Quotessence
Home / Authors / Osho Biography

Osho Biography

Author

Related Quotes

“Understanding is not a question of keen intelligence; understanding is a question of deep rapport. Understanding is not a question of reason, intellect, logic. Understanding is a question of deep sympathy, or even of deep empathy; hence the central significance of trust, faith. Understanding happens through faith, because in faith you trust, in trust you become sympathetic, in trust rapport is possible -- because you are not defensive, you leave the doors open.”

FaithUnderstandingTrust
Book:And The Flowers Showered Discourses On Zen
Create image

“And the criterion is within you – not in bibles, not in the koran, not in the gita. The criterion is in your feeling, your existential feeling. So whatsoever the feeling says, you move with it. Sometimes it gives you great insecurity. Say okay to that. Sometimes it leads you into deep pain; say okay to that. Trust that wherever it is leading must be meaningful and significant to your growth.”

TrustBlissInner Voice
Book:Beloved of my heart: A Darshan diary
Create image

“Always remember that you are the observer and not the doer. Do not take life to be anything more than acting. Don’t identify yourself too much with the action. Whether you are a wife or husband, a businessman or client, don’t get too involved. Don’t lose yourself in it, for you are simply playing a role in the play. Keep outside of it, and within yourself. These are all necessary parts of life. You must go to work, it is necessary. The play is delightful if you see it as play, but it is fatal if you take it to be life. There is no reason so disrupt your life. You have to play the part that life has given you.”

HappinessLossTrustDepressionEnlightenmentBlissArt Of LivingDepression RecoveryLoss And PainLife Is A Play
Book:Bliss: Living beyond happiness and misery
Create image

“I thank you for your courage to expose yourself. This courage is needed by everyone because without this courage, you cannot hope for any possibility of transformation - into a new world, into a new consciousness, into your authentic being, which is the door to ultimate reality and to the ultimate benediction.”

LoveSpiritualityConsciousnessCouragePossibilityEgoTransformationTrue SelfPossibilitiesNature Of Self
Book:Intimacy: Trusting Oneself and the Other
Create image

“The capacity to be alone is the capacity to love. It may look paradoxical to you, but it's 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 another 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. They allow the other absolute freedom, because they know that if the other leaves, they will be as happy as they are now. Their happiness cannot be taken by the other, because it is not given by the other.”

LoveHappinessChoicesCapacity To Be Alone
Author:Osho
Create image

“Once you start learning how to choose the peaceful, a small room is enough; a small quantity of food is enough; a few clothes are enough; one lover, a very ordinary man, can be enough of a lover. But if you go on asking for more and more, then thousands of men are not enough. Even the most beautiful man is finished sooner or later. Your desire goes on and on. It knows no end... it stops nowhere.”

NeedsDesireDivorceUnrequited LoveBreak UpBusiness FailureBlissful LifeLoss And Pain
Book:Beloved of my heart: A Darshan diary
Create image

“The unconscious mind goes on doing things and creating problems. There is no wall at all that you have to push through. The real thing is that you want to push, you are in a hurry. And because you want to push, you have to imagine a wall. It is your imagination. Just try to laugh at your imagination, at your hurry, because this is not the way meditation happens. Laugh, relax, and just be in the moment – watching whatever is going on, outside or inside, in the world or in the mind. You are neither the world nor the mind. You are behind all, just a pure watching consciousness.”

ImaginationEnlightenmentWitness
Book:Watch and Wait: relaxing and waking up - instinct and intuition
Create image

“The whole of history is the history of murderers. If you become a murderer, fame will be very easy. You can become a prime minister, you can become a president—but these are all masks. Behind them you will find very violent people, terribly violent people hiding, smiling. Those smiles are political, diplomatic. If the mask slips, you will always see Genghis Khan, Tamerlane, Nadir Shah, Napoleon, Alexander, Hitler, hiding behind.”

