According to Osho, no technique can truly de-condition the brain; all 'de-programming' merely replaces one program with another. The sole way is meditation—not a technique but relaxing into your own inner silence, without guides or scriptures, until thought subsides. In that choiceless awareness, conditioning dissolves and your pure, Buddha-nature—innocent, clear, joyful—reveals itself.
You can’t erase conditioning by adding new methods; just sit quietly and let thoughts settle, and the old programs fade by themselves.
From the Discourses
Passages where Osho speaks to this question — each links to the complete discourse.
Beloved master is there any state of mind which has never been programmed at all? Or are there any techniques to de-condition our brain?
There has never been any consciousness which has not been programmed. In the very upbringing comes the programming. Even if the child is brought up not by you but by wolves in the wild, the wolves will program the child. There have been cases... Just a few years ago a child twelve years old was found who had been brought up by the wolves in the forest in north India. He could not stand even on his two feet. He ran like a wolf; even the best runner could not manage to keep pace with him. He had been programmed by the wolves. The problem is, you have to bring the child up, and somebody has to take care, and whoever is going to take care is going to, knowingly or unknowingly, condition the mind of the child. It is not a question that you have to program consciously. But…
But Osho, as I understand it, there are certain subjects like chemistry, physics, or medicine where positive values are essential. What are your views about that?
Einstein was doing an experiment. He had failed seven hundred times, yet every morning he came into the laboratory laughing, ready to begin again. The young assistant with him was exhausted. “Is this old man mad? Seven hundred failures—and again he starts fresh!” The youth was tired; he said, “We should drop this now. How many times have we been defeated?” Einstein said, “Defeated? You’re crazy—each time we have won.” “Where have we won? Every experiment has failed.” Einstein answered, “In seven hundred directions we have searched, and we now know truth is not there. We have succeeded seven hundred times. Truth is being endlessly eliminated into nearness. Suppose truth will reveal itself on the seven hundred and fifteenth attempt; then fourteen more eliminations are needed. Then only that will remain; it cannot escape. Where will it go? We have searched seven hundred paths and found it absent. That much…
In 1969 followers of the Maharishi Mahesh Yogi invited Osho to talk to them. This was the first occasion on which Osho addressed a western audience, and the first time he talked publicly at length in English. The discourse has been published in OTI January 1 & 16, 1991; and February 1, 1991. Osho: Really, there can be no method as far as meditation is concerned. Meditation is not a method. Through technique, through method, you cannot go beyond mind. When you leave all methods, all techniques, you transcend mind. So meditation itself is not a method. Truth cannot be achieved through method. Method is our own invention. We, who are ignorant, have achieved knowledge through methods constructed, created, projected, in our ignorance. Through method you can achieve a sort of self-hypnosis, a sort of auto-hypnosis. Any method, whatsoever it's name, can only give you an illusory kind of peace.
Osho, can affirmations be helpful for deconditioning the mind?
Ultimately it can happen that there is no need to have your own small boxes. Just in every country's capital -- in New Delhi, in Washington, in London -- the prime minister or the president holds the key. And every once in a while he pushes the button and the whole country goes into an orgasmic joy! Then everybody will be obedient. Nobody will break any commandments, nobody will go against them. And the whole country can be punished just by pushing a button, because just as there is a pleasure center in the brain there is a pain center in the brain. Just push the pain center and you are in such agony, you are in hell. But this is not going to bring freedom to humanity. This will be the destruction of all freedom and all possibility of freedom. It has to be stopped. Anne Halpa, affirmations, whether…
Question: BELOVED OSHO, YOU HAVE BEEN USING THE KEY WORD "DEPROGRAMMING" TO DESCRIBE YOUR WORK. THE TECHNIQUES THAT YOU HAVE SUGGESTED DURING THESE YEARS, GO FROM CHAOTIC AND DYNAMIC MEDITATION TO THE MODERN THERAPEUTIC SCHOOL. I WOULD LIKE YOU TO EXPLAIN IN BRIEF WHY YOU HAD TO CREATE NEW MEDITATION TECHNIQUES LIKE KUNDALINI MEDITATION OR DYNAMIC MEDITATION, EVEN THOUGH THERE IS A TRADITION ALREADY INCLUDING HUNDREDS OF TECHNIQUES FROM YOGA, SUFISM, BUDDHISM ETC. WHAT IS ALSO SURPRISING TO THE WEST IS THAT YOU ARE USING THERAPIES SUCH AS GESTALT, PRIMAL, ENCOUNTER, IN YOUR COMMUNE. IS IT REALLY NECESSARY? THE SUSPICION IS THAT YOUR SECRET INTENTIONS ARE NOTHING BUT TO BRAINWASH PEOPLE'S MINDS, AND THAT CANNOT BE TOLERATED BECAUSE YOU ARE TOUCHING THE MOST PRECIOUS THING THEY HAVE. And I have used them for the last fifteen years with tremendous success.