Go to work and live with people, but don’t copy them inside—stay yourself and keep your calm.
From the Discourses
Passages where Osho speaks to this question — each links to the complete discourse.
Beloved Osho, the question for the meditator used to be, "how to be in the world and not of it?" since the ranch and having moved back into the world, many of us feel alien, different, not of it. The question now seems to be, "how to be in it?"
No, still the question is to be in the world and not to be of it. To be in it does not change the first position. The first position allows you to be in the world but not worldly. It is perfectly good that you feel alien -- there is nothing wrong in it. You should feel so, that this world in which you have to be is not the world where you can synchronize with people, with their ideas, with their behavior. This world is not the right world -- I mean the human world. And you want to be in it, part of it? Then you have to be a Christian in a Christian society. Then you have to go to the church, then you have to believe in THE HOLY BIBLE. Do you want to be in this way in the world? Then all that you have…Read the full discourse →
Beloved Osho, when we're sitting in front of you, hearing your words and feeling your presence, everything feels possible. But when we return to our daily living conditions, things do not seem so clear and we feel cut off from you. You have told us that we should not renounce the world, but be meditative within it. You have also said that we should be spontaneous and mad. How can we integrate the two without alienating our families and friends and the society around us?
Religious people are afraid of hell, and they seek and hanker for heaven. These people are not religious at all, because heaven and hell are both conditions without -- they are not your own qualities. These are the worldly people. That's what worldly people are doing. They say: If this condition is fulfilled, then I will be happy. So happiness depends on the condition. If a palace is there then I will be happy; so much money in the bank balance, then I will be happy; such a beautiful wife, then I will be happy, or such a good, loving husband, then I will be happy. You are happy only when something is fulfilled outside, and you say: If this is not fulfilled, I am unhappy. This is what an unreligious man is. And the so-called religious men also go on seeking heaven, avoiding hell. They are doing the same!…Read the full discourse →
Osho, to abide in oneself beyond the knower, knowledge, and the known—can one live in that state for an entire lifetime? Just as a lake is sometimes calm, sometimes playful, and sometimes stormy, does the self-realized one remain unaffected by worldly circumstances in the same way? Osho, dispel my ignorance!
Spring means harmony between season and mood. Meditation means harmony between you and the whole. You become harmonious. Whatever is, is perfectly okay—accepted. Nowhere any refusal, nowhere any opposition. Whatever is happening is auspicious. That is trust; that is meditation. Such meditation naturally takes you into an altogether new experience. Storms will rise; they will not stop because you meditate. Diseases will not stop coming to the body because you meditate. They will come. A thorn will sometimes pierce the foot. Raman had cancer; so did Ramakrishna—great storms came! Ramakrishna got cancer of the throat; he could neither eat nor drink. Vivekananda said to him, “What is not in your power! Why don’t you pray to the Lord at least to allow food and water to pass? We suffer watching you writhe.” Ramakrishna said, “Ah, it never even occurred to me to pray. How could it occur—to one whose prayer…Read the full discourse →
Mind gone, consciousness born
(Meditation is a second birth, the birth of one's spirit. Osho tells Dhyano Ursula.) The first birth is only physical. It is ordinary; it happens to animals, to trees, to insects, it happens to everybody. It is a natural phenomenon. Meditation is a second birth. It happens only when you deliberately and consciously take part in it. In that way it is not natural. it is transcendental to nature. And it is only meditation that makes a man a man. otherwise he is just an animal. Without meditation there is no distinction between man and animal. Maybe there are some differences of quantity -- a little more intelligence, a little more cunning, a little more alertness -- but those are not qualitative differences, only quantitative. Meditation gives you a qualitative distinction -- and that is the meaning of Ursula: of distinguished quality. Without meditation man has no distinction. With meditation…Read the full discourse →
It is asked: Osho, a person is born in society; it is society that educates him, it is society that raises, nourishes and makes him grow. Then how can a person be independent of society?
You will say: this is very difficult, very hard. Because the mind does not become quiet even for a moment; it does not fall silent. Something or other is going on there — some thought, some matter, some memory is at work. Either the future or the past is holding you. There is work there twenty-four hours a day. The body may rest at times; there is no rest there. At night you sleep and dreams keep running; by day you wake and who knows what worries and thoughts keep running. So how will this happen? Many of you will have sat with a rosary and it did not happen. Many will have done name-repetition and it did not happen. Many will have prayed and recited mantras and it did not happen — and so the idea will have arisen that this is very difficult. It is not difficult; it…Read the full discourse →