If you still doubt it, it’s just your head; when it’s true, your heart is calm and sure no matter what anyone says.
From the Discourses
Passages where Osho speaks to this question — each links to the complete discourse.
Beloved Osho, how can I decide if I have really achieved something, or just believe I have achieved?
It is very simple: Whenever you have a question about whether it is a real achievement or just imagination, then it is imagination. If you don't have any questions, even if the whole world says it is imagination but inside you there is no question, if inside you, you are absolutely certain that this is an achievement, then it is an achievement. Any authentic achievement brings with it a certainty, a guarantee that "I am true." And every imaginary achievement brings with it all kinds of doubts. So whenever you are in doubt, decide: it is imaginary. Whenever there is no doubt, you are in a doubtless certainty, then it is a real, authentic evolution. You have found something. I have heard about a farmer who was coming home with his donkey. He found on the way a big diamond. He had no idea that it was a diamond but…
Osho, what does realization feel like? How can a seeker know that something has truly happened? How can one distinguish reality from self-created imagination? How can others recognize the attainment of one who is realized?
You ask: “How can a seeker know that something has truly happened?” When you have a headache, how do you know you have a headache? When I was in school, I had a Muslim teacher—perhaps he is still alive—Rahamuddin, a lovely man, but very strict in one thing: it was almost impossible to get leave from him. He himself never took leave and would not grant it to students. I often needed leave. I would say my stomach hurts, or my head hurts. He said, “Listen, I accept fever; I do not accept stomachache or headache. If you have fever, I can at least take your hand and feel it. But how am I to know whether you truly have a stomachache or headache?” I said, “Since you ask, let me ask you—have you ever had a headache? A stomachache?” He said, “I have.” I said, “What proof can you…
Beloved Osho, through studying texts like vedanta and the ashtavakra geeta, I have learnt that whatever is worth attaining has already been attained. Making efforts for it is going astray. I have deepened this conviction, so why has self-realization not happened? Please show me the path.
He said, "If you don't believe me: here, it is written on the handle, 'A gift for my beloved brother, from your sister.' I was coming out of a restaurant and these letters on the umbrella -- I thought it seems I do have a sister. When it is written it has to be believed. And perhaps there is some sister or cousin.... And religious people have always said you should take every woman except your wife as your mother or sister." When something is published -- and in the scriptures... belief in the written word is very strong. When you tell someone something, he asks where it was this published. If you say where he will believe what you said. It is as if there is some power in writing. Say how ancient it is -- people will accept it. It is as if truth is somehow related to…
How can one know that the spiritual search in which one is involved is not an ego-trip, but is an authentic religious search?
If you don't know, if you are confused, then know well that this is an ego-trip. If you are not confused, if you know well that this is authentic, if there is no confusion at all, then it is authentic. And it is not a question of deceiving someone else. It is a question of deceiving or not deceiving oneself. If you are confused, in doubt, it is an ego-trip, because the moment the authentic search is there, there is no doubt. Faith happens. Let me put it in some other way. Whenever you phrase such problems, the very confusion exactly shows that you are on the wrong path. Someone comes to me and he says, `Tell me. I don't know whether my meditation is going deep or not.' So I say, `If it is going deep, there is no need to come and ask me. The depth is such…
Osho, you’ve said that shaktipat happens only through an egoless medium; and that whoever says, “I will bestow shaktipat upon you,” know that he cannot. But I am acquainted with many who bestow shaktipat. Through their shaktipat, people undergo kundalini processes exactly as described in the scriptures. Are they not authentic? Are they false, pseudo processes? Why, and how?
One room is always held back. It tells you whether it has happened or not. If your experience is exactly by the book, know it hasn’t happened—it’s a false coin—because in the scripture one room has always been reserved. That reservation is essential. So if everything is happening to you exactly as written, understand that the book is being projected. But the day something happens not exactly as written—here it matches, there it doesn’t—know that you are on a real track where things are becoming clear to you; where you are not simply threading scripture into imagination. When kundalini truly awakens, you will be able to see where and how the scripture used stratagems. But you cannot know this beforehand. Every scripture had necessarily to omit certain things; otherwise it would be impossible to determine what is what. I had a teacher, a university professor. Whenever I named a book,…