Mind
The mind serves as the crucial bridge between the earthly and the eternal, capable of both binding us in attachment and elevating us to liberation; it is through skillful engagement with our thoughts that we transcend into the peace of no-mind, embracing life fully rather than escaping it.
Explore Depth →No-Mind
In the profound stillness of no-mind, where the boundaries of 'I' and 'God' dissolve, a silent prayer emerges—a wordless gratitude that unites meditation and devotion, inviting all seekers, like rivers, to merge into the ocean of oneness.
Explore Depth →From the Discourses
Where Osho draws this distinction himself — each passage links to the complete discourse.
Beloved Osho, is there any difference between the state of no-mind and being present?
Just leave the mind aside ... But we are against the body, we are very condemnatory of the body, not knowing at all that this condemnation of the body is breaking the bridge to your being. A man of authentic spirituality is deeply in love with his body, because he knows body shares many things with being. Mind shares nothing, either with body or with being. It is an absolute stranger that has been forcibly put into you by the culture, the religion, the society. They are using the mind to enslave you. And because you are in the mind you continuously go on asking about things of which you have no experience. You don't know what no-mind is, except a word. You don't know what presence of being is, except that you have heard about it. Just words won't do. Move away from the mind ... And when I…
Beloved Osho, what is the difference between the emptiness of the child before the formation of the ego and the awakened childlikeness of a buddha?
Whether you are for it or against it doesn't matter -- your concern shows where your ego is hanging. And I will include the capitalist in it also: his whole concern is how to gather money, hoard money -- because money has power over matter. You can purchase any material thing through money. You cannot purchase anything spiritual, you cannot purchase anything that has any intrinsic value; you can purchase only things. If you want to purchase love, you cannot purchase; but you can purchase sex. Sex is the material part of love. Through money, matter can be purchased, possessed. Now you will be surprised: I include the communist and the capitalist both in the same category, and they are enemies, just as I include Charvaka and Mahatma Gandhi in the same category, and they are enemies. They are enemies, but their concern is the same. The capitalist is trying…
Osho: To think is the nature of the mind. And if you don't think then there is no mind. A state of no-mind comes, then you know. That is nature, this too is nature; that is not against this nature which creates ignorance, creates unknowing, creates conflict. We have not known the total mind, we have known only the mind which thinks. If you transcend it then you know the total mind -- which knows. Thinking is one thing, knowing is quite another. QUESTION: THE NATURE OF THE MIND IS TO THINK, AND THEN IT CEASES TO THINK. WHAT DO YOU DO IN ORDER TO CAUSE IT NOT TO THINK? DOES IT NATURALLY NOT THINK? Osho: If you become aware of your thinking process, then the process by and by is dissolved.
Question: BELOVED OSHO, DO NOT GRASP ANOTHER'S BOW ACTIVELY TRY TO CLEAR OUT YOUR MIND, THEN YOU WON'T GO WRONG; SINCE YOU DON'T GO WRONG, CORRECT MINDFULNESS STANDS OUT ALONE. WHEN CORRECT MINDFULNESS STANDS OUT ALONE, INNER TRUTH ADAPTS TO PHENOMENA; WHEN INNER TRUTH ADAPTS TO EVENTS AND THINGS, EVENTS AND THINGS COME TO FUSE IN INNER TRUTH. WHEN PHENOMENA FUSE WITH THEIR INNER TRUTH, YOU SAVE POWER; WHEN YOU FEEL THE SAVING, THIS IS THE EMPOWERMENT OF STUDYING THE PATH. IN GAINING POWER YOU SAVE UNLIMITED POWER; IN SAVING POWER YOU GAIN UNLIMITED POWER. THIS MATTER MAY BE TAKEN UP BY BRILLIANT, QUICK-WITTED FOLKS, BUT IF YOU DEPEND ON YOUR BRILLIANCE AND QUICK WITS, YOU WON'T BE ABLE TO BEAR UP. IT IS EASY FOR KEEN AND BRIGHT PEOPLE TO ENTER, BUT HARD FOR THEM TO PRESERVE IT.
