Are all our resolves false?

Osho, like Krishna, do you also tell us that all our resolves are false?

People come to me and say they are in great difficulty. If they do not take sannyas, day and night there is regret: “We are falling behind; others are moving ahead. Others are courageous; we are weak, cowardly; others are daring.” So guilt persists in the mind; there is pain. If they do take it, then troubles arise: “What mistake have I made!” People ridicule them. People say, “He too has gone mad. You have dropped your mind! Lost your intelligence!” Don’t take it, and regret catches you; take it, and regret catches you. Then what will you do? Whatever you do, regret will seize you. The meaning of regret is only this: you are divided. One part of the mind says, “Take it”; another part says, “Don’t.” Whichever of the two you obey, the one you did not obey sits inside, waiting for the right moment to say to…

Another friend has also asked: Osho, isn’t resolve just fighting with oneself?

No. In fact, it is only so long as there is no resolve that we fight with ourselves. The lack of resolve splits us in two. It can even split us into ten. What does a resolve-less person really mean? Not that he has no resolve, but that within him many self-contradictory resolves coexist. Resolve-less means: at the same time many self-contradictory resolves are inside him. He is not without resolve; he is multi-willed—filled with mutually opposing resolves. A person of resolve means that within him, at a given moment, there is only one resolve, and upon that resolve his whole consciousness is united, total, gathered. Even regarding a small matter, if the mind gathers completely—becomes total—then we cannot fight with ourselves, because no other remains within us to fight against. I can make these two hands of mine fight; they are both my hands. Half my body can side…

Osho, one small follow-up to yesterday’s discussion. You said that repeating a resolve three times declares a weak resolve. In your meditations the resolve is made three times—what is that? And will meditation practice yield knowledge, or is meditation practice itself a karma (action)?

Yet how much abuse has been hurled at the senses! How many proclamations have been made against them! And the senses are utterly sinless, innocent. No sense organ leads a human being into any act; the mind does. And when someone suppresses the senses, blocks them, and the mind no longer gets their cooperation, then it goes mad and begins to fabricate inside the very things it desired outside. If you have been hungry all day, then at night in dreams you find yourself invited to a royal banquet. The mind has made arrangements; it says, “All right then.” Toward the woman or man it restrained itself from during the day, at night the mind cannot restrain itself in dreams. Freud himself wrote in a letter—and Freud knew; he wrote it himself. It was written at about forty-five. He wrote to a friend: “Today I was astonished while walking down…

Osho, it seems that everything about me is false—every word, every thought, every feeling; love, prayer, and even laughing and crying. I am a living, breathing lie. In such a case, what now, Osho? I can no longer trust myself. Perhaps even this writing is a lie. Asked by Krishnapriya.

Suddenly you will find only ruins remain. And from those very ruins the soul rises. On the ruins of ego your real nature is born. Truth is born on the ashes of untruth. Let it happen. There will be pain—great torment. For the mind does not want to accept that all of mine is false. “Surely something must be true!” But remember: nothing “somewhat true” exists. When truth is, it is whole; or it is not. We are living by the support of falsehood because we do not know truth. And without some support, living seems impossible. We know nothing of truth—what it is. And to live, one needs some support, some excuse—so we live with the false, taking it for the true. I was reading a poem— In love’s dense bowers, under the deep shade of sadness, come, sit for a moment or two and share this afflicted heart…

Osho, in the Dwarka camp you said that meditation and samadhi are a voluntary, conscious entry into the state of death, through which the illusion of death dissolves. Then the question arises: to whom does the illusion of death occur? Does it occur to the body or to consciousness? Since the body is only an instrument, it cannot have delusive awareness; and there is no reason for consciousness to be deluded. Then what is the cause and basis of this event of delusion?

They sent word. She came very annoyed. “It’s his same old habit,” she said. “He’s grown old but hasn’t dropped it. Even at death he will create mischief.” She came with a stick, banged it on the ground and said, “Stop this devilry! If you must die, die properly!” The man laughed, came down, and said, “I was only playing a little—wanted to see what they would do. Now I will die properly, conventionally.” Then he lay down and died. His sister left, saying, “Fine, now finish the rites. There is a right way for everything; do things properly.” Our illusion about death is a social delusion. It can be broken. There are methods and arrangements to break it. And even if no one else breaks it for you, anyone who has done a little meditation will break it himself at the time of death. No outside help is needed.…