According to Osho, greed, anger, and sex cannot be conquered by fighting or repression; struggle only feeds them. The real change comes by shifting from possessiveness to awareness—living spiritually, not by renouncing things, but by dropping the desire to possess—and meditating. With watchfulness, these energies relax, lose their grip, and naturally transform rather than erupting as obsession or hypocrisy.
Don’t fight these feelings; calmly watch them, and the urge to grab, explode, or obsess fades by itself.
From the Discourses
Passages where Osho speaks to this question — each links to the complete discourse.
Osho, how can I conquer greed, anger, sex -- the three great temptations of the devil?
IT HAS been one of the obsessions of Indians for centuries, and the only result of it all has been that they are the most greedy people on the earth, and the most angry and the most sexual. For centuries they have been fighting against these three -- greed, anger, sex -- and what is the outcome? Do you see so much greed in anyone else anywhere on earth? Indians go on calling Western people materialists without ever seeing the fact that to possess is not to be a materialist but that the desire to possess is the foundation of materialism. The West possesses; that does not mean that it is materialist. It simply means it is scientific, it is technological, it knows how to create things. It has penetrated deeply into the world of objects and has come to know its secrets. It has worked hard. It is not…
Osho, yesterday you described the cathartic practice of pillow‑beating to release anger. In the same way, what practices should be done for the cessation of lust, greed, attachment, and ego? Please shed some light on these.
The friend I mentioned yesterday—today his companion told me he actually pulled out a knife and ripped the pillow to shreds. I hadn’t even suggested that! It makes us laugh: how can someone stab a pillow? But when we can rip a living person apart, we don’t laugh—so what’s the difficulty in slicing a pillow? When someone tears a living person, the “juice” is in the tearing itself; the person is incidental. That same juice can arise with a pillow. In fact, more so—because with a pillow you need impose no limits at all. So shut yourself in your room, and when your root “disease” wants to show itself, let it show. Consider this meditation. Let it come out in every pore of your being. Shout, jump, do whatever is happening—let it happen. And watch from behind—you will even feel like laughing. You will be surprised: “I can do this?”…
Question: bhagwan sri, just as you explained the process of annihilation of anger yesterday, are there methods of annihilating, sex, greed, delusion and ego also? Kindly enumerate these too.
We stand outside, the stream of Gita flows away -- away and apart! I asked him, "What sort of a man are you?" And this is not the case of one man alone. I know many who have the same problem but who are afraid to admit it as their problem. They always insist on a private interview to discuss it with me and request that their problems may not be made public. I say to them that this is as much a personal problem of others as theirs. Now everyone hears the Gita in public but about sex, each one wants a private audience. How is that possible? Besides, you are afraid even to raise the question of your actual problem, whereas you delight in hearing that which is not your problem at all! Thus thousands of years pass and man is still the same. Catch hold of your…
Wakefulness is the way to life. The fool sleeps as if he were already dead, but the master is awake and he lives forever.
HE WATCHES. HE IS CLEAR. HOW HAPPY HE IS! FOR HE SEES THAT WAKEFULNESS IS LIFE. HOW HAPPY HE IS, FOLLOWING THE PATH OF THE AWAKENED. WITH GREAT PERSEVERANCE HE MEDITATES, SEEKING FREEDOM AND HAPPINESS. SO AWAKE, REFLECT, WATCH. WORK WITH CARE AND ATTENTION. LIVE IN THE WAY AND THE LIGHT WILL GROW IN YOU. BY WATCHING AND WORKING THE MASTER MAKES FOR HIMSELF AN ISLAND WHICH THE FLOOD CANNOT OVERWHELM. The rabbi shrugged his shoulders and said, "In America? It would have been impossible. Where can you find a virgin, firstly? And secondly, where will you find three wise men?" And without a virgin mother and three wise men, how can Jesus be born? I have heard: In a church, the priest asked the audience, "Please stand up, all the women who are virgins!" Just one woman with a small baby girl stood up. Certainly she was a mother,…
Osho, I must be the most greedy person in the whole world. What should I do about it?
Kamal, ARE YOU CONFESSING or bragging? The world is very big and what do you know about the whole world? It is impossible to be first in anything; not even in greed can you be the first, because people are moving in circles. Nobody is the first. Don't become so concerned with your greed and don't feel guilty either. Everybody is greedy. Unless you know that you are deathless you will remain greedy; greed comes because of death. You may never have thought about it, but greed exists because we are afraid of death. Because death is there we want to have as much of life as possible; we are greedy. We want to eat more, we want to have as many women or men as possible, we want to have as much money as possible, because death is there. "Soon everything will be finished, so before it happens have…