According to Osho, genuine spiritual growth is irreversible: once you rise even an inch in being, you cannot be pulled back. External influences may obstruct you or keep you stuck at your present level, but they cannot undo the inner change. Progress continues or pauses; only stopping functions as 'going back.' Therefore, fear of regression is unfounded—attention should be on moving on and choosing company that doesn't stall you.
Once you truly grow inside, you can’t forget it; people may slow you, but they can’t push you backward.
From the Discourses
Passages where Osho speaks to this question — each links to the complete discourse.
Osho, because of the influence of others, can someone who has risen a little fall back down?
No, there is no way to go downward. In fact, this should be understood well. It is quite delightful—very delightful—that there is no method for going down. Wherever you have reached, you can be helped to go higher; you can also be obstructed and kept where you are; but you cannot be taken below that. The reason is that in going higher you have already changed, instantly. (The audio recording of the question is unclear.) No, no, no. The question simply does not arise. If someone has moved even an inch higher in their being, they cannot return; returning is impossible. It is like this: we can help a child move from first grade to second grade. You can hire a tutor who helps him with first grade and gets him into second. But finding a tutor who can make him forget what he learned in first—“Now we must make…
Questioner: is there no danger that our basic capital of energy will wear off even if we keep bad company? Shall we not then fall down from our high place?
There is no way to fall down or go downward. This thing really needs to be understood clearly. It is very interesting to know that there is no way to go downward or backward. You can be helped to go higher up from the place you have reached, even your rise from there can be obstructed; but there is no way to pull you down from that place. There is a reason to it. In the course of your ascent, your upward rise, you have changed, and you have grown, and even an inch of growth cannot he canceled or reversed. Retreat or regression is not possible in life. It is like this: We can help a child in being promoted from grade one to grade two; a tutor can be engaged to help him in the matter. But you cannot find a tutor who can make the child forget…
Another question has been asked: Osho, so many great ones have been born. If they have raised the world up, then why does the world keep falling back down again and again?
It is like saying, “My father was highly educated, so how can I be uneducated now? What need have I for education?” Or, “My father was a very learned man; then why should I have to study?” No—however learned your father may be, learning is not transmitted through your blood. You will have to study and learn again yourself. In the world, great people are born, great winds blow, great societies arise—but all that ends with their generation. The new generation has to begin again from the point where they began. In the life of religion, we cannot stand on anyone else’s shoulders. We must stand on our own feet. You cannot stand on the shoulders of Mahavira or Buddha and say, “We stand on their shoulders; we should be better than they.” You stand on your own feet, and Mahavira stands on his. No one can stand on another’s…
Osho, for that change to happen, do certain happenings occur somewhere in a person’s life? Do they come—right there, at the right moment?
Yes, there are happenings—certainly there are. In fact, even if you keep on becoming worse, the moment will arrive from which you will turn back. Wherever you go—everything that goes, returns; everything has a limit. But those who do not go to the limit never return. That is why I say: if a man drinks, I tell him, don’t go on drinking just a little—because then you may never be able to come back! If you must drink, then drink—and go to the very limit that seems to be the last to you. And surely you will return. For returning, the circle has to be completed. Yes, we can go to some boundary—and from there we can return. That too is a way of returning. No one ever returns from the middle. And one who returns from the middle can again fall back, because the one who turns back from…
Osho, the fall of ordinary people seems understandable. But how is it that even someone who walks the path of renunciation, dispassion, austerity, and sadhana—who has come close to the destination—can still fall into the abyss?
The ordinary person cannot really fall. Where would he fall? One who walks on level ground—even if he stumbles, where is there to fall? Only the one who tries to climb the mountain peaks can fall. To fall you need a summit. And near the summits lie hidden ravines and chasms. On level ground, on the royal road, even if someone falls, what kind of fall is it? He is already fallen. The ordinary person never becomes “fallen,” because there is nowhere left to fall. So when you say the fall of the ordinary is understandable—you have not understood. How is the ordinary to fall? He lives at the point below which no further decline is possible. He lives at zero degrees, at the very bottom. He has made the ravine itself his home. Only the extraordinary fall—those who undertake the ascent to the peaks; who strive for heights; who…