According to Osho, in the ultimate reality of truth there is only freedom—events are accidental, not bound by cause and effect. The scientific, factual world runs on determinism for most people; but awakening (moksha) transcends causality, where everything becomes possible. Man’s essence is freedom, which can deepen from mind to soul, culminating in a Buddha’s total spontaneity beyond predestination.
Life isn’t a fixed machine—when you truly wake up, you’re free and surprising possibilities open up.
From the Discourses
Passages where Osho speaks to this question — each links to the complete discourse.
You sometimes use the word 'accident' or 'accidental' to describe an event. Are there any accidents in life in reality?
In reality there are only accidents and accidents, and nothing else. The factual world is the world of cause and effect; the world of truth is the world of freedom. Freedom means that causes don't work at all. Freedom means that now everything is accidental, now everything is possible. Nothing is impossible in the world of reality. From the moment you become enlightened everything becomes possible. Now no cause and effect have any hold on you. But I understand your question. It comes again from the same ideology -- that how can anything be accidental? The world is confined to cause and effect. Everything can be reduced to cause and effect. Nothing happens as a miracle. That is the scientific approach. That's why men like B. F. Skinner or Pavlov and other behaviourists go on saying that the idea of freedom is just stupid. There is no freedom. Man has…
Osho, what is the reason behind so-called accidental events?
No event is accidental. In fact, we call an event “accidental” when we cannot discover its cause. There are events whose causes elude our understanding, but no event is accidental.
Osho, ... that in bringing something into being we search out an idea and make a plan, and still there will be one thing we cannot plan for... this is an... accident.
No. I ask because, in fact, any such event only tells us this: what life is, how it unfolds, and how it comes to an end. We do not know it, nor do we seem to have any ultimate authority over it — that is all the event reveals. Only this much — so negative.
Osho, yesterday you said that jealousy is included in respect. I have immense respect for you, but the jealousy inherent in it keeps poisoning it, and I feel guilt and pain. Does reverence transcend this poison-laced respect?
It needs a little explaining—it's a delicate point. Whenever you respect someone, you do so because you see in that person something you do not have. You respect because you glimpse in the other something you would also like to possess. A beggar respects an emperor because he, too, longs to be an emperor. So on the one hand he respects, and inside he also envies. Because he is not yet an emperor but wants to be. You have attained what he wants to attain. He respects you as skillful, successful: “I stand far back in the line; you have gone ahead to where I should have been.” So you are powerful, clever, intelligent, strong—he respects you. But inside a fire of jealousy also burns—if he gets the chance, he would like to be in your place and push you aside. And if the beggar gets that chance, he will…
Question: BELOVED MASTER, CAN A PERSON BECOME ENLIGHTENED BY ACCIDENT? So when you see silver lines in black clouds, it is not just for painters and people who understand beauty and are sensitive to esthetic values. That silver line is nothing but the presence of electricity that transforms hydrogen and oxygen into water. But scientists were surprised in the beginning, because it does not take any part -- just its presence is needed. But without its presence nothing happens. So I can say to you that enlightenment is always an accident, not an effect produced by a certain cause; otherwise, things would have been very easy. Everybody could have produced the cause, all the necessary ingredients, and would have become enlightened. If the lotus posture is needed, he will do it. If standing on the head is needed, he will do it.