In your busy mind, every yes needs a no, but in deep inner quiet, a true yes stands alone with nothing against it.
From the Discourses
Passages where Osho speaks to this question — each links to the complete discourse.
Yes and no!
Think of a world where only men exist and no women. There will be no tension, certainly. There will be great brotherhood, everybody will be gay -- literally gay! But life will lose something, something of immense importance -- there will be no tension. It will be like having loose strings on a sitar; you cannot create music. You have to make them tight and tense, only then can you strike music out of them, only then can the hidden become manifest. With loose strings on a sitar how can you create music? They have to be tight, in a certain tension. Only great masters know how much tension is the right tension. And in the right tension the greatest melody is possible. I teach you the right tension between the lower and the higher, between the body and the soul, between the earth and heaven; a right tension with…
Beloved Osho, the other day you said that only those people are yours who say yes to you. But don't yes and no go together? To say yes, doesn't one have first to say no to many things?
It is a very fundamental question. It applies to many things, almost to all things of life. There are two levels: one is the level of the mind, and one is the level of meditation. The level of meditation is absolutely silent. The level of the mind is full of dualistic thoughts. So as far as mind is concerned, yes is always connected with no. They are two sides of one coin. Love is connected with hate, just as day is connected with night or birth is connected with death. At the level of the mind, everything is connected with its opposite; you cannot have one without having the other too. This is our ordinary experience. But on the second level, if you can go beyond mind -- that is, if you can go beyond the mind's yes and no, love and hate -- there comes a silence, a peace,…
Emptiness here, emptiness there, but the infinite universe stands always before your eyes. Infinitely large and infinitely small; no difference, for definitions have vanished and no boundaries are seen. So too with being and non-being. Don't waste time in doubts and arguments that have nothing to do with this.
ONE THING, ALL THINGS: MOVE AMONG AND INTERMINGLE, WITHOUT DISTINCTION. TO LIVE IN THIS REALIZATION IS TO BE WITHOUT ANXIETY ABOUT NON-PERFECTION. TO LIVE IN THIS FAITH IS THE ROAD TO NON-DUALITY, BECAUSE THE NON-DUAL IS ONE WITH THE TRUSTING MIND. WORDS! THE WAY IS BEYOND LANGUAGE, FOR IN IT THERE IS That's why in the world of religion you see the most egoistic people possible, because they are trying to be perfect about everything. They insist on perfection. They cannot be relaxed, they will always be tense. And always something will be wrong and they have to put it right -- and they will always remain in anxiety. Go to the madhouses, and you will find there ninety percent perfectionists. A man of understanding remains relaxed. That doesn't mean that he doesn't care. No, he cares but he knows the limitations. He cares, but he knows that he is…
Osho, yesterday you said that when anger is watched consciously, it dissolves. But why is it that when sexual desire arises, even in awareness its intensity persists? Why is it so?
There is no entanglement in the breath. If you try to practice on anger… Anger is not happening every moment; it happens sometimes. And when it happens, it happens with such intensity that you are already going deep into it; so much is at stake in those moments that you may think, “We will look into awareness later; first let’s settle this now.” Lust is very deep, because existence has made it so deep; life depends on it. If lust were so easy that you decided and were freed, perhaps you would not even have been born—because many before you would have become free, and the possibility of your being would have been almost nil. But your parents, and their parents, did not become free; therefore you are. You too will not get free so easily, because your children are also to be—they are waiting: “Do not run away midway.”…
Beloved master, what is yes? I find that I have no real understanding of it. I have seen that whenever I say yes, there is a hint of surprise, as if I am amazed that there is no reason to say no. My yes is always instead of no. Where is the seat of this experience, yes...?
Just the other day Buddha was talking about trust: Trust, meditate, and see. Yes means trust, and trust is the beginning of meditation. Meditation means relaxing with existence. Unless you trust, unless you can say yes to existence, how can you relax? People cannot relax because they are afraid. People cannot relax because they fear that if they relax they may be cheated. People can relax only with others whom they trust. With a stranger in your room you may not be able to sleep in the night. Who knows, he may cut your throat. Who knows, he may steal your money and escape. But with your wife or husband you go into deep sleep, you can trust. The child can go with his father or mother anywhere. Even if the father is going into fire, the child can go singing a song, dancing, inquiring, questioning, unafraid, because he knows…