According to Osho, original thought is impossible because mind is only memory—combinatorial, borrowed, mechanical. What can be original is your being: a silent, present, no-mind state from which freshness flows. Even Buddhas speak in borrowed language, yet their presence is original. Therefore, drop identification with mind, listen to the gaps between words, and know truth directly in emptiness; then life expresses originality without thought’s repetition.
Your mind just remixes old stuff; become quiet beyond thinking and a fresh, living originality appears.
From the Discourses
Passages where Osho speaks to this question — each links to the complete discourse.
Is it possible to have an original thought?
But it is not part of mind. Mind is a mechanism. It cannot be original; it is not even alive -- how can it be original? It is social. Hence the insistence of all the awakened ones that unless you drop the mind you will not be able to know the truth, because truth is always original. Mind: always borrowed; truth: always original. Mind and truth cannot meet. Meditation is to attain to a no-mindness, to a state of no-thought. In that opening of no-thought, in that kind of space, suddenly you become pure, innocent, uncorrupted. You have never been like that before nobody has ever been like that before nobody is going to be like that again. Unique. And to know that is to realize one's self. To know that is to know all. If you have not known that, whatsoever else you know is just rubbish, garbage. If…
Osho, it is all right when you say everything is auspicious and beautiful; but what will happen to us—those of us who are attached to your physical body?
Yog Vidya! Attachment is not inauspicious. Attachment is not ugly. Attachment is like freshly mined gold—yet impure. It will pass through fire, be refined, become pure. Attachment is love in its impure form. Attachment needs to be transformed, refined. I am not against attachment. I am not against anything. But every phenomenon has higher possibilities—more auspicious, more beautiful forms. The seers of the Upanishads prayed: O Lord, lead us from darkness to light. Tamaso ma jyotir gamaya! If I were to say it, I would say: O Lord, lead us from light to more light. Because darkness too is only a form of light. Light is hidden even in darkness. Morning is born out of the night; the sun rises from it. In the womb of night the sun is nurtured and grows. The whole beauty of the dawn is impossible without the night. The Upanishadic seers say: O Lord,…
The nun chiyono studied for years, but was unable to find enlightenment. One night, she was carrying an old pail filled with water. As she was walking along, she was watching the full moon reflected in the pail of water. Suddenly, the bamboo strips that held the pail together broke, and the pail fell apart. The water rushed out; the moon's reflection disappeared -- and chiyono became enlightened. She wrote this verse: this way and that way I tried to keep the pail together, hoping the weak bamboo would never break. Suddenly the bottom fell out. No more water; no more moon in the water -- empti
A real seeker is never against anything. He is for something, but never against something. He is for God, but never against the world, because finally the world belongs to God. If I see your face in a mirror and it is beautiful, should I be against the mirror? Really, I should be thankful because it reflected you. But I will not focus myself on the mirror; I will be in search of you who was reflected in the mirror. I will have to leave the mirror, but not because I am against it. I will have to turn my face away from the mirror, but not because I was against it. I will be thankful to it because it mirrored something, and in the reflection it was so beautiful -- but now I must go to find the original source. <q>THE WATER RUSHED OUT; THE MOON'S REFLECTION DISAPPEARED --…
Question: Fourth question: Osho, I am very impressed by your original ideas. This is not a question; it is praise. And there is no need for praise. If you have questions, ask them; if you have praise, keep it in your heart. What is the essence of it anyway? What will come of talking about it? So first, ask something that is of benefit to you, that is wholesome, auspicious for your life. Second, where are original ideas to be found! How could they be! How can anything in this world be original! Countless people have been; from endless time human beings have thought and reflected. Do you think a single idea remains that no human being has thought before? Impossible. But thoughts that have been thought get lost again and again. When you think them again, it seems they are original. We forget; memories are lost.
Osho: You cannot be open through effort. If you are thinking this, then you have not understood it. Thinking means non-understanding. The person who thinks is a man of non-understanding. A person who knows doesn't think. (much laughter) It is not a question of thinking. He sees, he is aware, but not in thinking. Thoughts are not opening, thoughts are closing; they close your mind. The more you are in a thinking mood, the more you are closed and isolated from the whole. If you are not thinking, if you just are, if you are in a state of being, then something comes. That is not thinking, that is the realization. That is not thinking, you have not thought it. And the more you have thought about it, the less is the possibility for its coming. The known must go for the unknown to come.