According to Osho, asking whether Arvind’s shunya was the quest for truth misses the point; truth cannot be certified through another. Inquiry about others breeds words, authority, and endless regress. The real search is personal: can you enter shunya now? When emptiness happens to you, questions about who attained what become irrelevant, and reliance on gurus and secondhand claims naturally drops.
Don’t worry about Arvind—find emptiness in yourself, and the truth becomes clear without needing anyone’s approval.
From the Discourses
Passages where Osho speaks to this question — each links to the complete discourse.
You have heard a very beautiful discourse from Osho today; if you wish to ask a question, you may. Yes, yes—go ahead. A friend is asking: It is said that Arvind experienced shunya, the vacuum. Was that the quest for truth?
To ask about Arvind is futile, because whenever we ask in relation to another—“What was that emptiness that happened to him?”—at most we can only fill ourselves with words. Arvind will become just a word, and Arvind’s shunya will become just a word. And whether he attained or did not attain—these too will become words. No, with respect to the other we can never be free of words. In relation to the other, words are unavoidable. Only in relation to oneself can one be free of words. So do not worry about what happened or did not happen to Arvind. Worry about what can happen to you! And if I say that it did happen to Arvind, you will then ask someone else whether what I said about Arvind is right or wrong—you will still ask. Where will that end? This is an infinite regress, this endless questioning we go…
Osho, is it not necessary to desire, to long and to seek truth and avoid the untrue, to seek truth and renounce the false?
The Master said, "Now you are clinging to the idea of emptiness. This is not emptiness -- this is not true emptiness. Now you are full of the idea of emptiness. Once it was light, once it was energy, once it was fragrance now it is emptiness. It is nothing but labels changing. And unless you throw this too you will not be truly empty. A truly empty person is neither empty nor nonempty. There is nothing to experience, not even emptiness. And in that state of silence when there is nothing to experience -- no object, no content, but only consciousness, only the observer and nothing to observe only the seer and nothing to see -- one attains truth." Yoka says: <q>OUR SPIRIT IS LIKE A CLEAR MIRROR THUS IT REFLECTS THE UNIVERSE HARMONIOUSLY OUR SPIRIT AND THE UNIVERSE ARE ONE.</q> Once you are utterly empty you are a…
Question: Second question: Osho, becoming empty—that is, attaining supreme bliss—is no goal for me. Who am I? My previous births? Where do I go after death? From where do people come, where do they go? What is all this? I have been wandering for fourteen years. When I was fifteen, a monk told a story in his talk. Its impact carried me away. Then from one monk to another—whomever I heard of, I went to. I kept vows, I kept meditating. I tried to know myself. Then another question began to arise: Who is going to know whom? Who wants to see whom? Who will search for whom? Nothing makes sense. The breath goes on. The heart beats. And nothing else! Then a notion formed that no one knows the mystery of this life! All useless. All lies. All talk; nothing.
Another friend has asked: If truth cannot be expressed in words and cannot be written in scriptures, then what is the way to express it?
Think of that man who went into that room and sat silently. What did he do? He left all words and cared only to fall silent—utterly silent. When he became perfectly silent, an answer came—not his own; it came from above, from depths; it was God’s. Let us too, for ten minutes in this quiet night, try to be silent. It is possible; there is no difficulty. We have simply never experimented—that is why it has not happened. But what has never happened may happen today; if not today, tomorrow. The possibility is always there. For those who put in a little effort, the possibility becomes a reality. What will we do here for ten minutes? Look: the night is utterly still—the trees are still, the moon and stars are still, the breezes are still. Can we not, for ten minutes, be still with them and sit quietly? There will…
Question: First question: Osho, can Truth be attained through love? These are different languages; both are true. And the truth of one does not make the other false—keep this in mind. Often the mind thinks: if one is right, the other must be wrong. Life is vast—it accommodates even opposites. Life is not as small and narrow as you think. It is a matter of perspective. To the knower, life seems a snare—“When will I be free?” For the knower the ultimate step is liberation—moksha. The devotee does not talk of liberation; the word moksha does not belong to the language of bhakti—he says Vaikuntha. “We will play here; we will play there too. Here you played your flute, play it there as well. Here we danced; there we shall dance.” No, the devotee says, “I do not want liberation. Bind me in your bonds—endlessly, endlessly.