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Osho on Is the doer and instigator of wrongdoing also the Lord if doership is absent?

Is the doer and instigator of wrongdoing also the Lord if doership is absent?

Without doership, sin ceases to exist, and the Divine cannot be labeled as the instigator of wrongdoing. True surrender transforms every act into a sacred expression, free from the chains of ego.

— Osho
According to Osho, the Divine is beyond human divisions of good and bad; wrongdoing is born only from egoic doership. When all doership is surrendered to the Divine, ego drops and evil becomes impossible. Claiming “God did it” while stealing is hypocrisy—true surrender also accepts the beating as Divine. Therefore, without doer-ness there is no sin, and the Lord cannot be called the instigator of wrongdoing.

If there’s no “me” claiming to act, bad acts can’t happen—so don’t blame God for your stealing; only ego does wrong.

In His Own Words

From the Discourses

Passages where Osho speaks to this question — each links to the complete discourse.

Osho, yesterday you said that jealousy is included in respect. I have immense respect for you, but the jealousy inherent in it keeps poisoning it, and I feel guilt and pain. Does reverence transcend this poison-laced respect?

It needs a little explaining—it's a delicate point. Whenever you respect someone, you do so because you see in that person something you do not have. You respect because you glimpse in the other something you would also like to possess. A beggar respects an emperor because he, too, longs to be an emperor. So on the one hand he respects, and inside he also envies. Because he is not yet an emperor but wants to be. You have attained what he wants to attain. He respects you as skillful, successful: “I stand far back in the line; you have gone ahead to where I should have been.” So you are powerful, clever, intelligent, strong—he respects you. But inside a fire of jealousy also burns—if he gets the chance, he would like to be in your place and push you aside. And if the beggar gets that chance, he will…

Osho, in an earlier talk you said that God—meaning Existence, the Whole, Totality—is one. But in this verse, how are beings and God, or nature and God, spoken of as two distinct categories? What is the reason?

I moved the pillow farther away. When I touched it, he reacted as if someone had touched his beloved; it showed on his face. As twenty minutes approached, I picked the pillow up to lock it in a cupboard. He rushed over, and totally outside his conscious control, he snatched the pillow, kissed it, and hugged it. Everyone burst out laughing. “What are you doing?” He began to cry, “I myself don’t understand what I’m doing. But now I feel such relief. A restlessness was building so that I just couldn’t stop myself—I had to hug and kiss this pillow. I am absolutely mad!” He had no idea what had been said to him under hypnosis. Isn’t the attraction between man and woman just like this? No one has hypnotized you—you are already hypnotized by the journey of lifetimes. It is nature’s hypnosis. The old word is maya; the new…

Osho, the actions a person performs—are they not, in fact, done by God alone? Has it been rightly asked: are not the actions a person performs actually done by the Divine?

Second stage: Now we enter the second step. Keep the breathing deep, and let the body do whatever it wants—leave it to itself. Let the body make mudras, make postures; if the body starts trembling, whirling, crying—let it. Let the body go completely—breathing will remain deep, and you will let the body go. If the body falls, let it fall. If it rises, let it rise. If it begins to dance, don’t worry—let the body go. Let the body go completely. Breathing will remain deep, and the body will be left completely free. Let the body do whatever it wants. Do not stop it even a little; cooperate with it. Whatever the body wants to do, cooperate—if it whirls, let it whirl; if it sways, let it sway; if it falls, let it fall; if it cries, let it cry; if it laughs, let it laugh—let go—whatever happens, let it…
Maha Geeta · Discourse 70 1977-01-20 Pune Hindi

Osho, you say the same thing in countless ways. But when I listen to you, it feels as if I am hearing it for the first time. And I feel so much joy that I don’t feel like going back home. What should I do—what can I do—so that I can just keep listening to you!

You will feel as if you have been made to rise out of season, before time—as if you were not yet to go and yet had to go. And if you go in that way, your home will become even more desolate than before. I do not want to make your home desolate; I want to make your home a temple. I want that when you go home, your home’s new form is revealed. I do not want to tear you away from home, from the world, from family life. That is the newness of my sannyas: I do not want to sever you from the world; I want to join you to the world in such a way that your connection with the world becomes a connection with the Divine. Let the world no longer be a barrier between you and the Divine; let it become a means. If…

Osho, you said... then you will find that the devotee is God. The question arises: if one devotee prefers to be God and another wants to remain only a devotee, then which of the two is superior?

The one who wants to be God will not be able to be. And the one who wants to remain a devotee will become God. The question of superior or inferior does not arise, because only one of the two will happen. The one who does not want to be will be. The one who wants to be will be deprived. That very wanting is of the ego. But the matter is a little delicate. Sometimes humility too belongs to the ego. Beware that your humility may not be of the ego. Perhaps you are saying, “No, I don’t want to be,” because you know that those who refuse are the ones who attain. Then you are clever. Then your humility is adulterous. Your humility is not pure, not sacred, not virginal—it is like a prostitute. The one who wants to be God, whose ego says, “I must become God,”…