "Problems were there in life also - I solved them, so if I am there and there are problems I will solve them - and it is always a joy to solve a problem, it gives a challenge. You take the challenge and you move into it, and when you solve it a great release of happiness happens." The fear of — Osho
Just understanding life as it is, and living it with courage; not escaping from it, not hiding from it, facing it with courage, whatsoever it is, good or bad, divine or evil, heaven or hell. — Osho
They were afraid of your authentic love, because authentic love is beyond their control.You are possessed by it. You are not the possessor, you are the possessed. And every society wants you to be in control. The society is afraid of your wild nature, it is afraid of your naturalness, so from the very beginning it starts cutting your wings. And the most basic thing which is dangerous in you is the possibility of love, because if you are possessed by love you can go even against the whole world. — Osho
Always rely on just a happy frame of mind. Let it become one of the fundamental rules of your life. Even if you come across a negative, find something positive in it. You will always be able to find something. And the day you become skillful at finding the positive in the negative, you will dance with joy. — Osho
A totally new kind of education is needed in the world. The person who is born to be a poet is proving himself stupid in mathematics and the person who could have been a great mathematician is just cramming history and feeling lost. Everything is topsy-turvy because education is not according to your nature: it does not pay any respect to the individual. It forces everybody into a certain pattern. — Osho
The ultimate mysteries are opened only to those who have immense patience. — Osho
Death is [ ... ] the blackboard on which life is written. — Osho
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. — Osho
I am not against rules, but the rules should arise out of your understanding. They should not be imposed from the outside. I am not against discipline! but discipline should not be slavery. All true discipline is self-discipline. And self-discipline is never against freedom - in fact, it is the ladder to freedom. Only disciplined people become free, but their discipline is not obedience to others: their discipline is obedience to their own inner voice. And they are ready to risk anything for it. Let your own awareness decide your lifestyle, life pattern. Don't allow anybody else to decide it. That is a sin, to allow anybody else to decide it. Why is it a sin? Because you will never be in your life. It will remain superficial, it will be hypocrisy. — Osho
Falling in love you remain a child; rising in love you mature. By and by love becomes not a relationship, it becomes a state of your being. Not that you are in love - now you are love. — Osho
These belief systems have to be dropped. Then understanding arises; then readiness to explore, then innocence, arises. Then you are surrounded by a sense of mystery, awe, wonder. Then life is no longer a known thing, it is an adventure. It is so mysterious that you can go on exploring; there is no end to it. And you never create any belief, you remain in a state of not-knowing. On that not-knowing state Sufis insist very much, and so do Zen masters. — Osho
Unless you are fulfilled, unless you have found something that is not just a profession but something like a vocation, a calling, you will never be able to feel happy about your parents, because they are the cause of you being in this miserable world. You cannot feel grateful, there is nothing to be grateful about. Once you are fulfilled, then you will feel tremendously grateful. And your fulfilment is possible only if you don't become a thing. Your destiny is to become a person. Your destiny is to become an intrinsic value. Your destiny is to become an end in yourself. — Osho
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. — Osho
Security is of the world, insecurity is of the divine. — Osho
That's what meditation is all about, to be capable of being alone. And remember, aloneness is not loneliness. Loneliness is the state of the person who cannot live alone; loneliness means you are dependent on the crowd, on the other. Aloneness means you are happy with yourself, you are not dependent on anybody. The moment you are not dependent you are an emperor, you are a god, a goddess. Now you have something to share, you can go into the world. — Osho
To be sensuous means to become aware of the circumference, and to be spiritual means to become aware of the center. Sensuousness is the beginning of spirituality. Become more and more sensuous; that is the way of being alive. — Osho
Have you not seen it? Whenever you choose happiness, you become the victim of unhappiness; whenever you want success, failure comes in; whenever you hope, frustration is waiting for you; whenever you cling to life, death comes and destroys. Have you not seen it happen every day, every moment? These are not opposites, they are together. When one sees them together, then what is there to choose? There is nothing to choose, one becomes choiceless. — Osho
The only thing in your hands is your life - make it as rich as possible. — Osho
Truth cannot be raided; it is attained through surrender, not through struggle. It is conquered through total surrender. — Osho
If you feel pain, be attentive to it; don't do anything. Attention is the great sword; it cuts everything. You simply pay attention to the pain. — Osho
A creative person is one who has insight, who can see things nobody else has ever seen before, who hears things that nobody has heard before - then there is creativity. — Osho
All our attachments are outward oriented and hence this illusion. — Osho
