According to Osho, vegetarianism is not essential for spiritual growth; what matters is consciousness, not dietary rules. Spirituality may naturally reshape your habits—you may become vegetarian or not—but imposing food laws breeds fanaticism. Right and wrong are qualities of the person, not the act; cultivate awareness first, and appropriate choices follow.
You don’t need to quit meat to be spiritual; grow awareness and kindness, and your eating habits will adjust naturally.
From the Discourses
Passages where Osho speaks to this question — each links to the complete discourse.
What about food? Is it not absolutely essential to be a vegetarian for spiritual growth?
Nobody has been as penetrating as the Zen poets, and in a few small words. They have written such great poetry -- to write that poetry others need to write great books, big books; they go on writing and writing, and even then not much poetry is found. But it has nothing to do with spirituality. Spirituality is possible without being a poet, without being a dancer, without being a musician. But if you are a musician, a poet, a dancer, your life will have more fulfillment. Spirituality will be at the center and all these values will be on the circumference. You will have a far richer life. A spiritual person can be a poor person -- he may not have any capacity to enjoy music. In fact that's what is happening in the world. If you go and see a Jaina monk and you talk about classical music…
Our beloved master,
YOU WERE JUST TALKING ABOUT FOOD, AND NOW IN THE WEST FOOD IS A BIG CULT. IT'S ONE OF THE THINGS COMING IN AS A BASIS OF SPIRITUALITY. YOU SAID IF WE'RE NATURAL, WE'LL KNOW WHAT TO EAT AND WHEN TO EAT, BUT NOW WE ARE OUT OF TOUCH WITH OUR CHILDLIKE NATURE. ALSO, MANY RELIGIONS SAY THAT THE FOOD YOU EAT DOES MAKE A DIFFERENCE TO ONE'S SPIRITUAL PATH. IS THERE ANYTHING YOU CAN TELL US ABOUT FOOD AS A GUIDE FOR THE WEST? It is the other way round: food cannot make you spiritual, but if you are spiritual your food habits will change. Eating anything will not make much difference. You can be a vegetarian and cruel to the extreme, and violent; you can be a non-vegetarian and kind and loving. Food will not make much difference. In India there are communities who have lived totally with…
Question: BELOVED OSHO, WHY ARE ALL YOUR DISCIPLES VEGETARIAN? I do not believe in vegetarianism, because I do not believe in anything. My disciples are vegetarian not as a cult, not as a creed. They are vegetarians because their meditations make them more human, more of the heart, and they can see the whole stupidity of people killing living beings for their food. It is their sensitivity, their aesthetic awareness that makes them vegetarians. I don't teach vegetarianism; it is a by-product of meditation. Wherever meditation has happened, people have become vegetarian, always, for thousands of years. The oldest religion in the world is Jainism. It is a small religion, that's why not much is known to the outside world; it exists only in India. Jainism has no God; hence, there is no possibility of prayer. When God and prayer are discarded, then what is left for a religion?
Beloved Osho, when you were testing your enlightenment by smoking, drinking alcohol, and having sex, did you try eating fish and meat? Does a vegetarian diet have a real value for our consciousness, or is it optional, like smoking?
Of course, there is some existential difference which I cannot destroy. But this is not the existential difference -- that you smoke and I don't smoke, that you drink and I don't drink. This is not existential. The existential difference is very small, and that is: I am awake and you are asleep. It is not much, because I am just sitting on the same bed where you are asleep. Just a little effort will make you awake. Your sleep gives a guarantee: anybody who is capable of sleeping is capable of awakening, they come together. So what is the fuss about? Take your time. Whenever you want to wake up, wake. There is no hurry, you have the whole eternity available to you. Yes, I may not be there to wake you up, that is the only unfortunate thing about it. But somebody else.... One day you are going…
Osho, the Gita certainly emphasizes sattvic food for seekers, but nowhere does it explicitly forbid meat. And you have said meat is easy to digest—and that’s what doctors say, too. Then what obstacle does meat-eating create? For spiritual practice you have strongly stressed the usefulness of a vegetarian diet. But books indicate that many saints who attained through Sufi, Zen, and Tantra paths did not remain vegetarian. And in our own country, Paramhansa Ramakrishna always ate non-vegetarian food. What is the reason for this contradiction?
Then my vision is this: Ramakrishna is an exceedingly pure man. Therefore such a small impurity could not obstruct him. You may not be able to conceive this. Exceedingly pure. If you permit me, I would say: purer than Mahavira. Had Mahavira eaten meat or fish, he could not have attained the supreme. But Ramakrishna did. This means only this: the man is so pure that such a small impurity could not hinder him. Despite that impurity he crossed beyond. Understand it like this: you climb a mountain. The rule for mountain-climbing is that the less the load, the better. If you climb with loads of weight on your head, climbing becomes hard. You may abandon the idea or stop at some midway camp. But then a very powerful man, a Hercules, climbs the mountain with a heavy weight—and reaches the top. This man is not the rule. This Hercules…