HistoryViolenceFameMasks
Book:Creativity: Unleashing the Forces Within
Create image

“[A sannyasin returning to the West, expressed sadness at the thought of leaving Osho.] Osho : Sadness is also good. One has to learn that everything is good. Sadness goes to the very depths of your being, reaches to the very centre, penetrates you to the very heart. God comes to you in everything, in different forms and different ways. Sometimes He comes as sadness to give you depth. Sometimes He comes as happiness to create ripples of laughter on your surface. Sometimes He comes as life, sometimes as death, but only He is coming through different forms. Multi are His forms, many are His ways, and millions are His faces. One has to learn to recognise Him in whatsoever form He comes. When He comes as sadness, remember that is also His image. Maybe this is needed right now. There was one sufi mystic, Bayazid, who used to pray to God every day, expressing thanks and gratitude. Sometimes there was nothing to be thankful for. One time he and his disciples were hungry for three days. But again, that evening, Bayazid thanked God. One disciple said, 'This is too much. We cannot tolerate it! For what are you thanking God?' Bayazid had been saying, 'You are so good, my Lord. Whatsoever we need, you always give us.' The disciple said 'Now it is going too far. For three days we have been hungry and have been thrown out of every village, and people have been out to kill us. And You are saying "Whatsoever is needed, you always give us"! Now what has He given us for these three days?' Bayazid laughed and said, 'He has given us three days' poverty, and hunger and people who are after our lives. Whatsoever is needed, He always gives. This is needed. This must be needed because He knows better than we.' This is the religious attitude. The religious attitude is very alchemical - it transforms everything. The baser metal is immediately transformed into gold once you have the religious outlook. The religious outlook is the philosopher's stone. You touch anything and immediately it becomes gold. So touch your sadness with a religious, grateful heart, and suddenly you will see that even sadness has a beauty to it. A silence will immediately settle around you and you will feel thankful that He has given sadness to you. He always gives in the right moment whatsoever was needed. You may not understand. Sometimes you may even misunderstand, but that doesn't make any difference. For these few months that you will be away, try to recognise Him in every form...”

SadnessTransformationGod In Everything
Book:Beloved of my heart: A Darshan diary
Create image

“..life in its totality is good. And when you understand life in its totality, only then can you celebrate; otherwise not. Celebration means: whatsoever happens is irrelevant -- I will celebrate. Celebration is unconditional; I celebrate life. It brings unhappiness -- good, I celebrate it. It brings happiness -- good, I celebrate it. Celebration is my attitude, unconditional to what life brings. When I say 'Celebrate', you think one has to be happy. How can one celebrate when one is sad? I am not saying that one has to be happy to celebrate. Celebration is gratefulness for whatsoever life gives to you. Whatsoever God gives to you, celebration is a gratitude; it is a gratefulness. I have told you and I will tell you again.... A Sufi mystic was very poor, hungry, rejected, tired of the journey. He went to a village in the night and the village wouldn't accept him. The village belonged to the orthodox people... They wouldn't even give him shelter in the town. The night was cold and he was hungry, tired, shivering with not enough clothes. He was sitting outside the town under a tree. His disciples were sitting there with great sadness, depression, even anger. And then he started praying and he said to God, 'You are wonderful! You always give me whatsoever I need.' This was too much. A disciple said, 'Wait, now you are going too far, particularly on this night. These words are false. We are hungry, tired, with no clothes, and a cold night is descending. There are wild animals all around and we are rejected by the town, we are without shelter. For what are you giving your thankfulness to God? What do you mean when you say, "You always give me whatsoever I need?"' The mystic said, 'Yes, I repeat it again: God gives me whatsoever I need. Tonight I need poverty, tonight I need being rejected, tonight I need to be hungry, in danger. Otherwise, why should He give it to me? It must be a need. It is needed and I have to be grateful. He looks after my needs so beautifully. He is really wonderful!' This is an attitude that is unconcerned with the situation. The situation is not relevant. Celebrate, whatsoever the case. If you are sad, then celebrate because you are sad. Try it. Just give it a try and you will be surprised -- it happens. You are sad? -- start dancing because sadness is so beautiful, such a silent flower of being. Dance, enjoy, and suddenly you will feel that the sadness is disappearing, a distance is created. By and by, you will forget sadness and you will be celebrating. You have transformed the energy.”

