According to Osho, service and compassion do not lead to God when practiced as a means; they inflate the ego and turn into self-interest. Only after the 'I' dissolves and the divide between self and other falls—upon knowing the divine—does service become authentic, effortless, and egoless, like breathing. Realization births service; service does not produce realization.
Helping people won’t make you find God if you’re doing it to be someone; first the ego must melt into the divine, then helping happens by itself.
From the Discourses
Passages where Osho speaks to this question — each links to the complete discourse.
Another friend has asked: Osho, what is the relationship between the method of meditation and jati-smaran (recollection of past lives)?
But the one who becomes skilled in this—who can fully awaken any day’s memory up to the age of five—will find that the memories begin to awaken completely. And you should test it. As today passes, note down some events and lock them up. After two years, try to recall today. Most of it will have been forgotten. Then remember—and after remembering, break the lock and compare whether what you recalled matches what you had written. You will be amazed—astonished—that besides what you wrote, many more details have come back which you did not even note at the time. They will all be there in memory. Buddha called this alaya-vijnana. There is a corner of the human mind he called the storehouse of consciousness. Like a junk room in the house where we keep all the odds and ends, there is a storehouse that collects memories—where everything from birth after…
In this connection another question has been asked: Shouldn’t self-realization come through service? Isn’t it proper that self-realization happen through service?
After him a Christian missionary arrives at the well. He looks down, the man cries out. The missionary takes a rope from his bag, ties it, lowers himself, and pulls the man out. The rescued man falls at his feet and says, “You seem a truly religious man. You have done me great kindness by saving me! But tell me, why did you have a rope in your bag?” The missionary says, “We leave home prepared. Service is our very vocation. We set out ready—someone may fall into a well, somewhere there may be a fire, something may happen—so we carry our preparations. We keep everything with us. For us, service itself is religion. Because God—Jesus—said that only those who serve will find salvation. You fell into the well—thank you; the path to our salvation became clear. Teach your children as well to fall into wells, so that our children…
Question: First question: Osho, God-realization through grace—how does it happen? It happened to Buddha without any dance. And in the two and a half millennia since Buddha, how many have sat under trees with closed eyes—and it does not happen. Sitting with closed eyes beneath a tree does not make it happen. That was a coincidence. It can happen anywhere. It happened to Tuladhar, the merchant, as he sat at his shop—while weighing on the balance it happened. It happened to Janaka as he sat upon his throne. It happened to Krishna in the very midst of the world. It happened to Mahavira after he withdrew from the world, standing naked in mountain caves. But none of these is a cause. It is not like heating water to a hundred degrees and water turns to steam—there is no such mechanism.
Osho, I too have begun to feel that it is not valuable.
If you decide to do social service—uplift the “Harijan,” redistribute land, do this and that—and you think self-realization will result, you are mistaken. Self-realization will not come from that. You may become a good and popular person; you will taste a subtle pleasure of ego—and nothing more. You will enjoy the pleasure of being “a servant,” but you will not taste the joy of service. The pleasure of the role of “servant” is one thing; the joy of service is entirely another. But if you enter religious practice, which is utterly personal, then a day will come when that sadhana will transform your life into service. Now life is self-interest; then life will be service. In self-ignorance, life is self-centered; whatever you do, some form of self-interest is present. In self-knowledge, life is service; whatever you do, self-interest cannot remain. For me, religion is fundamental; its result will surely come.…
Another sannyasin friend said, ‘Osho is supremely compassionate,’ ‘Then why this distinction in the sharing of compassion—that only a chosen few receive the prasad of his ambrosial words?’ And hearing that very remark, I was reminded of my own unworthiness and backwardness. And I have begun to fear that perhaps for this very reason Osho may, in his own way, throw me out. Kindly be gracious enough to dispel our doubts and fears.
- “I am special; hence I was chosen.” Then you have gone astray. You miss at the very threshold. - “By grace alone I, unworthy, have been chosen.” Then you are on the right path. The Sufi mystic Junayd used to say in his daily prayer, “I am amazed—there is no worthiness in me, and yet I live. I have earned nothing, and this supremely blessed life has been given to me. I am amazed, for there is no reason why such peace should shower upon me. Where people burn in such restlessness, why does this peace rain on me?” There was a strange line in his prayer: “O God, I cannot believe You are just. You must be partial toward me—showering so much on one so unworthy.” And that was his worthiness. To see oneself as unworthy is worthiness on the path of the spirit. The day you take…