According to Osho, responsibility doesn’t come from deliberate choosing but from choiceless awareness. Live as a witness in let-go; then action arises spontaneously from clarity, not from moral rules or profit-loss calculations. In that state, duties and "responsibilities" are unnecessary, yet you do the right thing at the right moment - the truest responsibility - because awareness has eyes, while choice belongs to the blind mind.
Be so aware that you don’t have to choose or follow rules; you just see what’s needed and do it naturally, like walking through a door instead of into a wall.
From the Discourses
Passages where Osho speaks to this question — each links to the complete discourse.
Beloved Osho, in being responsible, one has to choose. How does it fit together with choicelessness?
He came back. He was looking very miserable, even after the shower. And I said, "I was just joking! Can't you see me? Can't you understand? Have you forgotten all those Hindus outside?" -- because in India you can recognize very well who is who. Mohammedans have different caps, different kind of clothes; Hindus have different caps, different kind of clothes. It is not difficult. I said, "You are just unnecessarily bothering." He fell again. He kissed my feet this time really hard. He said, "I was suspecting while I was taking the shower... this man does not look like a Mohammedan. And I am relieved of a great difficulty; otherwise I would have repented my whole life." I said, "You will have to repent. Can't you see my beard?" He said, "What do you mean?" I said, "Exactly what you understand. I am a Mohammedan." The man rushed back…
Osho, can you talk about responsibility and what it means for us? I feel its importance more and more, but I am also confused about it. Am I avoiding something?
What I am saying is that if they had experienced it at its peak, its grip over them would have been lost. Then their whole life they would not be looking at PLAYBOY magazines; there would be no need. And they would not be dreaming about sex, having sexual fantasies. They would not be reading third-rate novels and looking at Hollywood movies. All this is possible because they have been denied their birthright. In the aboriginal society they live together in the night. One rule only is told to them: "Don't be with one girl more than three days, because she is not your property, you are not her property. You have to become acquainted with all the girls, and she has to become acquainted with all the boys before you choose your life partner." Now, this seems to be absolutely sane. Before choosing a life partner you should be…
Osho, in an earlier discourse you said that each human being is himself responsible for his good and bad deeds. But in this morning’s talk you said that everything happens according to the laws of the Vast, the Brahman energy. Then how can a person himself be responsible for his actions?
There are two planes. One is the plane of the ignorant—there you must understand in the language of the ignorant. The other is the plane of the wise—there too you must understand in its own light. Great confusion often arises because the ignorant live on the ignorant’s plane but speak the language of the wise; then difficulties multiply. This happens every day. It has certainly happened in our country. Because there was so much talk of wisdom here that even the ignorant learned to repeat it. They too began to mouth the words of knowledge. They live as the ignorant, act as the ignorant, carry the ignorant’s load—yet at the convenient time they speak as the enlightened. A man in my neighborhood died; I went to their house. The neighbors had gathered. Everyone was consoling them: “The soul is immortal.” I thought, how many sages in this neighborhood! “The soul…
Beloved Osho, "living in the here and now, acting spontaneously," will I find that my actions will still be guided by experience and responsibility?
Only one thing is eternally true, and that is your consciousness. And if you can bring your consciousness to the present, you cannot go wrong. Whatever you do out of that consciousness is always going to be right, not according to any criterion, but just because it is coming out of a total awareness. Out of total awareness nobody has ever done anything wrong. According to me, right is what comes out of your spontaneity and out of your consciousness and out of your presence here and now. And what is not out of your spontaneity, consciousness and your being here and now is wrong. There is no other criterion than what I have just told you. All other criteria are dead. They may have been living at one time, but that time is past. Heraclitus is right, you cannot step in the same river twice. And he was stating…
How can a disciple know that he has been chosen by a master? Where are his freedom and responsibility?
That would have been responsibility -- ability to respond. What kind of responsibility is this? An order comes that you should burn these people. And everybody is doing his job responsibly. The typist who typed the order, the person in charge who signed the order, the man who will push the button -- they are all doing their jobs responsibly. And nobody seems to be really responsible, they are just machines. This is what I call robopathology. And you ask me: WHERE ARE HIS RESPONSIBILITY AND FREEDOM? You can't have any freedom because you are not yet. Freedom is when you are, and you are only when you are awake. You are fast asleep -- what kind of freedom can you have? You can dream about it. You don't have any freedom. Your whole life is just accidental -- just accidental. You go on thinking that you have chosen out…