It’s okay to keep some things private from the world so you aren’t used, but don’t hide from the one you love, and aim to live so openly that one day nothing needs hiding.
From the Discourses
Passages where Osho speaks to this question — each links to the complete discourse.
Question: BELOVED OSHO, IS IT OKAY TO HAVE A SECRET? I have been told, those two keys were the keys to all the secret files against the politicians of India -- because that was her power. If those two keys are lost then it will be a difficult job -- first those two keys.... Perhaps one key was concerned with the files and the other key was concerned with the money they were keeping in hiding. And this was a constant fight between Sanjay and Indira: he wanted those two keys. I don't know exactly, but people who knew their house and their inner workings say that he even slapped his mother once because she was adamant and would not give him those two keys. And finally she had to give them to him because he was creating too much trouble for her.
Beloved Osho, you are a delicious bundle of mischief. When you told us we would get a taste of eternity, a glimpse, when we stop mid-flight, in mid-dance, at your signal, I thought a door would open, and a beam of light would enter my darkness. You ripped the whole door off! I thought I was safe inside, and suddenly everything around me was gone -- even me. Since then there has been a giggling fellow walking around in his old clothes, looking for his house, using my name. Shall I let him share our secret?
Devageet, it is time you realized that whenever I do something, I do it totally. I don't hold anything back. And that's my message to you too. Do things with your whole heart, with as much intensity as you are capable of. Anything done half-heartedly never brings joy to life. It only brings misery, anxiety, torture, and tension, because whenever you do anything half-heartedly you are dividing yourself into two parts, and that is one of the greatest calamities that has happened to human beings -- they are all split. The whole past has given you only one heritage, and that is schizophrenia. The misery in the world is not surprising; it is a natural outcome of our living always half-heartedly, doing everything only with one part of our being, while the other part is resisting, opposing, fighting. And whatever you do with half of your being is going to…
What is the need for secrecy in masterdisciple relationships and also in ordinary human relationships?
Have you seen Renoir's paintings of feminine bodies? They have something miraculous in them. Many painters have painted the feminine body, but there is no comparison with Renoir. What is the difference? All other painters have painted the feminine body as it looks to the eyes. Renoir has painted it as it feels to the hands, so the painting has a warmth and a closeness, an aliveness. When you touch, something happens very close. When you see, something is far away. In darkness, in secrecy, in privacy, something is revealed which cannot be revealed in openness, in the marketplace. Others are seeing and observing; something deep within you shrinks, it cannot flower. It is just as if you put seeds down on the open ground, for everybody to look at. They will never sprout. They need to be thrown deep in the womb of the earth, in deep darkness where…
Maneesha has asked a few questions. First: beloved Osho, to be told that truth is a secret, makes me feel that truth is an exclusive club to which one only gains entrance by having some inexplicable qualification. But I don't sense that you have some secret you are keeping from us; if anything my own secretiveness is what is in the way. Is there anything you can say that I might understand?
Every moment I am giving you the rose that Gautam Buddha gave to Mahakashyapa; with my whole being, with my presence. There is no secret at all, both my hands are open. I am not holding my fists closed. But there are investments which would like what you call `exclusive clubs'. The Hindu pundit thinks that truth is only in the Sanskrit scriptures. One very young and alert man, Swami Ramateertha, who had gone to the West and around the world, was loved by thousands of people. He was a man of rare quality. He thought that, coming back home, it would be right for him to first go to Kashi, the capital of Hinduism. But he was not aware that a great disaster was awaiting him. In Kashi, they have the secret council of Hindu scholars. He was asked to present himself before the council, and the first question…
You should find freedom by means of both examination and investigation. Don't brag. Don't be consumed by jealousy. Don't act capriciously. Don't expect thanks. This quintessential elixir of advice by which the advancement of the five decay is changed into the bodhi path is transmitted through dharmakirti.
BY AWAKENING THE KARMIC ENERGY OF PREVIOUS TRAINING, AND BY VIRTUE OF MY INTENSE INTEREST, I IGNORED MISERY AND BAD REPUTATION AND SOUGHT INSTRUCTION TO CONTROL EGO-CLINGING. NOW, EVEN WHEN I DIE, I'LL HAVE NO REGRET. Man's greatest longing is for freedom. Man IS a longing for freedom. Freedom is the very essential core of human consciousness: love is its circumference and freedom is its center. These two fulfilled, life has no regret. And they both are fulfilled together, never separately. People have tried to fulfill love without freedom. Then love brings more and more misery, more and more bondage. Then love is not what one has expected it to be, it turns out just the opposite. It shatters all hopes, it destroys all expectations and life becomes a wasteland -- a groping in darkness and never finding the door. Love without freedom naturally tends to be possessive. And the…