According to Osho, the absolute cannot be defined from within the relative; any statement remains a relative description. The ultimate is an undefinable isness where all opposites—day/night, birth/death—melt into one. Science and language map the relative, not the source. The absolute is to be lived, sensed in silence and wonder, not systematized.
You can name things like day and night, but what makes everything exist is too big for names—you can only feel it.
From the Discourses
Passages where Osho speaks to this question — each links to the complete discourse.
Osho, doesn’t that which is absolute also become relative in relation to the relative?
It does not. It does not, because—what does “relative” mean? That which is other than the absolute. No, no! Here is the real difficulty: not “other than the absolute.” The relative does not mean separate from the absolute. Relative means that for its experience a second is needed. Understand this clearly: for its experience, the other is required. It cannot be experienced on its own; it can only ever be a relative experience. For example, I say, “This water is hot.” The word “hot” can never be absolute, because without “cold” it has no existence. It could even happen that I warm up one hand and cool the other on ice; then I put both hands into the same water, and to one hand the water feels hot, to the other it feels cold. That is the relative. The same water, the same vessel, one hand warm and one cold—when…
Last night you said that the absolute cannot be defined by any system. However, in the relative domain of life on earth, are not seeds and seasons part of a discernable mechanism through which this limited existence functions?
He used to write letters to the president, to the prime minister, to the governor... and he would show me his letters -- ten pages, twenty pages of dictionary... just words. You could not make any sense of what he was writing, because not a single sentence was there. And he would say, "What is the matter? I go on writing to these people -- nobody answers me." I said, "Nobody can understand your letters, they are so mysterious. You do one thing." He brought a letter -- twenty pages he had written to Pandit Jawaharlal Nehru. I said, "You write a small summary, because the prime minister may not have the time for twenty pages. So give a small summary -- half a page of just the essential points." After seven days, he said, "That is not possible. I cannot make the summary, because I don't know myself what…
I absolute and relative -- he who knows these two together, through the relative leaves death behind and through the absolute gains immortality.
THE THRESHOLD OF REALITY IS VEILED BY GOLDEN LIGHT. REVEAL IT, O LORD, FOR MY DHARMA IS TO KNOW THE TRUTH. O LORD OF LIGHT, THE KNOWING ONE, THE GOLDEN GUARDIAN, GIVER OF LIFE TO ALL, SPREAD APART THY RAYS, GATHER UP THY BRILLIANCE, THAT I MAY PERCEIVE THY FINEST AND MOST SPLENDROUS NATURE, THAT COSMIC SPIRIT WHICH LIES AT THY HEART. FOR I MYSELF AM THAT! LET MY BREATH MERGE WITH THE COSMIC BREATH, MAY MY BODY BE AS DUST, REMEMBER, O MIND, REMEMBER WHAT HAS BEEN DONE. REMEMBER, O MIND, REMEMBER WHAT HAS BEEN DONE. O AGNI, SHOW US THE RIGHT PATH, LEAD US TO ETERNAL FREEDOM, THOU WHO KNOWEST ALL. MAY WE NOT BE DIVERTED FROM OUR GOAL, FOR WITH ALL DEVOTION WE SUBMIT OURSELVES TO THEE. AUM PURNAMADAH PURNAMIDAM PURNAT PURNAMUDACHYATE PURNASYA PURNAMADAYA PURNAMEVA VASHISYATE. When I was a student, one of my professors in the…
What is your conception of absolute truth?
No conception about absolute truth is possible because every conception is bound to be relative. The absolute transcends every conceptualization; you cannot conceive it. You can live it, you can be in it, but no intellectual conception is possible about the absolute. All conceptions are bound to be erroneous because conception, as such, is relative. So I can not say what my conception of the absolute is. I am only say that no conception is possible. The moment you go beyond conceptions, you know the absolute. But even when you have known it, you cannot transform it into a conception. The so-called religious mind is always conceptualizing, but the really religious man is one who has come to know the boundaries of intelligence, the boundaries of intellect, the boundary of conceptions. The absolute is beyond. Or you can say the beyondness is the absolute. I am not a philosopher; I…
Question: ON THE ABSOLUTE TAO THE TAO THAT CAN BE TOLD OF IS NOT THE ABSOLUTE TAO ON THE RISE OF RELATIVE OPPOSITES WHEN THE PEOPLE OF THE EARTH ALL KNOW BEAUTY AS BEAUTY, THERE ARISES (THE RECOGNITION OF) UGLINESS. WHEN THE PEOPLE OF THE EARTH ALL KNOW GOOD AS GOOD, THERE ARISES (THE RECOGNITION OF) EVIL. THEREFORE: BEING AND NON-BEING INTERDEPEND IN GROWTH; DIFFICULT AND EASY INTERDEPEND IN COMPLETION; LONG AND SHORT INTERDEPEND IN CONTRAST; HIGH AND LOW INTERDEPEND IN POSITION; TONES AND VOICE INTERDEPEND IN HARMONY; FRONT AND BEHIND INTERDEPEND IN COMPANY. THEREFORE THE SAGE: MANAGES AFFAIRS WITHOUT ACTION; PREACHES THE DOCTRINE WITHOUT WORDS; ALL THINGS TAKE THEIR RISE, BUT HE DOES NOT TURN AWAY FROM THEM; HE GIVES THEM LIFE, BUT DOES NOT TAKE POSSESSION OF THEM; HE ACTS, BUT DOES NOT APPROPRIATE; ACCOMPLISHES, BUT CLAIMS NO CREDIT.