According to Osho, in religion no one can say anything original—and yet every enlightened one speaks originally. Truth is one and timeless; the knower dissolves, so among awakened ones nothing is new. But to those without direct experience, each living utterance sounds shockingly new. Buddha, Krishna, Lao Tzu, Jesus voice the same essence, freshly.
Wise people reach the same truth, so it isn’t new to them, but to us who only know words it feels brand new.
From the Discourses
Passages where Osho speaks to this question — each links to the complete discourse.
Osho, there is a difference between word and style. Has any man in the world ever been able to say something original, something new?
All they had was stale—memorized words; there was no experience. For those who have words, experience is always original, forever original. For those who have only scriptures, living experience is always original. But for those who have experience, the gap between old and new collapses. Understand this last point. As I said of all dualities—happiness and misery, peace and restlessness, freedom and bondage—so also this duality of new and old. Truth is neither new nor old. A thing is called new only if someday it can become old; and old means it must once have been new. What is new today will be old tomorrow; what is old today was new yesterday. Truth is neither new nor old, because it can become neither old nor new. Therefore we call truth eternal, we call it timeless, that which always is. So in relation to truth, nothing can be “original.” But in…
Osho, it is all right when you say everything is auspicious and beautiful; but what will happen to us—those of us who are attached to your physical body?
Yog Vidya! Attachment is not inauspicious. Attachment is not ugly. Attachment is like freshly mined gold—yet impure. It will pass through fire, be refined, become pure. Attachment is love in its impure form. Attachment needs to be transformed, refined. I am not against attachment. I am not against anything. But every phenomenon has higher possibilities—more auspicious, more beautiful forms. The seers of the Upanishads prayed: O Lord, lead us from darkness to light. Tamaso ma jyotir gamaya! If I were to say it, I would say: O Lord, lead us from light to more light. Because darkness too is only a form of light. Light is hidden even in darkness. Morning is born out of the night; the sun rises from it. In the womb of night the sun is nurtured and grows. The whole beauty of the dawn is impossible without the night. The Upanishadic seers say: O Lord,…
The eyes cannot approach it, neither can speech nor mind. We do not, therefore, know it, nor do we know how to teach it. It is different from what is known and it is different from what is unknown. Thus we have heard from our predecessors who instructed us about it. What speech cannot reveal but what reveals speech -- know thou that alone as brahman and not this -- anything objective -- that people worship here. What mind does not comprehend but what comprehends the mind -- know thou that alone as brahman and not this that people worship here.
God is not indubitable. Remember this: God is not indubitable. He can be doubted -- not only doubted, he can be disproved. And really, when someone doubts God you cannot prove his existence. You can only convince those who are already convinced, but you cannot convert a new man; that is impossible. Not a single atheist can be converted because he needs proof and you cannot prove God. God is not indubitable. He can be doubted, rejected. The whole hypothesis can be said to be false. There is no proof that can help. So Descartes goes on discussing, inquiring, and he says that unless he comes to a point, to something in existence that is indubitable.... Not that it can be proved -- no. Rather, it cannot be doubted. And ultimately he comes to the self and says that the self is a greater reality than God. It is, because…
Question: Fourth question: Osho, I am very impressed by your original ideas. This is not a question; it is praise. And there is no need for praise. If you have questions, ask them; if you have praise, keep it in your heart. What is the essence of it anyway? What will come of talking about it? So first, ask something that is of benefit to you, that is wholesome, auspicious for your life. Second, where are original ideas to be found! How could they be! How can anything in this world be original! Countless people have been; from endless time human beings have thought and reflected. Do you think a single idea remains that no human being has thought before? Impossible. But thoughts that have been thought get lost again and again. When you think them again, it seems they are original. We forget; memories are lost.
Is it possible to have an original thought?
But it is not part of mind. Mind is a mechanism. It cannot be original; it is not even alive -- how can it be original? It is social. Hence the insistence of all the awakened ones that unless you drop the mind you will not be able to know the truth, because truth is always original. Mind: always borrowed; truth: always original. Mind and truth cannot meet. Meditation is to attain to a no-mindness, to a state of no-thought. In that opening of no-thought, in that kind of space, suddenly you become pure, innocent, uncorrupted. You have never been like that before nobody has ever been like that before nobody is going to be like that again. Unique. And to know that is to realize one's self. To know that is to know all. If you have not known that, whatsoever else you know is just rubbish, garbage. If…