People made the mind like a tool—use it to solve something, then put it down and relax back into your calm center.
From the Discourses
Passages where Osho speaks to this question — each links to the complete discourse.
All right. The navel—that is where the real center is. But the mind—did we human beings develop it ourselves?
People think that where dirty films are made, dirty books are written, obscene posters and pictures are produced, obscene songs are sung—that society is very sexual. This is completely wrong. The increasing propaganda of all this is proof that the society has lost the basic act of sex. The juice that should have come from the sexual act is not coming; they are inventing substitutes. Take a tribal living in the wild: put a nude picture of a woman in front of him and he will ask, “For what? What does it mean?” Because the basic sexual act has given him such taste that your nude picture has no meaning. It is as if you place a picture of food before one who has truly savored his meal—what joy will he get from a picture? A hungry man, show him the picture of fine food—he will look with great attention…Read the full discourse →
Beloved Osho, you always talk against the mind -- that we should drop it, tell it to shut up, that it is not needed in the search for truth. You seem to regret that none of your sannyasins is a nobel prize winner and you give us unfertilized eggs to nourish our brains. Hence I almost feel guilty when I make an attempt to become informed about one thing or another, though it seems almost impossible to survive in the market place totally ignorant. What is the mind for? Is it really totally mischievous?
When I saw the address of Rajiv Gandhi, I remembered the story of Gautam Buddha, and the king of Vaishali. I do not regret that none of my sannyasins is a politician. I am immensely happy that my sannyasins are not politicians. And the Nobel prize has not been given, at least up to now, even to a single meditator. Meditation does not come into their consideration. A novelist can get a Nobel prize. A film director can get a Nobel prize. A scientist can get a Nobel prize. A politician can get a Nobel prize. But there is no category in the Nobel prize for a man like Jesus, or Gautam Buddha, or Zarathustra, or Lao Tzu. And even if these people are given Nobel prizes, they will laugh. To them your Nobel prizes are just like toys; they are good for children to play with. In what way…Read the full discourse →
Osho, it seems Buddha put all his emphasis on knowing and understanding the mind. Is a human being made by the mind? Are all talks about the soul and God useless?
Pandits go on chattering; they have no idea what they are saying. The enlightened fall silent, because they know. How can the most sacred be said? Bring it to the lips and it becomes false. Words are too small. Can they contain the vast? They cannot. It is like trying to bind the sky in your fist—the fist will close, the sky will remain outside. In the same way words get bound, and God remains outside. The word “God” is not God. Your rote of “God, God” has nothing to do with God; it is a disease of your mind. We do know the truth of Paradise, but to console the heart, Ghalib, this fancy is pleasing. You know it well. Your heaven, your liberation, your God—you know very well the truth of them: this “God” of yours is nothing. It is overheard talk. A rumor. You heard it from…Read the full discourse →
Why is the mind? It seems to be a very real part of our being. I would dig to function without it, but why, why is it there? Sometimes it seems that the mind screens out awareness, but also it seems that mind can be very practical, can help to do things. Does the mind have a place or is it something to be totally transcended?
'Why?' is a wrong question to ask. Things simply are. There is no why to them. The question why, once accepted, will lead you farther and farther into philosophy, and philosophy is a wasteland. You will not find any oasis there, it is desert. Ask the question 'why?' and you have started moving in a wrong direction; you will never come home. Existence is, there is no why to it. That's what we mean when we say it is a mystery, because there is no why to it. In fact it should not be there and it is. There seems to be no need for it to be there,, no reason for it to be there, and it is there. 'Why' is a mind question. And now you can be in a very great puzzle, because the mind is asking a question about itself: "Why is the mind?" The question…Read the full discourse →
Beloved Osho, in the mind, in the process of thinking, there is so much energy. How can we use that energy in a creative and constructive way?
He sat in his worshipping place, but the monkeys were inside. He closed his eyes, they were sitting all around him. He said, "I have never thought that monkeys are so interested in me. Why are you bothering me? A few are inside the mind, and if I close my mind, a few are sitting all around me. They push me from this side and from that side, and giggling! I am a silent man, and this is not gentlemanly behavior." And again the wife looked into his worshipping place and she said, "With whom are you talking?" He said, "My God, now I have to explain something which I do not understand myself. Just don't you disturb me tonight. Tomorrow morning I will go and I will see that old man." The whole night he took showers many times, rubbed the soap as much as he could to clean…Read the full discourse →