Sadhana isn’t against nature—it’s like choosing the sunny spot so water turns to steam; your choice and the change are both natural.
From the Discourses
Passages where Osho speaks to this question — each links to the complete discourse.
Osho, is sadhana a natural development, or is it a leap beyond nature’s evolutionary process and its transcendence? If sadhana is not an overstepping leap beyond natural growth, then will the whole of humanity, within the cosmic process, arrive on its own at spiritual heights? And if evolution always moves forward, why did the great ancient spiritual cultures recede from the evolutionary current?
There are many strands here. First: the moment we separate man from existence and look at him as apart, these questions begin to arise. For example, heat water to one hundred degrees and, at that point, it “leaps” and becomes steam. Water becoming steam is a natural event. Its heating is also natural, not unnatural. Heating is natural; the leap into steam is natural. If nature did not contain the law that at one hundred degrees water can jump into steam, water would have no way to become steam. If nature did not contain the potential to heat to one hundred degrees, water would have no power to reach that heat. Even so, if water had consciousness, it could save itself from fire—or it could put itself on the fire. That too would be a natural happening: to save itself or to offer itself—both. My point is: in this universe…
Is sadhana a natural growth, or is it a jump outside the evolutionary process of nature? If sadhana is not a jump and transcendence of the natural evolution, then is it possible that the entire human race can reach spiritual heights all by itself? If it is true that the course of evolution continues to move ahead, why were the greatest spiritual cultures of the past left behind in the whole evolutionary process?
As the individual becomes more and more conscious, his ability to choose becomes more and more profound. The more unconscious an individual is, the less profound is his ability to choose. For example, there is no way that water lying in the sun cannot turn into vapor -- it would be difficult for it not to. The water can't decide whether to become vapor or not. If it stays in the sun, then it is sure to become vapor, and lying in the cold, it is sure to become ice. This, the water will have to live through, although it will have no knowledge that it is living through it, because its consciousness is low, or not at all, or dormant. Trees in Africa rise hundreds of feet in search of the sun. They grow in height. Trees in India won't grow to such heights, because in India there aren't…