According to Osho, desires are dreams, not realities; neither fulfillable nor suppressible. The way to cut them is insight: simply see a desire as a dream and it dissolves on its own. Honor the body’s simple, real needs—food, water, shelter—while refusing the mind’s fantasies like fame or respect. Clarity ends craving without inner suppression or conflict.
Notice that fancy wants are like pretend games; when you see they’re not real, they fade, and you just take care of what your body truly needs.
From the Discourses
Passages where Osho speaks to this question — each links to the complete discourse.
How can one cut desires without suppressing them?
If you want to drop needs, you will have to suppress them -- because they are real If you fast, you have to suppress hunger. Then there is suppression, and every suppression is wrong because suppression is a fight inside, and you are wanting to kill the body, and the body is your anchor, your ship which will lead you to the other shore. Body keeps the treasure, the seeds of divine within you, protected. Food is needed for that protection, water is needed, shelter is needed, comfort is needed -- for the body, because the mind doesn't want any comfort. Look at the modern furniture: it is not comfortable at all, but the mind says, "This is modern, and what are you doing sitting in an old chair? The world has changed and the modern furniture has come." The modern furniture is really weird. You feel uncomfortable in it;…
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.”…
Pragya has asked: “You and all the saints say the same...”
I don’t know about all the saints, because among your so‑called saints most are not saints at all. Out of a hundred of your saints, perhaps one is a saint; the other ninety‑nine are as sick as you are—and often far more chronically sick. But you understand the language of those ninety‑nine, because they speak the language of your disease. The one who is a real saint—you don’t understand his language. I am choosing to speak about those few, those one‑in‑a‑hundred saints, so I can sift for you who the real saints are. There are too many non‑saints; they’re not worth counting. I keep speaking on saints. They are not many. Your “all saints” are not saints—and certainly Pragya’s “all saints” cannot be. For her, those she calls saints will be the sick and deranged—because her mind, her way of thinking, her chain of logic is repression: anti‑body, anti‑world. “You…
Osho, looking within I have felt that many of my desires are sick, diseased—especially the negative desires. So are there healthy and unhealthy desires? And would you kindly tell us what the difference is between healthy and sick desires?
Desire is natural. It is nature’s gift. It is a donation from the divine. In itself desire is perfectly healthy. Without desire you could not live—not even for a single moment. In fact, the ancient scriptures say one thing: God was alone. A desire arose in him to become two—and the world was born. A desire arose in God to be two, to be many, to expand, to spread—and the world came into being. We are parts of that very desire of the divine; we are rays of that desire. So the first thing: desire is natural. It is of nature; it is innate. Desire is not bad; it is not sin. Those who told you desire is sin—avoid desire, escape from it, repress it, cut it down, kill it—they are the ones who made desire sick. Repressed desire becomes diseased. Whatever is pushed down turns poisonous. It does not…
Question: IF YOU SLEEP, DESIRE GROWS IN YOU LIKE A VINE IN THE FOREST. LIKE A MONKEY IN THE FOREST YOU JUMP FROM TREE TO TREE, NEVER FINDING THE FRUIT -- FROM LIFE TO LIFE, NEVER FINDING PEACE. IF YOU ARE FILLED WITH DESIRE, YOUR SORROWS SWELL LIKE THE GRASS AFTER THE RAIN. BUT IF YOU SUBDUE DESIRE, YOUR SORROWS FALL FROM YOU LIKE DROPS OF WATER FROM A LOTUS FLOWER. THIS IS GOOD COUNSEL AND IT IS FOR EVERYONE: AS THE GRASS IS CLEARED FOR THE FRESH ROOT, CUT DOWN DESIRE LEST DEATH AFTER DEATH CRUSH YOU AS A RIVER CRUSHES THE HELPLESS REEDS. FOR IF THE ROOTS HOLD FIRM, A FELLED TREE GROWS UP AGAIN. IF DESIRES ARE NOT UPROOTED, SORROWS GROW AGAIN IN YOU. Desire cannot be dropped unless you wake up. Millions of people have tried to drop desiring without waking up.