According to Osho, life is neither inherently true nor false; it is a blank canvas and you are the creator. Birth is only an opportunity. What you choose—awareness, meditation, devotion—makes life “true”; unconscious chasing of wealth and status makes it “false,” exposed by death. Walk each step with awareness and you transform existence into fragrance rather than dust.
Life isn’t already true or false; it’s a blank page, and with awareness and love you write what it becomes.
From the Discourses
Passages where Osho speaks to this question — each links to the complete discourse.
Question: Third question: Osho, is life true or false? Krishnatirtha! Life in itself is neither true nor false. In itself life is only an opportunity, a bare opportunity; it can become truth, it can become untruth. Life is a blank canvas; how you lay your colors upon it, what you bring forth with your brush, depends on you. You are the master. Life is not some ready‑made thing handed to you at birth. Birth is not life; birth is merely an opportunity. Now you must make your life. Life is a creation. Life is neither true nor false. Buddha created a life—Kabir did, Nanak did, Mohammed did, Dariya did. A life was created by Tamerlane too—by Nadir Shah, by Hitler. There is one kind of life where there is only dust and dust; and there is a life where there are only flowers.
How can you live a life of truth, how can you practice truth without knowing it, without becoming one with truth? Our actions only reflect what goes on in our consciousness. Isn't that so? If an artist who does not know beauty but dreams of painting beauty is considered mad, then that person who does not know truth but tries to put is into practice in his life is equally mad. The creation of beauty is the outcome of the experience of beauty and a truthful life is an outgrowth of the experience of truth. Living a truthful life is not a stairway to the experience of truth, a truthful life is the manifestation of the experience of truth.
Beloved Osho, what is life?
"Ah thought so," said Ezra, "all the time you was preaching it." Life is not there readymade, available. You get the life that you create, you get out of life that which you put into it. First you have to pour meaning into it. You have to give color and music and poetry, you have to be creative. Only then will you be alive. The second essential thing: that only those few people who are creative know what life is. The uncreative never know, because life is in creativity, life is creativity. Can't you see how life goes on creating? It is a continuum of creativity, constant creativity, every moment creativity. In fact God is not a creator. It is better to call him "creativity," because verbs are truer than nouns. Nouns look like things, verbs are processes -- alive, flowing, dynamic. God is more creativity than a creator. Whenever…
Osho, this world is maya. Here everything is false. Save me from drowning in it.
A cat was sitting on a tree branch, swaying, in a great devotional mood. A dog passing below saw the cat—his mouth watered—but she was up on the branch, beyond his reach. And she was swaying as if on a journey to heaven, eyes closed, tears of ecstasy flowing. The dog stood awhile hoping she might sway too much and fall. But she did not sway that much; she held the branch tight. Finally the dog said, “What’s the matter? What’s giving you such bliss?” The cat opened her eyes: “You spoiled it all! I was dreaming that from the sky it was raining mice—a torrential downpour! Mice upon mice were falling!” The dog said, “Fool, do you know scripture? It is clearly written that sometimes miracles happen, and when they do, bones rain from the sky, not mice. There is no mention of mice in the scriptures. Idiot! You…
Question: The first question: Osho, what is life? Such questions seem simple; they arise in everyone’s mind. But such questions have no answer. In fact, they are not really questions at all; therefore they have no answer. An answer to “What is life?” would be possible only if there were something other than life. Life alone is; there is nothing besides it. We could answer in reference to something else—but there is nothing else. Life is just life. So life can have neither a goal nor a cause. The cause is life, and the goal is life. Consider it this way: someone asks you, “What are you standing on?” You say, “On the roof.” “And what is the roof resting on?” You say, “On the walls.” “And the walls?” “On the earth.” “And the earth?” “On gravity.” If he keeps asking, “And what is gravity resting on?