SadnessTransformationCelebration
Book:Yoga: The Alpha and the Omega Volume 4
Create image

“Make it a point: stop affirming negativities and start affirming positivities. Within a few weeks you will be surprised that you have a magical key in your hands. For example, if you get sad easily, then every night before you go to sleep affirm twenty times silently, deeply, to yourself but loud enough so that you can hear it, that you are going to be joyous, that this is going to happen, this is already on the way. You have lived your last sadness... good-bye! Repeat it twenty times and then fall asleep.”

PainSadnessMiseryWay To Happy
Book:Let go!: A darshan diary
Create image

“Really it is one truth, sometimes seen as happiness and other times as suffering. In reality, pleasure and pain are just our interpretations, psychological interpretations. They are not real situations, they are largely interpretations of them. And it depends on us how we interpret something. And there may be a thousand interpretations of the same thing. It all depends on us.”

HappinessSadnessPrespective
Book:Krishna: The Man and his Philosophy
Create image

“One of the mystics in India, Kabir, was a weaver. He had thousands of followers and still he continued to weave clothes. Even kings were his followers. The king of Varanasi asked him, "Master, it doesn't look good, it makes us feel embarrassed. We can take care of you. There is no need for you to weave clothes and every week on market day, go into the market to sell your clothes. Just think of us: people laugh at us." Kabir said, "I can understand your problem but I have only one talent and that is to weave beautiful clothes. If I stop doing it, who will do it? And God comes in different faces, in different bodies, to purchase clothes every week in the marketplace." He used to address every customer, "Lord, be very careful of the cloth. I have been weaving it, not just like any other weaver -- my songs are in it and my soul is in it. I have poured my whole being in it. Be careful, use it with tenderness and love and remember: Kabir has woven it especially for you, Lord." And it was not something that he was addressing to anybody in particular -- any customer! This was his contribution. He used to say to his disciples, "What else can I do? I am doing my best: I can weave, I can sing, I can dance -- and I am immensely contented." Whatever you are doing, if there is contentment and a feeling that this whole existence is nothing but the manifestation of godliness, that we are traveling on holy earth, that whomever you are meeting, you are meeting God -- there is no other way; only faces are different, but the inner reality is the same -- all your tensions will disappear. And the energy that is involved in tensions will start becoming your grace, your beauty. Then life will not be just an ordinary, routine, day-to-day existence, but a dance from cradle to grave. And existence will be immensely enriched by your grace, by your relaxation, by your silence, by your awareness.”

GodSilenceBeautyGraceAwarenessRelaxKabirOmnipresent
Author:Osho
Create image

“...religion is an insight, insight into the beauty of existence, insight into the tremendous mystery that surrounds us, insight into your own being and into the beings of others. We are trying to live a meditative life, working in the ordinary way but working it with a different quality. People are working in the kitchen, cleaning the toilets, or in the carpentry shop or in the boutique or in the bakery or in the garden - just the ordinary kind of activities, but with a different quality: with a joy, with silence, with love, with bliss, with a dance in their heart, with celebration. ...that is true religion: to be able to celebrate life is religion. In that very celebration you come close to God. If one is able to celebrate, God is not far away... God appears only in deep celebration, when you are so full of joy that all misery has left you, all darkness has left you. When you are so full that there is no emptiness in you, that you have started feeling the significance of the ordinary, day-to-day existence, when moment to moment you live totally, intensely, passionately, then God is available. It is not philosophy in the ordinary sense.. It is philosophy in the truest sense of the word - philosophy means love for wisdom; then it is philosophy. Religion, the word, very word, means to be in tune. It comes from RELIGERE: to be in deep harmony with the whole, to be married with the whole, to be related with the whole, to forget your ego and your separation.”

