According to Osho, returning to the original state is not a journey but an awakening: you have never left your source. Like the Ganges ‘returning’ via rain or a tree becoming seed, this happens continually and unconsciously; only your thoughts dream of separation. Through simple wakefulness—seeing you are already the buddha, here and now—the river is ‘back’ at Gangotri.
You don’t need to go back to your true self—you never left it; just wake up and notice.
From the Discourses
Passages where Osho speaks to this question — each links to the complete discourse.
Beloved Osho, this pratyahar looks like an impossible experiment. Is it possible for the ganges to return to gangotri and is it possible for the tree to again become a seedling and a seed? And shankara and you are both asking us to do this.
The return of the Ganges to its source, to Gangotri, and the tree becoming a seed looks impossible to you, but this is what is happening every day. The tree is becoming a seed again daily. Just look at the seeds hanging on that gulmohar tree: the whole tree has become seeds. And every day the Ganges returns to Gangotri through the dark clouds; it rains on the Himalayas and the Ganges returns to Gangotri. This is happening every day. You ask what has to be done. Really, this is happening unconsciously; you just have to see this happening in wakefulness. Many times you return home but you are not conscious. You have become so used to staying in guesthouses that even when you return to your own home you think it to be a guesthouse. A friend of mine has to travel day and night in connection with his…
Osho, this pratyahara seems like an impossible experiment. Is it really possible for the Ganges to return to Gangotri and for a tree to return and merge into a sapling and a seed? Yet Shankara—and you too—are asking us to practice exactly this!
Does the Ganges returning to Gangotri or the tree folding back into the seed seem impossible to you? It is happening every day! The seed becomes a tree again and again. Look at the seed pods hanging on that gulmohar beside you—the whole tree has become seed. And the Ganges returns to Gangotri every day—rising into clouds, into rain-laden skies—then pouring on the Himalayas, returning to Gangotri. This is happening every single day. Then you will ask, “If it’s already happening, what is there to do?” The doing is only this: to see, awake, what is already taking place. It is happening while you sleep. Many times you come back home, but you are not conscious. You have become so accustomed to stopping in inns that even when you return home you take it to be an inn. A friend of mine has a business that keeps him traveling day…
Osho, I feel that in the journey of life I have wandered very far from my true nature. Will the journey of returning—of retracing—back to my nature be just as long? Or is some shortcut possible?
But we manage to extract futility out of everything. So there are people “remembering God,” chanting “Ram-Ram, Ram-Ram.” They have turned their shawl into a “Ram shawl,” covered with Ram-Ram. Remembrance of the Lord means that what is hidden within me becomes evident to me. By repeating Ram-Ram awareness will not arise. Let my eyes, which have been wandering outward, turn within; let my ears, which listen outside, begin to listen within; let my mind, which thinks about the external, turn inward—let its lamp, its light, fall inside. This very moment you can be established in your nature, because in truth you already are. No one has ever been able to dislodge you from there, nor ever will. That is why, even after wandering for thousands of births, you never truly wander away. Your capacity to reclaim it is, at every instant, exactly what it has always been; not the…
Granted there is expanse, but what appears in expanse was hidden in the sprout, hidden in the seed, hidden in the root. And remember, more than what is visible is always hidden in the source. The source is infinite. What is visible… This tree stands here—it is not the whole. For every year these leaves fall; new leaves come again. It has happened hundreds of times; it will happen hundreds of times. Each time thousands and millions of seeds appear—again they appear. The source keeps giving and giving. The Ganga goes on flowing. Gangotri is subtle, not small. He who has recognized the subtle alone can understand the vast. The vast is visible; gross eyes can see it. The source is not visible, but in it everything is hidden. And in the source infinite possibilities are hidden.
Osho, is it possible for a man's consciousness to become like that of a newborn child?
Certainly. A lake is all quiet. Then waves arise, gusts of wind come—the lake trembles. When the gusts pass, the lake again becomes still, becomes a mirror again. The lake is pure. Leaves fall, it becomes dirty. The leaves will settle to the bottom; the lake will again be fresh and clear. When the child is born, the lake is still clear—there are no ripples, no leaves of thoughts, no waves of desire. Then everything becomes wave-tossed—storms arise, the mind trembles, the mirror is lost. Youth comes; everything turns stormy; nothing remains settled; the wild, tempestuous surges of great desires arrive. Then old age comes; all the rubbish, the stones, the ruins lie about. But what was there at the source is still there. A little understanding—to let the leaves settle; a little understanding—to let the winds of desire stop. The lake will become the same again; the nature of…