According to Osho, heaven and hell are not places opposed to this world; they mirror our stance toward ‘this’ and ‘that.’ Grow deep roots in the body, senses, and daily life, and wings naturally unfold into the divine—heaven as earth’s flowering. Hell is the inner split born of denying ‘this.’ In silence, the visible reveals the invisible; earth and heaven interpenetrate.
Be firmly rooted in real life and your spirit rises to heaven; fight life and you feel like hell inside.
From the Discourses
Passages where Osho speaks to this question — each links to the complete discourse.
Beloved Osho,
HOW DOES WHAT YOU SAID ABOUT HEAVEN AND HELL TIE IN WITH WHAT YOU'VE BEEN SAYING ABOUT ROOTS AND WINGS? WHEN YOU SAY ROOTS INTO THIS EARTH AND WINGS INTO THAT HEAVEN, I'VE GOT A FEELING OF BEING INFINITELY STRETCHED -- THAT THIS EARTH IS CLOSE AND THAT HEAVEN IS FAR AWAY. WHAT IS THE SIGNIFICANCE OF "THIS" AND "THAT"? Be rooted in the earth so that you can stretch to the sky; be rooted in the visible so that you can reach into the invisible. Don't create duality and don't create any antagonism. If I am against anything, I am against antagonism. I am against being against anything; I am for the whole, the complete circle. The world and God are not divided anywhere. There is no boundary: the world goes on spreading into God and God goes on spreading into the world. Really, to use two words is…
Question: BELOVED OSHO, WHAT ARE THE ROOTS AND WHAT ARE THE WINGS OF A MEDITATOR? Meditation is a way of settling in oneself, at the innermost core of your being. Once you have found the center of your existence, you will have found both the roots and the wings. The roots are in existence, making you a more integrated human being, an individual. And the wings are in the fragrance that is released by being in contact with existence. The fragrance consists of freedom, love, compassion, authenticity, sincerity, a sense of humor, and a tremendous feeling of blissfulness. The roots make you an individual, and the wings give you the freedom to love, to be creative, to share unconditionally the joy that you have found. The roots and wings come together. They are two sides of one experience, and that experience is finding the center of your being.
Is there really a hell?
Heaven and hell are only two sides of your mind. The religions that were born outside India have remained with these two ideas, heaven and hell. They could not rise above them. Judaism, Christianity, Islam -- all the three religions born outside India, have no idea of something transcendental. In India we have a third word MOKSHA, NIRVANA. Hell is a wrong psychology, ill, abnormal, neurotic, pathological; heaven is a right psychology, normal, healthy. But there is a beyond where you are no more a mind, when both sides of the mind have been dropped, where you are a no-mind, where you are neither negative nor positive, where you are neither dark nor light, where you are neither this nor that -- where you are just a witness to all, to misery and bliss, to all, just a witness, where you are not identified with either misery OR bliss, where…
Whenever we think of hell we think of somewhere deep down. It is not just an accident, because all over the earth, in different times, by different races, hell has always been thought of as being somewhere deep down, and dark. One falls into hell. And heaven has always been thought of as something above. It cannot be just accidental, because without any exception whenever people think of heaven they look up. There is a subtle hint in it -- that heaven is going higher and higher, above the clouds, above the stars, becoming so weightless that you can fly, so weightless that gravitation cannot function on you any more. And this is the secret of becoming weightless... become non-jealous, non-possessive. One should respect oneself, one should love oneself, one should worship oneself... because we come from god, god is our nature. We are not sinners, we are adventurers.
What is your idea of heaven?
There is no heaven and there is no hell. They are not geographical, they are part of your psychology. They are psychological. To live a life of spontaneity, truth, love and beauty is to live in heaven. To live a life of hypocrisy, lies and compromises, to live according to others, is to live in hell. To live in freedom is heaven, and to live in bondage is hell. You can decorate your prison cell beautifully, but that makes no difference, it is still a prison cell. And that's what people have been doing, they go on decorating their prison cell. They give it beautiful names, they go on painting it, putting new pictures on the walls, arranging the furniture in new ways, purchasing more and more things -- but they live in prisons. Your marriage is a prison, your church is a prison, your nationality is a prison. How…