According to Osho, you know you’re on the right path when tension dissolves and a cool, calm ease grows within. Ordinary moments reveal unexpected beauty; small things feel meaningful. The world regains mystery, knowledge becomes innocence, and you feel life as a gift and blessing. If you’re on the wrong track, the exact opposite signs appear.
If each step makes you calmer, more childlike, and able to enjoy small wonders, you’re going the right way; if it makes you tense and dull, you’re not.
From the Discourses
Passages where Osho speaks to this question — each links to the complete discourse.
Beloved Osho, with each new step into the unknown, how can I be sure that I am on the right path?
The indications that you are on the right path are very simple: your tensions will start disappearing, you will become more and more cool, you will become more and more calm, you will find beauty in things in which you have never, ever conceived could be beautiful. The smallest things will start having tremendous significance. The whole world will become more and more mysterious every day; you will become less and less knowledgeable, more and more innocent -- just like a child running after butterflies or collecting seashells on the beach. You will feel life not as a problem but as a gift, as a blessing, as a benediction. These indications will go on growing if you are on the right track. If you are on the wrong track, just the opposite will happen.
Osho, after listening to you I experience slackness and sadness in practical life. But when you speak on love and devotion, on joy and celebration, my mind blossoms and fills with delight. Kindly show me my path.
You see—no second Mahavira, no second Krishna, no second Rama. Once one comes, he never appears again on the stage. Remember this. You too are new. Learn from everyone; accept your own. Listen to all; let the final decision come from the heart. So if talk of renunciation brings you slackness and sadness; your heart’s flower does not open but withers; the bud does not become a flower but, on the contrary, the flower closes its petals—as many flowers do at dusk when the sun sets—then understand: this is not your sun of truth. It may be someone else’s truth, because some flowers bloom only when the sun sets—night-blooming jasmine is like that. It may be hers; it is not for you. Then your path is perfectly clear. Wherever you glimpse joy, go there with courage. I am not saying you will find joy there every time. Many times you…
Question: BELOVED OSHO, IN JAPAN THERE IS AN ANCIENT FORM OF THEATER, WHICH I STUDIED FOR A SHORT TIME, CALLED NOH. IN IT, THE ACTOR MOVES SLOWLY FORWARDS, ONE STEP AT A TIME; SIMULTANEOUSLY HE FOCUSES INSIDE, AND WITH HIS ENERGY CREATES A PATH BEHIND HIM. IF THE AUDIENCE IS REALLY IN TUNE WITH HIM, THEY CAN ALSO SEE BOTH HIS PHYSICAL MOVEMENT FORWARD AND THE PATH HE IS CREATING BEHIND HIM. OSHO, YOU ALWAYS SAY THAT YOU DON'T KNOW WHERE YOU WILL BE IN THE NEXT MOMENT, YOU DON'T CARE WHERE YOUR FEET WILL BE NEXT. MY CONCERN IS THAT I BE ABLE TO SEE CLEARLY, EVERY MOMENT, THE PATH THAT YOU ARE CREATING BEHIND YOU. WHAT A WONDERFUL JOURNEY TO BE WITH YOU, OSHO! WE GO WHEREVER EXISTENCE LEADS US.
Osho, it feels as if life is passing moment by moment. I have even found a true master; still, why is the next step unclear?
There is no next step. Why are you thinking about a next step? To think of a next step means this step is not blissful; you want another. This moment is not enough; you want the next. Today is not sufficient; you want tomorrow. Somewhere there is pain in the present; you long for the future. The “next step” is the contemplation of a troubled mind. For the happy person, this very step is the last step. For the happy person, the path itself is the goal. If you are delighted with me, drop talking about the next step. There is no next step. The next step arises from a diseased, restless mind. When you are not happy today, you begin to think of tomorrow. To forget today’s misery you think of tomorrow, you spin hopes of tomorrow, you weave dreams of tomorrow, you become absorbed in tomorrow so that…
Osho, on the path of meditation many seekers find it difficult to know clearly whether they are making any progress or whether they are just suspended on one plane, simply moving in repetitions. Will you please explain in detail about those factors which indicate the meditator's constant progress?
I do not say that every experience of that type is imagination, but if you are concerned, it is going to be imagination. Forget it completely. Be concerned with meditation, with your changing relationships, with your silence, with your contentment, with your love. Be concerned with these, and suddenly sometimes, there will be an upsurge of energy into your spine. But do not be concerned with it. Note it down and forget it. Suddenly, you will see a particular light: note it and forget. Suddenly a particular chakra will begin to revolve: note it and forget it. Do not be concerned with it. Your concern is harmful. Remain concerned with contentment, peace, silence, love, compassion, meditation. These things will go on happening. Then they are real. When you are not concerned and they happen, then they are real. And they show many things, but you need not know what they…