According to Osho, there is nothing to escape: form is also God. True transcendence is not leaving form but understanding that surface and depth, world and God, are one. See without prejudice, relax into what is, and love what you touch and see; then the formless shines through form. This understanding dissolves duality, tuning you instantly to the Creator’s essence, here and now.
Don’t try to escape shapes and bodies; look and love what’s here, and you’ll feel the hidden God inside it.
From the Discourses
Passages where Osho speaks to this question — each links to the complete discourse.
Can a disciple transcend form and be in tune with the essence of the creator?
When you touch the hand of somebody you love, it is not only a touch of the skin, something is touched which is beyond the skin, behind the skin. Some pulse, some vibe, simply jumps from one hand to another, something of the spiritual. Look into the eyes of somebody that you love and you are not looking only into the eyes -- something deeper opens, something abysmal opens. By and by the body starts disappearing. You are getting into the spiritual. But the body is the door. It is exactly like a temple. You enter a temple... what do you mean by the word 'temple'? The door, the walls -- do you mean that? Of course, the door and the walls are not the temple, the temple is the emptiness inside. That's where you go. But those doors and those walls protect that emptiness, that shrine. If those walls…
Osho, you are in the sun, you are in the moon; all around it is only you, only you. Without knowing and without asking, I found such a source of bliss that I drowned in it. But you say that even this has to be transcended. Why would anyone deliberately lose such bliss? Nirupama has asked:
It’s true: when one finds bliss, who would agree to lose it! Understand, though. There is a pleasure the world promises—but it never arrives. Hope is spun that happiness will come; what comes is sorrow. At the door it says “Happiness”; once inside, you meet suffering. The world’s pleasure is false. The bliss of the Divine is true. Between the two stands the Master. The Master is the doorway—the point from which you enter the Divine from the side of the world. The Master is like a traveler, weary under the sun, who rests in the shade of a tree—like sitting down in the cool shade. But this is a halt, not the destination. Joy will come—great joy. You had not known joy in the world; therefore, in the Master’s presence, in love for the Master, through the Master’s grace, you will taste much joy. And since you have known…
Osho, it is said, “bhaktya anuvritya.” Then devotion must be to a form. The sun is manifest with form in the sun realm; in the same way, why is God not with form?
Who said God is not with form? All forms are his. God has no form of his own. You are looking for God’s own form; that is why the question arises as to why God is not with form. In the tree, God is a tree; in the bird, a bird; in the waterfall, a waterfall; in a man, a man; in a stone, a stone; in a flower, a flower. If you look for God’s particular form, you will go on missing. The one to whom all forms belong cannot have a form of his own. Now this is quite a curious thing. It means: the one of whom all forms are, he himself can only be formless. It sounds a bit upside down: the one who has all forms is formless! How could the one of whom all names are, have a name of his own? The one…
Image spirit simultaneously within and around you until the entire universe spiritualizes.
WITH YOUR ENTIRE CONSCIOUSNESS IN THE VERY START OF DESIRE, OF KNOWING, KNOW. O SHAKTI, EACH PARTICULAR PERCEPTION IS LIMITED, DISAPPEARING IN OMNIPOTENCE. IN TRUTH FORMS ARE INSEPARATE. INSEPARATE ARE OMNIPRESENT BEING AND YOUR OWN FORM. REALIZE EACH AS MADE OF THIS CONSCIOUSNESS. You are here listening to me. This very listening can become a transformation. If you are entirely here, this very moment here and now, if listening is your entirety, that listening will become a meditation: you will enter a different realm of ecstasy, a separate reality. But you are not entire. That is the problem with the human mind, it is always partial. A part is listening. Other parts may be somewhere else, or may be asleep, or may be thinking about what is being said, or arguing inside. That creates a division and division is a dissipation of energy. So when doing anything bring your entire…
Osho, scriptures point; they do not preach. You both point and preach. Yet I don’t see myself arriving anywhere. What mistake am I making day after day? What do I keep missing?
Under nama comes everything taught by others. Under rupa comes your own natural delusions—like thinking, “I am a man.” Certainly no one had to tell you that you are a man. You are a man because the shape and form of your body are male; the organs are male. You are a woman because the organs are female. No one had to teach you this. Even if no one told you you are a man, one day you would discover it on your own. This is rupa—form. It is something you can discover by yourself. But have you ever closed your eyes and looked within to see: can consciousness be male or female? Is your awareness a woman or a man? Sometimes you are a child, sometimes young, sometimes old. Have you ever noticed within that your consciousness turns from young to old? When does that happen? From child to…