According to Osho, neither yoga nor bhakti is strictly necessary for pratyahar; inner withdrawal can arise through pure knowledge alone or pure devotion alone. Yet he advises going beyond the bare minimum: blend knowing, loving, singing, and dancing. Such abundance transforms a dry, calculated practice into living poetry, deepening pratyahar from mere effort into effortless inner flowering.
You don’t have to use both yoga and bhakti to turn inward; one true path works—but mixing love, understanding, and joy makes it easier and sweeter.
From the Discourses
Passages where Osho speaks to this question — each links to the complete discourse.
Beloved Osho, your meditation techniques include yoga and bhakti. Are both of these necessary for pratyahar?
Look at existence. The divine does not agree with having only what is absolutely necessary. He does not stop at the necessary, he goes on flowing into the unnecessary. Birds are singing, it is not necessary; trees are flowering, it is not necessary; fragrance is flowing from the flowers, it is not necessary. Rivers are flowing rapidly towards the sea, and the sea goes on roaring and its waves go on dashing against the shore. It is not necessary. Just think over what is necessary. If God had been an economist then he would have made only the necessary things in this world. Then this world would not have been fit for living; it would have been good for committing suicide only. There would have been no pleasure in living in a world which had only necessary things. You will attain by knowledge, you will attain by bhakti, but it…
Osho, in the meditation experiments you lead, there is a synthesis of yoga and devotion. So, are both necessary for pratyahara?
Life can be of two kinds: one life is built only on what is necessary; and one life is built on excess, on overflow. Watch the peacock dancing. Are those feathers, spread with the colors of the rainbow, necessary? If you cut off the feathers, would the peacock face any difficulty or hindrance in life? He would still live. Feathers are connected neither with the stream of life, nor with food, nor will they obstruct procreation. The feathers are surplus; they are a sign of more-than-needed, not of need. These birds are singing—stitch their beaks shut; will anything be lost? What difference would it make? The birds would still live. The songs would cease, because songs were never necessary—they were a flood, an exuberance. You dance—don’t dance; run your shop, come home. You sing—don’t sing. Will there be any obstacle? You love—don’t love; doing business is enough. If you don’t…
Osho, just as the sage Shandilya calls knowledge (jnana) and yoga the helpers of devotion (bhakti), do the exponents of knowledge and yoga likewise regard devotion as their helper, or not?
The devotee’s vision is more generous than the vision of the knower and the yogi. Because the source of devotion is the heart. The heart is vast; it can include even what is opposed to it. The heart does not worry about coherence; the heart cares about music. Jnana and yoga are not the ways of the heart; they are the ways of the intellect. The intellect is very narrow. The intellect chooses. Then the intellect worries about coherence, not about music—there must be logical consistency. So in Mahavira’s utterances there can be no room for devotion. His is the path of pure thought: samyak jnana, right knowledge. There only what exactly suits knowledge will be accepted. Knowledge selects, sifts; it is orderly; it has a blueprint. The devotee is not so narrow. He does not get flustered by a little inconsistency. The logician, the philosopher, is consistent—but the poet…
Osho, what attitude should a seeker of absorption and devotion (leenata and bhakti) have toward the Buddha’s insistence on awareness and the saying Appa Deepo Bhava—be a light unto yourself?
The bhakta does not worry about sin and merit. This does not mean he commits sins. The bhakta becomes so absorbed in the Divine that sins do not happen. One who has remembered God with such a heart—how will sins arise from him? Understand it this way: the bhakta does not drop sin; he takes hold of God, and sins drop by themselves. The seeker drops sin, and through the dropping of sin he finds God. The seeker must strive, grain by grain. The seeker is effort and resolve. The bhakta is surrender. The bhakta says, “Your compassion is so boundless—why should we be needlessly crushed, ‘this mistake happened, that mistake happened’? Will You really be concerned with such mistakes? Will You keep accounts of our faults? We are so small—we cannot even manage great faults!” What great wrong have you done—just think. And if God keeps accounts, then He…
Sadaadeeptih apaar amrit vrittih snaanam to be centered constantly in the inner illumination and in the infinite inner nectar is the preparatory bath for the worship.
Whatsoever you have done, whatsoever you have been, whatsoever your past has been. it dings to you -- just like dirt, just like dust, it clings to you. When you enter inner light, it disappears. Why? Because the moment you enter that inner light, everything takes the velocity of light and nothing can remain. The dirt, the dirt of karmas, dissolves -- all that you have done in all your lives. When you enter that realm, everything becomes light, because with light, in that velocity, nothing can remain anything else. So it is not simply a bath. All the karmas, just disappear, they become light, and the consciousness is cleaned. It becomes fresh and young as it should be, as it is meant to be. And when all the karmas disappear -- by "karmas" I mean the material dust that one accumulates through actions and desires and passions -- when…