According to Osho, both: divine qualities and divinity co-arise like chicken and egg—the qualities are divinity’s limbs. Cultivate virtues and you uncover divinity; realize divinity and virtues blossom. Begin where it’s easier: extroverts change conduct (outer), introverts shift the center (inner). Don’t debate endlessly—start, and the complementary pole follows in a rhythmic unfolding.
Like a seed and tree, goodness and God grow together—start by being good or by looking within, and the other naturally appears.
From the Discourses
Passages where Osho speaks to this question — each links to the complete discourse.
Osho, in the Gita the signs or qualities of one who has attained the divine wealth are described. By cultivating them one by one, does divinity become available? Or, when divinity is attained, do these qualities come of themselves like flowers?
The first is easy to see as wrong. The second deceives because it is “right,” yet still wrong. What does it matter whether you are beautiful or not? What matters is that you think yourself beautiful. If an intelligent man struts that he is intelligent, it is as sinful as a fool strutting that he is intelligent. The real issue is the strutting—the stiffening of the ego. There is another danger: he who is not intelligent but thinks he is may one day awaken; but the truly intelligent who thinks he is intelligent is hard to awaken—you cannot even prove him wrong. The real danger is to take oneself to be somebody and stiffen in it. The demonic mind always considers itself somebody—whether it is or not. Ravana’s ego was not empty vanity; it was pride—there was substance to him, a great scholar. His stiffening was not baseless; thus it…
Osho, one view says that the Divine incarnates by taking a human body. Another view says that the ultimate flowering of the human being is into the Divine. Which of these is closer to the truth?
Jains and Buddhists gave man dignity—but created dangers. First: you must go alone, by your own hands. Hope dims. It is like trying to lift yourself by your own bootstraps. You must go by your own strength! And you know what your hands have achieved: you sought wealth—didn’t get it; status—didn’t get it; everywhere defeat and disappointment. And now to attain God? What you wanted most has never quite happened—and now this, which has neither clear address nor guarantee—will you seek it? Hard. And alone; with no support; Mahavira says: “asharana-bhava”—do not seek refuge, for there is none. Raise yourself—self-reliance. But do you have such trust in yourself? When the petty has not been fulfilled, how will you fulfill the vast? That is one danger. Second: if you happen to be one of the rare stubborn ones who persist—refining life and conduct until the fragrance of sainthood begins to arise—after…
Osho, you said... then you will find that the devotee is God. The question arises: if one devotee prefers to be God and another wants to remain only a devotee, then which of the two is superior?
The one who wants to be God will not be able to be. And the one who wants to remain a devotee will become God. The question of superior or inferior does not arise, because only one of the two will happen. The one who does not want to be will be. The one who wants to be will be deprived. That very wanting is of the ego. But the matter is a little delicate. Sometimes humility too belongs to the ego. Beware that your humility may not be of the ego. Perhaps you are saying, “No, I don’t want to be,” because you know that those who refuse are the ones who attain. Then you are clever. Then your humility is adulterous. Your humility is not pure, not sacred, not virginal—it is like a prostitute. The one who wants to be God, whose ego says, “I must become God,”…
Osho, do devotion, knowledge, and action arise from one’s own nature or from outside influence? Osho, please explain.
Om, you ask: from influence or from nature? Influence is worth two pennies. To be influenced is already to go wrong. Devotion under influence will have some other motive hidden within; only the label will be devotion. Knowledge will be parroted; of little worth. Action you will do in the hope of heaven arriving any minute—the Pushpak chariot descending to carry you bodily to paradise. Your service will be dipped in desire: serving in hope of a payoff—pressing the poor man’s feet today so that gods and goddesses will press yours forever. Is that service? That is not karma. Until action is desireless, it is bondage; a hidden craving slips in through the back door. And here, everyone seems “knowledgeable.” In this land, hard to find anyone who admits ignorance. Read ten books, compile an eleventh, and you are a great scholar; people will discuss you. People come to me…
Beloved master, qualities of love and grace have been attributed to the divine. Do these qualities exist? Does the divine exist? Can this be explained?
Whenever you are entering a temple, your mind has entered before you. When you are going to a friend, when you are embracing him, your mind has embraced before. And this you can know, your mind is always rehearsing. That stepping ahead is always rehearsing. Before you speak, it is always rehearsing what to speak. Before you act, it is always rehearsing what to act. Before you do anything or do not do anything, it is rehearsing. The rehearsal means that the mind is preparing itself before you, it is always one step ahead. And that is a constant, transparent barrier between you and everything else that you will come across, that you will encounter. Thus an encounter can never be real, authentic, because something else is always in between. Neither can you love, nor can you pray. You cannot do anything which requires the removal of this barrier. The…