Are mind and consciousness two separate things or is the silent mind (or the concentrated mind) what is called 'consciousness'?
IT DEPENDS. IT DEPENDS ON YOUR DEFINITION. But to me, mind is that part which has been given to you. It is not yours. Mind means the borrowed, mind means the cultivated, mind means that which the society has penetrated into you. It is not you. Consciousness is your nature; mind is just the circumference created by the society around you, the culture, your education. Mind means the conditioning. You can have a Hindu mind, but you cannot have a Hindu consciousness. You can have a Christian mind, but you can't have a Christian consciousness. Consciousness is one; it is not divisible. Minds are many because societies are many; cultures, religions are many. Each culture, each society, creates a different mind. Mind is a social by-product. And unless this mind dissolves, you cannot go within; you cannot know what is really your nature, what is authentically your existence, your consciousness.…
The Synthesis
The Intersection: Both are conditions of human awareness. The passage to enlightenment must necessarily deal with the mechanics of the mind.
The Divergence: The Mind is a continuous stream of thoughts, desires, memories, and anxieties. It is a biological survival mechanism localized in time (past and future). No-Mind is a state of pure present awareness, where thoughts have ceased but consciousness remains infinitely sharp. The mind is a machine; No-Mind is your true nature.
Osho's Synthesis: Osho asserts that the goal of meditation is not to destroy the mind, but to master it. No-Mind is not an empty, dead state, but a profoundly alive silence. When the mind is put aside, you enter No-Mind—the gateway to the divine.
No-mind sounds like a deficiency — mindlessness, blankness. In Osho's vocabulary it is the opposite: the mind is the manufactured thing, a bundle of conditioning installed by culture, religion and education, and no-mind is what you are when the installation stops running. A Hindu mind, a Christian mind, a communist mind — minds are many because societies are many; consciousness is one.
The path between them is not suppression but transcendence: thinking is the mind's nature, and watched with awareness it dissolves on its own. What remains is not stupor but knowing without thought. The sections below give the distinction in Osho's own words, each linked to the full discourse.
Mind Is the Borrowed Part
Asked whether mind and consciousness are two things, Osho separates the social implant from the native awareness underneath it.
mind is that part which has been given to you. It is not yours. Mind means the borrowed, mind means the cultivated, mind means that which the society has penetrated into you. It is not you. Consciousness is your nature; mind is just the circumference created by the society around you, the culture, your education. Mind means the conditioning.— The New Alchemy To Turn You On, Chapter 27 →
Thinking Is One Thing, Knowing Quite Another
In an early talk, Osho defines no-mind not as the death of intelligence but as its liberation — the total mind that knows, freed from the partial mind that thinks.
To think is the nature of the mind. And if you don't think then there is no mind. A state of no-mind comes, then you know.— Early Talks, Chapter 7 →
A Stranger Enforced upon You
Answering a question on no-mind and presence, Osho names the mind's real function in society — and why words about no-mind are not the experience of it.
Mind shares nothing, either with body or with being. It is an absolute stranger that has been forcibly put into you by the culture, the religion, the society. They are using the mind to enslave you. And because you are in the mind you continuously go on asking about things of which you have no experience. You don't know what no-mind is, except a word.— Sat Chit Anand, Chapter 19 →
Frequently Asked
Not blankness or stupidity, but consciousness without the conditioned thought-machine running. For Osho the mind is a social product — language, beliefs, identity, all given from outside — while consciousness is your nature. No-mind is that nature functioning directly: awake, knowing, present, with no commentary in between.
Not by force. Osho holds that thinking dissolves through awareness, not suppression: become a watcher of the thinking process and by and by it thins out on its own. Fighting thoughts is just the mind wrestling itself. His meditations — from Dynamic to silent sitting — are all devices to exhaust or sidestep the mind so the watching can begin.
Osho distinguishes using the mind from being it. Memory, language and skill remain available as instruments — a no-mind person can still do mathematics or drive a car — but the compulsive, conditioned commentary no longer runs the show. Consciousness decides; the mind serves. He describes it as the difference between a Hindu mind and the one consciousness that can never be Hindu or Christian.