According to Osho, logic has only a narrow, utilitarian relevance: it works with things, calculations and the marketplace, but fails before the vast, multidimensional mystery of life. Love, meditation, and authentic relationship are incalculable and unknowable, so logic becomes a prison if overused. Use logic as a tool for surfaces; put it aside to live, relate, and rejoice in the insecure adventure of existence.
Logic helps with chores and math, but life and love are too big and mysterious—so use logic for tasks and let your heart guide the rest.
From the Discourses
Passages where Osho speaks to this question — each links to the complete discourse.
Osho, to what extent does life have relevance to logic?
I am not against logic. Use it -- it is a beautiful strategy as far as things are concerned, the marketplace is concerned, the superficial world is concerned -- but beware that you don't go on carrying it into deeper layers of life and experience. There it is a hindrance. Logic means mind. Mind is helpful in understanding the objective world. Mind is a hindrance in understanding the subjective world, because the subjective world is beyond the mind, behind the mind. You can use your eyes to see others, but you cannot use your eyes to see yourself. If you want to see yourself through your own eyes you have to use a mirror. To look in a mirror means you are creating a reflection of yourself -- which is not you, certainly not you, but you can see the reflection. Logic can see only the reflected glory of existence;…
Logic is applicable to the mundane world, for calculation, for arithmetic, for business, for science -- for the world of the objects it is perfectly okay, but the moment you start entering into higher planes of being, the moment you become interested in poetry, in singing, in music, in dance, in love, in prayer, then you have to leave the world of logic behind. Then you have to take a quantum leap, because unless you are capable of containing contradictions within yourself you will not be able to be a poet. You will not be able to be really a creator. Logic cannot create. It can analyse, it can dissect. There is a story of a Sufi mystic, Farid: one king came to visit the mystic. Somebody has presented him a golden scissor, studded with very precious diamonds.
Osho, is logic absolutely useless?
Sagar! Not absolutely useless; in its own place it has significance. But it has limits. Don’t drag it beyond its boundaries. In relation to matter, logic is useful; in relation to consciousness, it is not. Logic lives on doubt; doubt is its very soul. And to experience consciousness, you need the flowers of trust. Someone asked a professor of logic: Who rules in your house? The professor said: Everyone rules—each in their own place. The man said: I don’t quite understand. Please explain a bit. The professor said: Listen. My wife disciplines the children—scolds and corrects them. My children always boss the servants around. The servants in my house lord it over their own wives. And whenever I get angry at anyone, I take it out on my dog and give him a good going-over. In this way everyone rules in their own sphere. This is a professor of logic—he…
Why do you always talk against logic?
I'M NOT AGAINST LOGIC, LIFE is against it. I am talking about life, not against logic. Talking about life, it comes as a by-product, the talk against logic. Logic is a manmade world; it is not true to the facticity of existence. Logic is man's imposition on reality. Reality is very illogical, mysterious; it does not follow any rules. And the deeper you go into it, the more and more you will become aware that maybe on the surface there are a few rules, but as you move deep, rules start disappearing. And there comes a point in the depth of reality where all rules are invalid. Physicists are coming to it, because they have penetrated deep into matter. And they are talking almost like mystics. This is one of the greatest phenomena that has happened to this century -- this century's contribution to human consciousness. The mystics have always…
“But Osho, to me your talks seem very, very logical.”
They are logical. My whole effort is that what I say to you be logical—so that you agree to walk with me. Once you agree, then into the ditch we go; then I’ll take you off your tracks! Just consent once, let our hands meet once—then there’s nothing to worry about. Once your hand is in my hand, you won’t keep it outside for long. First I catch the fingers, then the wrist, and then… the person is gone! So I make the first connection through logic, because that’s where you live; only from there can connection happen—there is where you are. This is why even atheists come to me; even atheists agree with me. The atheist has no quarrel with me because I speak the atheist’s language. But that is a net. That language is a net. It’s like when we go to catch fish, we put dough on…