To see this mysterious existence, to feel it in the deepest core of your heart, and immediately a prayer arises - a prayer that has no words to it, a prayer that is silence, a prayer that doesn't say anything but feels tremendous, a prayer that arises out of you like fragrance, a prayer that is like music with no words, celestial music, or what Pythagoras used to call "the harmony of the stars," the melody of the whole. When that music starts rising in you, that's what the Secret of the Golden Flower is all about: suddenly a flower bursts open in you, a golden lotus. You have arrived, you have come home. — Osho
The grass beyond your fence is always greener, but don't jump the fence to see whether it is actually so. Enjoy it! If it is greener on the other side of the fence, enjoy it. Why destroy things by jumping the fence and finding out that it is worse than your own grass? — Osho
Don't allow your life to become just a dead ritual. Let there be moments, unexplainable. — Osho
Remain in the world, act in the world, do whatsoever is needful, and yet remain transcendental, aloof, detached, a lotus flower in the pond. — Osho
Rather than putting your energy into being special, put your whole energy into being yourself. Just find yourself, because in trying to be special you are running further and further away from yourself. — Osho
He is constantly ready to fight. That means he is afraid. — Osho
Whenever a situation arises that creates fear, there are two alternatives - either you fight or you take flight. — Osho
Life in itself has no meaning. Life is an opportunity to create meaning. — Osho
Creativity is the fragrance of individual freedom. — Osho
One who is seeking a live balance, a live silence, would like to move to both the market and the Himalayas. He would like to go to the market to enjoy noise, and he would also like to go to the Himalayas to enjoy silence. And — Osho
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. — Osho
Remember, whenever you have two things, two alternatives, choose the new one, choose the harder, choose the one in which more awareness will be needed. — Osho
When somebody on the outside fits with your inner image, you fall in love
that is the meaning of love. — Osho
Either you can have life or you can be remembered in history — Osho
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. — Osho
Zen is a path of liberation. It liberates you. It is freedom from the first step to the last. You are not required to follow any rules; you are required to find out your own rules and your own life in the light of awareness. — Osho
Everybody comes with prejudices, colored glasses on their eyes. Then they see everything colored according to their glasses. Yes, a few people come just like you, unprejudiced, without any idea gathered from yellow journalism. — Osho
Destructiveness cannot bring happiness; destruction is against the law of creation. The law of creation is to be creative. So Buddha says if you are destructive you will be miserable.If you are envious, infatuated, competitive, ambitious, jealous, possessive, you will be in misery.
_
In Buddhist terminology there is nothing like sin, only mistakes, errors. There is no condemnation. You can correct the error, you can correct the mistake. It is simple.
One has to leave the parents, one has to leave the home, one has to leave the past. one has to become totally independent, alone ... trembling in that aloneness, but one has to become alone. One has to become absolutely responsible for oneself, and then only can understand the mind. If you go on depending on others, your very dependence will not allow you to understand who you are. — Osho
Remember, it is ultimately your mind which makes anything attractive or unattractive. It is you who is the deciding factor. — Osho
Be a lotus flower. Be in the water, and do not let the water touch you. — Osho
And there is no harm in loving a stranger. In fact, it is more exciting to love a stranger. When you were not together, there was great attraction. The more you have been together, the more the attraction has become dull. The more you have become known to each other, superficially, the less is the excitement. Life becomes very soon a routine. People go on repeating the same thing, again and again. If you look at the faces of people in the world, you will be surprised: Why do all these people look so sad? Why do their eyes look as if they have lost all hope? The reason is simple; the reason is repetition. Man is intelligent; repetition creates boredom. Boredom brings a sadness because one knows what is going to happen tomorrow, and the day after tomorrow ... until one goes into the grave, it will be the same, the same story. Finkelstein — Osho
It is not the truth which has to be sought, it is you who have to be brought home. — Osho
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. — Osho
Drinking tea is as sacred as doing yoga. Sleeping silently, relaxed, is as sacred as prayer. Looking at a tree, talking to a friend, walking early in the morning, working in the factory or in the office, is as holy as anything else. This is the understanding that is needed for Tao to happen. — Osho
I am not saying to accept yourself in order to be transformed - otherwise you have not accepted yourself at all, because deep down the desire is for transformation. You say, "Okay, if this brings transformation then I will accept myself." But this is not acceptance; you have missed the whole point. You are still desiring transformation. If I guarantee it to you, and you accept yourself because of the guarantee, where is the acceptance? You are using acceptance as a means; the goal is to be transformed, to be free, to attain to self-realization, to nirvana. Where is the acceptance? Acceptance has to be unconditional, for no reason at all, without any motivation. — Osho
To destroy the need to learn, this is the best thing to do: to gone feeling that you already know. Then there's no question of learning, no need to become a disciple. You are satisfied, in your grave. You are dead. — Osho
Law is for those who have forgotten the language of the heart and only know the language of the mind. — Osho