PhilosophyGodJoyReligionSilenceEgoOnenessBlissCelebration
Author:Osho
Create image

“...unless you realize the inner light, you will not know that which is beyond death. In a sense it is beyond death and beyond life also. Only then does it become immortal. That which is born will have to die; that which is alive will be dead. So only that can be beyond death which is beyond life itself. Light is beyond life and beyond death. Whenever mystics have been talking about light, they always talk about deathlessness, because the moment you enter the inner light, the source of life, you enter deathlessness. So unless you are bathed in your own inner light, and in the nectar, in the immortality which belongs to that light, you are not ready to enter the Divine temple. When Krishna showed his infiniteness to Arjuna, Arjuna said, "I don't see you, Krishna, I see only light. Where have you gone? I see only thousands and thousands of suns - and I am scared. You come back!" When one enters into the inner light... it is there, because without it you cannot be. Nothing can be. You are, so you have a deep realm of light. The moment you enter it, you are bathed. and this bath means many things. Ordinarily, when you enter a temple, outwardly you take a bath. You take a bath because dirt can be washed from the body, and you can enter into the temple with a purer body - fresh, undirty, clean. But when you are really entering into the Divine temple. your body is not entering: your consciousness is entering. And you cannot bathe your consciousness with water. But consciousness can have a deep cleansing in inner light, and that deep cleansing means cleansing the dirt of all karma - all actions. Whatsoever you have done, whatsoever you have been, whatsoever your past has been. it dings to you - just like dirt, just like dust, it clings to you. When you enter inner light, it disappears. Why? Because the moment you enter that inner light, everything takes the velocity of light and nothing can remain. The dirt, the dirt of karmas, dissolves - all that you have done in all your lives. When you enter that realm, everything becomes light, because with light, in that velocity, nothing can remain anything else. So it is not simply a bath. All the karmas, just disappear, they become light, and the consciousness is cleaned. It becomes fresh and young as it should be, as it is meant to be.”

SoulImmortalityDivinityInner LightArjunaLord KrishnaDeathlessnessKarmas
Author:Osho
Create image

“If you simply see the wave, it is impermanent. If you look deep into it and you can find the ocean, it is eternal. The eternal is not permanent, the eternal is beyond time. 'Permanent' means staying longer in time; but what does it matter whether you are a sannyasin for one day or one year or one thousands years - what does it matter? The impermanent is impermanent - one day, one year, one thousand years. Seek something which is beyond time. Then once it is there you know: it has always been there, and it will be always there. The eternal is your innermost nature, SWABHAVA. It is your innermost being.”

SoulEternalPermanentReal Self
Author:Osho
Create image

“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.”

MeditationEnlightenmentZen
Author:Osho
Create image

“Zen people don't bother about logic; they live the ultimate paradox. They go on saying there is no teaching and truth cannot be taught, and still Zen Masters are there and Zen disciples are there. And people have raised questions, skeptical people have always raised questions that: "What is this? On the one hand you say truth cannot be taught, and on the other hand why you initiate, why you accept people?" And the Zen Masters have always laughed, because this paradox cannot be explained. If you want to know it really you have to become a disciple, you have to become a participant, you have to become part of the mystery; only then you will have the taste of it. It is a taste; no explanation can help.”

LogicZenParadoxZen BuddhismEastern Philosophy
Book:I am that
Create image

“Life is very simple. Just sometimes put your head away, sometimes behead yourself, sometimes look with no clouds in the eyes - just look. Sometimes sit by the side of a tree - just feel. By the side of a waterfall - listen. Lie down on the beach and listen to the roar of the ocean, feel the sand, the coolness of it, or look at the stars, and let that silence penetrate you. Or look at the dark night and let that velvety darkness surround you, envelop you, dissolve you. This is the way of the simple heart.”

