According to Osho, successive lives are not automatically progressive; you can rise or fall. Evolution becomes assured only when you consciously grow in awareness—then each birth moves to a higher plane. Because society conditions people toward unconsciousness (via drugs, power, distractions), most regress or stall. Choose increasing consciousness, transform suffering into insight, and your trajectory turns upward, culminating in pure, unbroken awareness.
No, lives don’t level up by themselves; you grow higher only by becoming more aware, otherwise you can even go backward.
From the Discourses
Passages where Osho speaks to this question — each links to the complete discourse.
Beloved Osho, is each successive life we live a spiritual advancement on the previous one?
When I reached there he was very happy. Putting all his bank accounts on his heart and holding them with both hands, he died. I have seen many people dying, but he died so beautifully. He had millions of rupees and property worth millions and he was dying like a beggar in a free ward. But he was absolutely happy. There are people who can get addicted to money, people who can get addicted to power, but they are doing the same thing, in a little more sophisticated way, as simple people are doing by taking marijuana. No marijuana taking person can become Adolf Hitler -- impossible. He will not find it interesting. No opium eater would bother to become a prime minister; then who will take the opium? I have told you about the opium addict barber, a friend of my grandfather. I had told him, "You are so…
Another question has been asked: Osho, so many great ones have been born. If they have raised the world up, then why does the world keep falling back down again and again?
It is like saying, “My father was highly educated, so how can I be uneducated now? What need have I for education?” Or, “My father was a very learned man; then why should I have to study?” No—however learned your father may be, learning is not transmitted through your blood. You will have to study and learn again yourself. In the world, great people are born, great winds blow, great societies arise—but all that ends with their generation. The new generation has to begin again from the point where they began. In the life of religion, we cannot stand on anyone else’s shoulders. We must stand on our own feet. You cannot stand on the shoulders of Mahavira or Buddha and say, “We stand on their shoulders; we should be better than they.” You stand on your own feet, and Mahavira stands on his. No one can stand on another’s…
Osho, Mahipal-ji asks about karma: this evolution that is happening—the animals and birds moving toward the human realm—is it simply the result of a spontaneous, automatic evolution that runs by itself, or does their conscious effort also participate in it?
As I said: when a new consciousness develops, new bodies must be assumed. When a conscious society’s numbers increase, new planets and satellites must be colonized. Scientists cannot explain how life first appeared on Earth; they can describe evolution, but evolution presupposes something that evolves. Where did life come from? If the fish became human, where did the fish come from? If plant became fish, where did life enter the plant? Life must come from somewhere. Similarly, when a mother becomes fit to conceive, a soul enters her. When a planet or satellite becomes fit for life, life migrates there from other planets. The first germs always transmigrate; there is no other way. From another planet—perhaps one where life is nearing its end—the seed comes. You also asked whether the efforts of Buddhas and Mahaviras—or I, or anyone—ever actually help beings to evolve. It has happened many times. Our view…
Osho, if the movement of life is circular—like day and night, like months and seasons—does it mean we, too, keep merely repeating ourselves again and again?
Strive! Buddha’s last words at the moment of farewell were: Ananda, be ceaselessly engaged in effort! Do not be negligent even for an instant! Do not let even a trace of sloth settle within! For a little sloth, and much is lost. Keep toiling until you awaken; until then, do not grant yourself any rest. Tireless effort! You will have to strike again and again; only then will this darkness break—because you have been maintaining this darkness for so long. Your state has become rock-like, inert. The crust has grown very strong. The soul is hidden within; the spring is within; but the doors are closed. By striking, the doors will break. By striking continuously, the doors will break. Even if the blows are gentle, they must be unbroken. Water falls—gentle blows—and rocks are split. Let the stream of your remembrance fall upon the mechanical rocks within you. If not…
Osho, because of the influence of others, can someone who has risen a little fall back down?
No, there is no way to go downward. In fact, this should be understood well. It is quite delightful—very delightful—that there is no method for going down. Wherever you have reached, you can be helped to go higher; you can also be obstructed and kept where you are; but you cannot be taken below that. The reason is that in going higher you have already changed, instantly. (The audio recording of the question is unclear.) No, no, no. The question simply does not arise. If someone has moved even an inch higher in their being, they cannot return; returning is impossible. It is like this: we can help a child move from first grade to second grade. You can hire a tutor who helps him with first grade and gets him into second. But finding a tutor who can make him forget what he learned in first—“Now we must make…