According to Osho, resolve is not self-conflict but the end of it: when consciousness unites around one clear intention, the many ‘multi-wills’ that split us disappear. A single, wholehearted resolve crystallizes integration; even small fulfilled resolves make one an ‘individual’—indivisible, gathered. Without resolve we’re torn by contradictory impulses; with resolve, our energies cooperate and inner struggle ceases.
Resolve means choosing one thing with your whole heart so all your inner parts stop arguing.
From the Discourses
Passages where Osho speaks to this question — each links to the complete discourse.
Another friend has also asked: Osho, isn’t resolve just fighting with oneself?
No. In fact, it is only so long as there is no resolve that we fight with ourselves. The lack of resolve splits us in two. It can even split us into ten. What does a resolve-less person really mean? Not that he has no resolve, but that within him many self-contradictory resolves coexist. Resolve-less means: at the same time many self-contradictory resolves are inside him. He is not without resolve; he is multi-willed—filled with mutually opposing resolves. A person of resolve means that within him, at a given moment, there is only one resolve, and upon that resolve his whole consciousness is united, total, gathered. Even regarding a small matter, if the mind gathers completely—becomes total—then we cannot fight with ourselves, because no other remains within us to fight against. I can make these two hands of mine fight; they are both my hands. Half my body can side…
Osho, is there any method to increase willpower?
So do not take a very big resolve all at once, one that you already know is beyond you—and this is what often happens: those who set out on the journey of resolve take resolves beyond their limits. Your own mind counsels you, “Yes, take it.” And then you get stuck, and you fall. Then the same mind says, “Now drop it. You’re not anyone’s slave; you took it yourself, now leave it.” Why does the mind do this? Because the greater your resolve becomes, the smaller your mind becomes. The day a resolve is fulfilled, the mind dies; it cannot survive. Mind and resolve are opposing forces. Mind is the name of your weakness; resolve is the name of your soul. Mind is your disease; resolve is your health. Therefore the mind will keep putting you in difficulties. It will say, “Take a big one.” When you take it,…
At the last moment of dying his lips still had only one thing. His final words were also this: somehow send me to my village, and bury me beneath the very tree under which I was born. But how to take him there? He died; so they buried him there, two thousand miles away. That night a very astonishing event occurred. Suddenly a storm arose. Such a storm as there was no likelihood of. Trees were uprooted, houses fell. The tree under which he had been buried was torn out with its roots, and his corpse too came out. He had been buried in a wooden coffin; with the coffin his body came out. The sea was two miles away; the storm pushed and shoved his body, his coffin, to the ocean.
Osho, in the previous verse you spoke about resolve. What is the difference between resolve and repression of the senses? We want to understand this.
It is necessary to understand the word deva. Much confusion has arisen from it. Deva is a technical term. In this world, when people die, ordinary people find a womb quickly; a body becomes available immediately. But for a very exceptional, auspicious soul, a suitable womb is not immediately available; it must wait. For a very evil soul too, a womb is not readily available; it also must wait. For ordinary souls the womb becomes available at once—hence an ordinary man dies here and is born there; there is little gap between death and new birth—sometimes moments, sometimes not even that. Wombs are available round the clock; the soul immediately enters. But a superior soul waits for a worthy womb. Such superior souls are called devas. Inferior souls also wait; they are called pretas—ghosts. Those who died doing much evil—such as a Hitler, on whose head lies the murder of…
Osho, you have spoken of separating from the subtle body by resolve. Can one who practices witnessing, or one who practices tathata, have the subtle body separate without resolve?
In truth, practicing witnessing is itself a very great resolve, and practicing tathata is an even greater resolve—this is the great resolve. When a man decides, “I will live as a witness,” there is no bigger resolve than that. For example, one man decides, “Today I will not eat,” he resolves to fast. Another decides, “I will eat, but I will not see myself as the eater; I will see the seeing.” This second one is the tougher resolve. Not eating is not such a big difficulty. In fact, for people who get proper food, not eating for a day or two in a month is quite easy. That is why whenever a society begins to have adequate food, the cult of fasting starts to spread. As in America these days, fasting is a strong trend. Naturopathy quickly catches on when people are well-fed. And it even feels right—sometimes stay…