BuddhismMindfulnessZenDhamma
Book:The Buddha Said...: Meeting the Challenge of Life's Difficulties
Create image

“We will be entering the beautiful world of a Zen master's no-mind. Sosan is the third Zen Patriarch. Nothing much is known about him- this is as it should be, because history records only violence. History does not record silence- it cannot record it. All records are of disturbance. Whenever someone becomes really silent, he disappears from all records, he is no more a part of our madness. So it is as it should be. Ch. 1: The Great Way Is Not Difficult”

ZenOshoBhagwan Shree Rajneesh
Book:Hsin Hsin Ming: The Book of Nothing
Create image

“The more you share, the more you grow. And the more you share, the more you have - whatsoever it is. It is not only a question of money. If you have knowledge, share it. If you have meditation, share it! If you have love, share it. WHATSOEVER you have, share it, spread it all over; let it spread like the fragrance of a flower going to the winds. It has nothing to do particularly with poor people. Share with anybody that is available... and there are different types of poor people. A rich man may be poor because he has never known any love. Share love with him. A poor man may have known love but has not known good food - share food with him. A rich man may have everything and has no understanding - share your understanding with him; he is also poor. There are a thousand and one types of poverty. Whatsoever you have, share it. If you want to really enjoy your food, you will have to call friends. If you REALLY want to enjoy food, you will have to invite guests; otherwise you will not be able to enjoy it. If you really want to enjoy drinking, how can you enjoy it alone in your room? You will have to find friends, other drunkards. You will have to share! Joy is always a sharing. Joy does not exist alone. How can you be happy alone? absolutely alone - think! HOW can you be happy, absolutely alone? No. Joy is a relationship. It is a togetherness. In fact, even those people who have moved to the mountains and have lived an alone life, they also share with existence - not alone. They share with the stars and the mountains and the birds and the trees - they are not alone. Just think! For twelve years Mahavir was standing in the jungles alone - but he was not alone. I say to you, on authority, he was not alone. The birds were coming and playing around, and the animals would come and sit around, and the trees would shower their flowers on him, and the stars would come, and the sun would rise. And the day and the night, and summer and winter... and the whole year around... it was joy! For twelve years Mahavir was silent: standing, sitting, with the rocks and the trees, but he was not alone - he was crowded by the whole existence. The whole existence was merging upon him. He had gone beyond. Jain scriptures talk only about the fact that he left the world, they don't talk about the fact that he came back into the world; that is only half the story, that is not the full story. Buddha went into the forest, but he came back. How can you go on being there when you HAVE it? You will have to come back and share it. Share! Whatsoever you have, share... and it will grow. That is a fundamental law: the more you give, the more you get. Never be a miser in giving.”

JoyTogethernessBuddhaGiving And ReceivingMahavirGiving And Sharing
Author:Osho
Create image

“BUKKO SAID: TAKING THINGS EASILY AND WITHOUT FORCING, AFTER SOME TIME THE RUSH OF THOUGHT, OUTWARD AND INWARD, SUBSIDES NATURALLY, AND THE TRUE FACE SHOWS ITSELF. That's what I have been telling you. To be a buddha is not a difficult job. It is not some achievement for which you need a Nobel Prize. It is the easiest thing in the world, because it has already happened without your knowing. The buddha is already breathing in you. Just a little recognition, just a little turning inwards... and that has not to be done forcibly. If you do it forcibly you will miss the point. It is very delicate. You have to look inward playfully, not seriously. That's what he means by "taking things easily." Don't take anything seriously. Existence is very easy. You have got your life without any effort, you are living your life without any effort. You are breathing perfectly well without being reminded; your heartbeat continues even in your sleep -- so easy is existence with you! But you are not so easy with existence. You are very close-fisted. You want everything to be turned into an 'achievement'. Enlightenment cannot be an achievement. That which you have already -- how can it be an achievement? The authentic master simply takes away things which you don't have and you believe you have, and he gives you that which you already have. You are having many things which you don't have at all, you just believe that you have them. The master's function is that of a surgeon, to cut all that is not you and leave behind just the essential core -- the eternal being. It is a very easy phenomenon; you can do it on your own. There are no problems and no risk in taking things easily, but people take things very tensely. They take things very seriously, and that spoils the whole game. And remember, life is a game. Once you understand it as a game, a deep playfulness arises on its own accord. The victory is not the point; the point is to play totally, joyously, dancingly. What is called playfulness is very essential in the inquiry of your own being.”

