Pick the way that fits you: if you’re a doer, push hard; if you’re a let-go type, relax and allow—and don’t mix them.
From the Discourses
Passages where Osho speaks to this question — each links to the complete discourse.
Yesterday you said that one should hurry towards the goal because whatever time we have is very little. However, some time ago you also said that the whole process of attaining the goal should be an effortless play. How would you reconcile the two words `hurry' and `play'? -- because the one who hurries never gets the joy of playing.
The feminine mind exists in the moment. That's why the feminine curiosity is never for the far-away; it is always about the neighborhood. She is not interested in what is happening in Vietnam. She is interested in what is happening in the other house -- the intimate, the here. The man looks absurd: `Why are you worried about what Nixon is doing or what Mao is doing?' The woman is interested in the love affairs that are going on in the neighborhood. She is curious about the near; the far is meaningless. Time doesn't exist. Time exists for those who have a goal to reach. Remember, time can exist only when you have to reach somewhere. If you don't have to reach anywhere, what is the meaning of time? Then there is no hurry. Look at this situation from a different angle. The east is feminine and the west is…
Osho, seeing the dialectical facts of life, can one practise the path of relaxation and the path of effort simultaneously?
No, it is not possible! You cannot practise both simultaneously because both are diametrically opposite. They lead to one point, but they don't pass through the same road, through the same route, through the same realms. They are quite diametrically opposite. You cannot practise both, just like you cannot go to one place simultaneously following two roads. Two roads may be going. You are going to the station and two roads may be going to the station, but you cannot follow both the roads simultaneously. And if you do follow them, you will not reach the station. Both roads go, but then you will not reach because then you will have to go ten steps on one, then come back, follow the other, then come back, follow the first one. Then you can follow much, but you will reach nowhere. Every way is a particular way. It has its own…
Beloved Osho, I am such a doer. How can I become more open and available to you without doing? How to find the balance between doing and non-doing, to reconcile your two statements: "you have to act without will," and, "effort is also needed"?
You will be surprised to know that when I entered the university, I was doing so much exercise -- running, swimming, jogging and other exercises -- that a few other students became interested. They started following me, to go for a run. I had never thought that there was any problem in it, but the man who owned all the restaurants and the mess at the university came to see me and said, "I will give you a totally free pass as far as food is concerned, but please don't help these people to run and jog and swim, because I am going to be bankrupt! "Before you came I had never seen people eating thirty-five chappattis at a time -- and your followers are doing that. At the most four chappattis are enough. But if everybody starts eating thirty-five chappattis at a time, seventy chappattis in a day, then…
Osho, another difficulty has arisen. Today there is such a gap between the private sector and the public sector that if we destroy the private sector, initiative disappears—and when initiative disappears, movement stops. In the same way, when one descends into non-attachment, or desirelessness, or karma-sannyas, it seems that initiative, zest, and drive all get converted into inactivity. That possibility seems real.
Where we claim to go against biology but still obey biology’s rule—being attracted to the opposite—everything turns dull and empty. Houses remain huts, pressed to the ground; all activity wanes; no one sings; a singing person seems criminal; bright clothes disappear; color, charm, beauty are lost; everything becomes sad, subdued, and shrunken. My own view is that both have their own laws, and a true culture stands on both. A true culture will be sex-free in the sense of being un-repressed: it will rejoice in sex, be festive in sex, and vast worldly activity will arise. And true spirituality, based on the right choice of type, will spread a web of spiritual activity. Krishna stands rightly in his own type; Buddha in his own; Mahavira in his own. Hence Krishna acts in one way, but it is not that Buddha does not act. Buddha’s life, too, is a vast web…
One day there will again be a release of energy, but that will have a totally different quality to it. Then it is not freaking out. It has no violent expression. It is a very soft, subtle vibration. You lose nothing in that, and others who are around you simply gain. They become aflame and aglow. In the East that's what we call satsang. Whenever a person has too much energy in his hara centre, then just sitting by his side is enough. Just being in his presence is enough. You start flying... the gravitation no more affects you; you become weightless. So this is something tremendously beautiful, and it is just on the verge so help it.