According to Osho, repetition across lives is not inherently required to attain a new life; repetition is merely an opportunity. It either dulls you into mechanical habit or matures you—depending on awareness. Transcendence happens instantly, the very moment you consciously see the futility of the pattern and choose differently. Awareness converts cycles into understanding; unconsciousness prolongs them.
You don’t need many lifetimes; the moment you clearly notice your habit and decide to stop, you step into a new life.
From the Discourses
Passages where Osho speaks to this question — each links to the complete discourse.
Osho, I don’t want liberation. I want to be born again and again. What do you say?
Ramadhar! Even if you desire liberation, is it so easy to get? You don’t want it? Then you won’t get it—don’t panic. Don’t carry needless anxieties. No liberation is chasing you! Even if you chase liberation, will it happen? Not easily. You are surrounding yourself with pointless worries. Is anyone handing out liberation somewhere that you say, “I don’t want it”? You sound as if you’re afraid I’m ready to dump liberation on you! Liberation isn’t a garment I can change for you. It isn’t a dye I can color you with. It isn’t an object I can thrust on you against your will. Liberation is never by force. Do you understand what liberation means? Supreme freedom. If you don’t want it, it won’t happen. Be at ease—birth after birth, be at ease. For all eternity, be at ease. If you don’t want it, it won’t happen. Liberation happens only…
Osho, if the movement of life is circular—like day and night, like months and seasons—does it mean we, too, keep merely repeating ourselves again and again?
Strive! Buddha’s last words at the moment of farewell were: Ananda, be ceaselessly engaged in effort! Do not be negligent even for an instant! Do not let even a trace of sloth settle within! For a little sloth, and much is lost. Keep toiling until you awaken; until then, do not grant yourself any rest. Tireless effort! You will have to strike again and again; only then will this darkness break—because you have been maintaining this darkness for so long. Your state has become rock-like, inert. The crust has grown very strong. The soul is hidden within; the spring is within; but the doors are closed. By striking, the doors will break. By striking continuously, the doors will break. Even if the blows are gentle, they must be unbroken. Water falls—gentle blows—and rocks are split. Let the stream of your remembrance fall upon the mechanical rocks within you. If not…
Osho, when we are reborn, where is the accounting kept? What remains?
We are all bundles of habits. If you want to change these habits, resolve is needed. And the beginning of resolve is this: that it dawns on you that they can be changed. If you think they cannot be changed, your resolve will die completely. A German Jew, Frankl, during the last world war was imprisoned in a great camp. He has written—he has written very astonishing things—in his memoirs. Because he is a psychologist, he kept observing what was happening. December was approaching; the festival days were near. All the prisoners hoped that at least around Christmas there would be release; that around Christmas Hitler would show mercy and people would be freed. Frankl writes: until Christmas, however many tortures the prisoners were given, no one died. People remained ill, but there was a hope—Christmas is approaching. With that hope, there was strength in their life-breath. He writes: the…
Osho, you will remember, at the Dwarka camp you said: “Life is not given again and again. I will give you moksha. Do as I say.” Lord! Far from liberation, till now I am still circling between Bombay and Poona. And today you spoke of heaven and hell—those too are unknown to me. But this ceaseless remembrance that goes on day and night is not in my control. The two of us are better off in Poona anyway. Where is life more than a joke and laughter!
There is an ancient dictum: Do as the guru says; do not do as the guru does. It sounds odd, because we are usually told to imitate the guru’s conduct. But the ancient dictum says: Do as he says, not as he does—because the guru’s action issues from his state of consciousness, while whatever he says, he says keeping your state in view. Do not imitate the doctor’s habits; follow his prescription. The doctor may be happily eating sweets while telling you to stop, because you have diabetes. If you say, “We shall do as you do,” there will be trouble. The guru lives out of his awareness, and he speaks with the disciple’s condition in mind. That is why there is always apparent contradiction in a guru’s words: he will tell one disciple one thing, another disciple something different. It must be so—the illnesses differ; the diagnosis differs; therefore…
Life has to be used as a jumping board for the beyond. It is an immense opportunity, but very few people have used it up to now. Once in a while a Jesus, a Buddha, a Lao Tzu, a Zarathustra, a Bahauddin -- only once in a while a few people have used this life for reaching to a higher plane, to another life. All that is needed is that you have to die to your past; only then you can be born anew. The child has to leave the womb, and he is going on an unknown journey, uncharted. He knows nothing about what is going to happen. He has no idea, no map, no guide.