JoyExistenceAchievementEnlightenmentBuddhaLife Is A GameTurning Inward
Book:The Buddha: The Emptiness of the Heart
Create image

“I don’t divide ordinary life from spiritual life. They are one, they are inseparably one. To separate them is to create a split humanity, a schizophrenic humanity. Life is a unity, an organic unity, indivisible. Nothing is higher and nothing is lower. There is no hierarchy, everything exists simultaneously on the same plane. So nothing has to be renounced, nothing has to be rejected. Of course everything has to be transformed and transformed through love, transformed through bliss, transformed through joy.”

LoveJoyUnityBlissTransform
Book:First in the Morning: 365 Uplifting Moments to Start the Day Consciously
Create image

“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.”

Life And Living
Author:Osho
Create image

“LIFE is in living. It is not a thing, it is a process. There is no way to attain to life except by living it, except by being alive, by flowing, streaming with it. If you are seeking the meaning of life in some dogma, in some philosophy, that Is the sure way to miss life and meaning both. Life is not somewhere waiting for you, it is happening in you. It is not in the future as a goal to be arrived at, it is herenow, this very moment - in your breathing, circulating in your blood, beating in your heart. Whatsoever you are is your life, and if you start seeking meaning somewhere else, you will miss it.”

LivingMeaning Of Life
Author:Osho
Create image

“You may have read or heard about the so-called positive thinkers of the West. They say just the opposite -- they don't know what they are saying. They say, "When you breathe out, throw out all your misery and negativity; and when you breathe in, breathe in joy, positivity, happiness, cheerfulness." Atisha's method is just the opposite: when you breathe in, breathe in all the misery and suffering of all the beings of the world -- past, present and future. And when you breathe out, breathe out all the joy that you have, all the blissfulness that you have, all the benediction that you have. Breathe out, pour yourself into existence. This is the method of compassion: drink in all the suffering and pour out all the blessings. And you will be surprised if you do it. The moment you take all the sufferings of the world inside you, they are no longer sufferings. The heart immediately transforms the energy. The heart is a transforming force: drink in misery, and it is transformed into blissfulness... then pour it out. Once you have learned that your heart can do this magic, this miracle, you would like to do it again and again. Try it. It is one of the most practical methods -- simple, and it brings immediate results. Do it today, and see. That is one of the approaches of Buddha and all his disciples. Atisha is one of his disciples, in the same tradition, in the same line. Buddha says again and again to his disciples, "IHI PASSIKO: come and see!" They are very scientific people. Buddhism is the most scientific religion on the earth; hence, Buddhism is gaining more and more ground in the world every day. As the world becomes more intelligent, Buddha will become more and more important. It is bound to be so. As more and more people come to know about science, Buddha will have great appeal, because he will convince the scientific mind -- because he says, "Whatsoever I am saying can be practiced." And I don't say to you, "Believe it," I say, "Experiment with it, experience it, and only then if you feel it yourself, trust it. Otherwise there is no need to believe.”

MagicSelf HelpPositive ThinkingMysticismBuddhaOsho
Book:The Book of Wisdom
Create image

“If you look into a madman’s eyes and into the eyes of a mystic, there is some similarity – something vast, something undefined, something nebulous, something like a chaos out of which stars are born. The mystic and the madman have some similarity. All madmen may not be mystics, but all mystics are mad. By “mad” I mean they have gone beyond mind. The madman may have fallen below mind, and the mystic may have gone beyond mind, but one thing is similar – both are not in their minds.”

SpiritualityMadnessMadMysticism
Author:Osho
Create image