According to Osho, the feeling of being alone in suffering arises not because the inner journey is inherently solitary, but because misery closes your eyes and breaks your bridges with life. He says he is with you always; you realize it in celebration. Learn to enjoy—even sadness—so openness returns, depth unfolds, and connection with existence and the master is felt even in pain.
You feel alone when sad because you shut yourself; open with joy and you’ll sense you’re never really alone—even sadness can feel connected.
From the Discourses
Passages where Osho speaks to this question — each links to the complete discourse.
It is asked: “We are suffering alone—who is responsible?”
When you are building something, even if sweat runs from your brow, there is joy—because you know, this is labor. And behind this labor there is fruit. This is labor, creation. Behind it gratitude flows. Behind it is attainment. From this very solitude the Divine will come to you. The day you become silent, that day He will speak. The day you become alone, on that very day His hand comes into your hand. He is not far—He is near. But you are so entangled in the crowd that you cannot see Him. He dwells in the heart, yet draws a veil over the eyes, Yes—the real delight is to go on seeking even after having found. Such is the delight at play. It is already found, and we go on seeking what is already found. We have never really lost Him, but the eyes are entangled in the crowd.…
Beloved Osho, the other day you talked so beautifully about the sadness which follows the first experience of our innermost silence. Is it necessarily so, that when I first experience this silence, I also feel with my whole being that I am absolutely alone on my journey?
Aloneness is also one of the fundamental experiences as you enter silence. In silence there is nobody else, you are simply alone. The deeper your silence will be, thoughts will be gone, emotions will be gone, sentiments will be gone -- just pure being, a flame of light, burning alone. One can get scared because we are so much accustomed to living with people -- in the crowd, in the marketplace, in all kinds of relationships. You may not be aware that in all these relationships -- with friends, with your husbands, with your wives, with your children, with your parents -- you are basically trying to avoid the experience of aloneness. These are strategies so that you are always with somebody. It is a well-known fact, psychologically established, that if a person is left alone in isolation, after seven days he starts talking... a little like whispering. For seven…
Osho, I think to get free of sorrow I should lean on someone, sit in the shade of someone’s love. But even when I don’t find that, there is still a kind of consolation that at least my own suffering is there—along with someone’s neglect. Please tell me, why does this happen?
Every door is the door of Rama—bow your head to all as you go: if you have loved someone, the door of Rama opens. Wherever love knocks, there the door of Rama opens. Never avoid love. Enter love. Do not be afraid of love. Love will give great pain; love will burn; love will become fire—but only by passing through fire does one become pure gold. Do not be frightened of the fire of love; do not run away; otherwise you will remain half-baked, incomplete, full of clay. So I do not say that love will give you only happiness. I do not say love is a bed strewn with flowers. Love is a path of great pain. But it is necessary to pass through it. Only by passing through it do you become worthy of prayer, mature for prayer. The moment someone is immersed in love, a taste begins;…
Osho, you say meditation is a solitary journey. And I am very afraid of loneliness. Give me courage.
Someone gives you a hard shove—there is a quarrel. Where is there space to remember yourself? Someone embraces you, loves you—where is there space to remember yourself? Your loves and your quarrels, your friendships and your enmities—all do one thing: they keep you tangled, they keep you busy. They give you no chance to take a small look within. There, you must move on alone. Go on alone If none walks with you upon the pilgrim’s hour, go on alone. Yes, fear arises in becoming solitary—but only until you truly enter it. Once you do, you will be astonished: peace, aloneness, silence. When the experience of inner solitude dawns, you will be amazed—fear vanishes. Because in that solitude it is known that you are nectar, amrit—“amritasya putrah,” children of immortality! You have no death; how can there be fear? You yourself are the Divine—pure sat-chit-ananda, being-consciousness-bliss. What can frighten you?…
Osho, I feel so lonely that I panic and sadness surrounds me. What should I do? Lord, please guide me!
Do not stop me now, O pourer of wine! We are not ones to turn back and go away! Our thirst is endless—and your treasure is inexhaustible, inexhaustible—O giver, keep pouring! We have come to awaken the Unseen at your door! We have come to be dissolved at your door! Fill this empty cup—fill it, fill it, fill it! Make us intoxicated—make us, make us! We have been standing at the gate with hands outstretched— Make us immortal, O Immortal, give us your boon! In a single drop the ocean of life is contained— Fill to the brim this mind’s emptiness! From here on, gaining is losing; hidden in laughter at drinking is the sob of thirst. Let the rounds of bliss go on—let them go on! Let every corner of the heart be filled, even with sorrow! Reveal to us your boundless Presence! Teach us only to dissolve, to…