According to Osho, coming closer to the inner temple happens not by renouncing your personal activities but by authentically doing your own thing. He insists he has no agenda to mold you; you yourself are his work. When you are yourself—fulfilled and blissful—you reach your innermost home, which is his temple. Thus, engagement in your true interests supports, rather than hinders, spiritual closeness.
Yes—keep doing what truly feels like yours; being yourself is the doorway to the inner temple.
From the Discourses
Passages where Osho speaks to this question — each links to the complete discourse.
It is not a difficult process because the process of looking is the same, just the object changes: you start turning your consciousness upon yourself. You may have seen many pictures of snakes swallowing their own tails. Those pictures are very ancient symbols of mystery schools; they represent this inner transformation. When your consciousness starts turning upon itself you become a circle, and the moment you are a circle you are no more the same old person. Your life starts having a new grace, a new beauty, a new beatitude. You become golden, you become precious. For the first time you have a contact with god, and that contact is a magical transformation. It is sheer magic and a miracle. Enjoy the trip, don't be too fixated on the target, Osho said in conclusion. Bliss is not a pond, it is a river. It is not static.
Question: BELOVED OSHO, YOUR DAILY LIFE IS YOUR TEMPLE AND YOUR RELIGION. WHENEVER YOU ENTER INTO IT TAKE WITH YOU YOUR ALL. TAKE THE PLOUGH AND THE FORGE AND THE MALLET AND THE LUTE, THE THINGS YOU HAVE FASHIONED IN NECESSITY OR FOR DELIGHT. FOR IN REVERIE YOU CANNOT RISE ABOVE YOUR ACHIEVEMENTS NOR FALL LOWER THAN YOUR FAILURES. AND TAKE WITH YOU ALL MEN: FOR IN ADORATION YOU CANNOT FLY HIGHER THAN THEIR HOPES NOR HUMBLE YOURSELF LOWER THAN THEIR DESPAIR. AND IF YOU WOULD KNOW GOD, BE NOT THEREFORE A SOLVER OF RIDDLES. RATHER LOOK ABOUT YOU AND YOU SHALL SEE HIM PLAYING WITH YOUR CHILDREN. AND LOOK INTO SPACE; YOU SHALL SEE HIM WALKING IN THE CLOUD, OUTSTRETCHING HIS ARMS IN THE LIGHTNING AND DESCENDING IN RAIN. YOU SHALL SEE HIM SMILING IN FLOWERS, THEN RISING AND WAVING HIS HANDS IN TREES.
Beloved Osho, you seem to be fulfilling two roles: an outer one in which you provoke and expose the structure of our society, and a more intimate one in which you encourage your disciples towards the ultimate.
But I would not have been of any help to anybody, because who is going to destroy all that rubbish? And the rubbish has to be destroyed first, it is blocking the way. It is your whole conditioning. You have been programmed from your very childhood with absolute lies, but they have been repeated so often that you have forgotten that they are lies. That's the whole secret of advertisement: just go on repeating. On the radio, on the television, in the films, in the newspapers, on the walls, everywhere, go on repeating. In the old days it was thought that wherever there is a demand the supply happens on its own accord. Now, that is not the rule. The rule is, if you have something to supply, create the demand. Go on hammering in people's minds certain words so that they forget completely that they have been listening to…
Osho, tell us of some lure that would set us moving toward God—some temptation that would engage our mind in God-realization.
Difficult today, difficult tomorrow; the day after, not so difficult—if you persist and don’t jump up, “Oh, a bad thought—get rid of it!” The witness has nothing to do with good or bad. Thorns have the same worth as flowers. We label; the witness does not. Soon, an amazing thing begins: now and then a gap appears—an interval. A thought comes, then the next does not; a space remains. In that empty space, the first glimpses begin. In that emptiness, even you are not—there is only emptiness. That is the door. Keep at it, and thoughts lessen; spaces grow. It’s like a road where a person passes, then for an hour no one—emptiness. A thought appears on the screen, then none for a long while; the screen is blank. From that blankness, your first contacts with God begin—because in that moment you are present. Thought can take you to past…
Question: First question: Osho, Searching for you I have wandered who knows where. Neither heaven says a word, nor does hell open its gate. I look into every eye, feeling for your picture, and I have wandered who knows where. Are these just the gaps between breaths, or only distances upon distances? You too say nothing—your lips never open. How long must I keep walking, groping about in everyone’s heart? Where are you and where am I? Searching for you I have wandered who knows where. I could not meet you on the earth, nor could I fix your address in the sky. I searched everywhere for you and yet did not find you. Now, in searching, I set out after myself—who knows where I strayed. Ah, what is this? Your address is found: your image in my eyes, like musk that dwells within the deer.