According to Osho, thought-waves are perfectly natural—expressions of the same life-energy that moves winds and oceans. They are neither sin nor flaw; they simply arise. Do not fight them; watch them. In relaxed awareness, identification drops, and thoughts pass on their own, leaving clarity and a quiet, spontaneous intelligence.
Your thoughts are like natural waves; don’t battle them—just watch, and they’ll calm down.
From the Discourses
Passages where Osho speaks to this question — each links to the complete discourse.
So the wave rises on the surface, and beneath it there is peace.
Completely natural. It should rise. When the wind pushes, a wave will rise on the surface. When you sit to work at the shop and someone comes and creates a disturbance, a thought will arise. That thought is a wave on the surface of the mind. But if you shut this down, you are as good as dead—because then you cannot do anything. And that is why the sannyasin becomes like a dead man: he runs away from wherever there is wind. Wherever the wind comes, vibrations begin. He says: stay away from money, away from woman, away from house, away from son, away from society—run off somewhere. He says this because if we stay near these, vibrations will be produced. And having kept himself aside from vibrations, he ends up in difficulty. What I say is: let the vibrations arise. That is the very meaning of life—that vibrations will…
A friend has asked: Osho, it is said that not even a leaf moves without God’s will. If that is true, then our whole life runs according to His will. Then the good and bad thoughts that arise in us, the good and bad actions that happen—are they also according to His will?! Then what is the purpose of sadhana? What meaning is there in changing oneself?
If this point truly lands, then sadhana has no further purpose. Sadhana has begun. If only this much occurs to you—that whatever is being done, God is doing it—then my sense of doership is finished. All of sadhana is only this: that my ego dissolve. Then He is doing the good, He is doing the bad. Then there is no question of good and bad at all. He is doing it—both are His doing. He gives suffering; He gives joy. Birth is His, death is His. Bondage His, liberation His. Then there is no question of me. There is no need for me to come in between. Then there is no need for sadhana—because sadhana has happened; it has begun. This very understanding becomes the supreme sadhana. This very insight cuts the root of life’s disease. For the whole disease is the ego, the notion that “I am doing.” This…
Question: Third question: Osho, how can one control thoughts? What is the need for control? To become a controller is the ego itself. Thoughts are not yours; why do you want to be their master? Thoughts come and go. They pause in you for a moment and depart. You are an inn; thoughts are guests. You are the host. What is the need to grab your guests by the throat and control them? It is in the very effort to control that people go mad. You will never become the master of thought. Yes, a certain mastery does arise—but it is not mastery over thought. It arises from knowing this truth: what have I to do with thought? They come—they go. It’s a crowd passing on the road.
As waves come with water and flames with fire, so the universal waves with us.
WHEREVER YOUR MIND IS WANDERING, INTERNALLY OR EXTERNALLY, AT THIS VERY PLACE, THIS. WHEN VIVIDLY AWARE THROUGH SOME PARTICULAR SENSE, KEEP IN THE AWARENESS. So how does everything become synthetic? Ears hear, eyes see, hands touch, the nose smells, and suddenly somewhere inside you know that this is the same man that you are hearing and seeing and touching and smelling. This knower is different from the senses. Every sense reports to this knower, and in this knower, in the center, everything falls, fits and becomes one. This is miraculous. I am one, outside you. I am one! My body and body's presence, my body odor, my speaking, are one. Your senses will divide me. Your ears will report if I say something, your nose will report if there is some odor, your eyes will report if I can be seen and am visible. They will divide me into parts.…
Osho, how does the energy of thought transform into feeling?
Therefore I am not teaching you religious thoughts. I am initiating you into no-thought. Generally, what goes on in temples and mosques is just this: people full of worldly thoughts are stuffed instead with spiritual thoughts—nothing more. But what difference does it make? You have given the disease a pious, pretty name; what changes? So long as you want to be anything, so long as you harbor the ambition to become something in the future, so long as you are eager for tomorrow, you will remain unquiet. The stream of thought will keep flowing. And as long as the stream of thought flows, you will remain cut off from God. I am telling you that religious thoughts are just as great an obstacle between you and God as worldly thoughts. Thought is the barrier; no-thought is union. Gorakh has said: See the Unseen, ponder what is seen, seat the Invisible…