According to Osho, the two are opposites: mind is consciousness in motion, an ongoing stream of activities and vibrations, while soul is consciousness at complete rest, vibrationless and still. Mind is not a thing but activity itself; when all mental movements cease and awareness is perfectly steady, that same consciousness is realized as soul.
Your busy thoughts are called mind; when all that busyness stops and you’re just quietly aware, that’s your soul.
From the Discourses
Passages where Osho speaks to this question — each links to the complete discourse.
Osho, are the two opposites?
Yes, the two are opposites. Its moving condition, its dynamic state, is the mind; and its settled, vibrationless stillness is the soul. The mind is not a thing; the mind is activity. So as long as the consciousness within us is active, that accumulated stream of activities is called the mind. And when consciousness has become inactive and activities have dropped to zero, that inactive consciousness is called the soul. Active consciousness is mind; perfectly stilled, steady consciousness is the soul.
Osho, are mind, intellect (buddhi), chitta, and ego (ahamkar) distinct things—separate entities—or one and the same? And is the soul different from these, or is their aggregate itself called the soul? Among these, which is inert and which is conscious? And where exactly are they located in the body?
It’s like asking: is the father different, the son different, the husband different? No—the person is one. But before some he is a father, before others a son, before others a husband; before some he is a friend, before others an enemy; to some he appears beautiful, to others not; to some he is master, to others servant. If we had never visited that house and someone told us, “Today I met the master,” another said, “Today I met the servant,” a third said, “I met the father,” and a fourth, “The husband was at home,” we might think many people live there—some master, some father, some husband. The person is one. Our mind behaves in many ways. When it stiffens and declares, “I am everything; no one else is anything,” it appears as ego—ahamkar. That is one mode of the mind’s functioning. When the mind thinks—reasons—it is buddhi, intellect.…
Is this difference -- the difference in their stages -- due to their own choice, or is it their destiny?
To me, the solution to the whole problem takes on a different shape. Do not divide them. They are not two, they are already one -- they have always been one. When the energy becomes conscious it is soul, when it becomes unconscious it becomes body. Sometimes you are more a soul and less a body, sometimes you are more a body and less a soul. This flickering back and forth between one and the other goes on continuously. In the morning you may be more a soul, in the evening you are more a body. When you are in anger you are more a body, when you are in love you are more a soul. The degrees change continuously. When you meditate your consciousness expands and your body shrinks; when you take an intoxicant your consciousness shrinks and your body expands. Body and consciousness are two poles of one…
Osho, in that timeless interval you have described what happens to the soul. But what is the soul’s disembodied form? Is it still or does it wander? How does it recognize other familiar souls? And is there any possibility of dialogue in that state?
Ask: in a dream are you still or moving? It is hard to say. Waking, you find you lay still in bed; yet within the dream there was great movement. Strictly speaking, even movement in dreams is not real. If you understand precisely, in dreams you are not a participant but only a witness. You can see yourself dying in a dream; you can see your own corpse. Even when you see yourself walking, what you see walking is only the dream; you remain the seer. Properly understood, in dream you are only the witness. Hence religion devised a maxim: one who comes to see the world as dream-like attains the supreme realization. Philosophies calling the world maya or dream arose for this reason: if we can see the world as a dream, we become the witness. In dreams there is never a participant; there is always a witness. You…
Question: Osho, can spirituality and materialism be reconciled? Science says the soul is not a thing at all: in fact, “soul” is just another name for thought. There is no such entity as a soul—only an empty word. No one has seen the soul; it is only “experienced,” and you can’t transfer an experience to someone else. It’s just a theory. Whoever claims to have experiences ends up with a private, different notion of the soul; everyone who believes themselves to be a soul has their own idea. That’s what these scientists say, and the mind gets confused about who is telling the truth. We talk about the soul though no one has seen it to this day. And Marxism says there are two united elements. We take there to be only one; nothing else exists. But Marxism posits two: energy and matter—conjoined, inseparable.