According to Osho, social morality brands many living realities as ‘improper,’ but truth needs no taboo. What was once forbidden should now be brought into the light of awareness. By discussing everything—without repression or shame—we dissolve borrowed guilt, understand our nature directly, and transform unconscious impulses into intelligence, love, and responsibility.
If something was once called improper, we should still talk about it openly so we can understand it and choose wisely.
From the Discourses
Passages where Osho speaks to this question — each links to the complete discourse.
Osho, Alan Watts has pointed to the same spontaneity in Zen Buddhism. But the basic principles of morality rest on rules, prohibitions, inhibitions; by openly calling upon the youth to be naked, you are breaking these. Are you thereby accepting a kind of subtle immorality?
It is there, fully there. For thousands of years it has been lodged in our collective mind. Even what we release a little is never total. And that partial release creates tension, because half is released and half is pulled back. It is like a man driving a car with his foot on the accelerator and the brake at the same time. What will happen to the car is what is happening to the mind. On one side he presses the accelerator—“the car should move”—on the other, his unconscious applies the brake. Nothing will come of it but breakdowns and accidents. Even the old condition was better—only the brake. The West had the opposite—only the accelerator. The new mind is caught in the turmoil between the two. My understanding is: the accelerator is worth pressing, and there is a right time to press it. The brake is also worth applying,…
a friend has asked: Osho, the way you speak—won’t it spread immorality?
As though immorality weren’t already widespread, and now it will spread because of what I say. The situation is such that however much you try to spread it now, it would be very hard to make it go any further than it already has. They say, “Let immorality not spread.” Perhaps they think morality is what has spread. So they ask, “Won’t your words spread immorality?” This fear haunts us constantly. And it’s rather amusing—a funny kind of fear. Because it is immorality that has spread. If morality had spread, there would be no need for such fear. Even after ten thousand years of effort, morality hasn’t spread; it’s immorality that has. And now we’re afraid that immorality might spread! Our fear is like a beggar sitting nervously beside a police station worrying that he might be robbed. What is there of yours to be stolen? Roam freely! You don’t…
Osho, you call this innocent, but won’t that give rise to guilt and blame?
Drop all the attitudes you are clinging to. That is why I explained it. Your mind-set is already formed—drop all of it. Drop all of it. If I go somewhere and a girl is walking with me, your mind will at once start: “Ah, how is this girl going with him?” That is an attitude. If you feel a little compassion for me, you will say, “Don’t take this girl along; who knows what people will think.” Once a girl used to go with me, and an elderly man said, “Don’t take her there. The village you’re going to is very orthodox. Don’t take her—people will ask, ‘Who is this girl with you?’ And if someone asks what she is to you, then what will you say?” I said, “I’ll say she loves me—that’s why she goes with me.” He said, “Oh, never say that to anyone, or there will…
Osho! Recently, the English magazine “New Delhi” published several photographs related to the group-psychotherapy groups running in the ashram. There has been a lot of discussion about them in newspapers and elsewhere—along with some misunderstandings. While I was in Delhi, many editors asked me, “What do you have to say about this?” Kindly say something about it.
Krishna Prem! Nakedness is man’s birthright. Existence created man naked. Clothes are man’s invention. To deny nakedness is to deny existence. If clothes are invented for convenience, that’s fine—if it’s cold, wear something to protect yourself from the elements. But the fundamental invention of clothing is not to protect from nature; it is to hide oneself. Behind clothes there is hypocrisy. That’s why whenever someone stands naked, your hypocrisy gets hurt. When Mahavira was naked, there was great opposition. There was even more when Lalla, the woman mystic of Kashmir, chose nakedness. But they were isolated cases; somehow we tolerated them. In my view, nakedness should be natural and effortless. Whenever convenient, people should have the natural right to be naked. Clothes conceal—and in that concealment lies all pornography. In concealment lies obscenity. You will not find obscenity among tribals, because they are naked. The more you hide, the more…
No, Osho, what happens is that our mind is in one of two states. Either I feel I will be able to solve it, or I’m afraid that I won’t be able to solve it...
Because of that ignorance, we create many problems we don’t even suspect. For instance, in India almost everyone assumes that the sexual act is devastating. Physiologically that is absolutely wrong—completely wrong. In fact, sexual inactivity is devastating. Activity is not devastating. And it is also interesting that anyone who thinks he can go to extremes in sexual activity is mistaken. The body has checks. You cannot go to extremes; there are bodily checks. Nature has arranged it so you cannot expend surplus force beyond what the body allows. But one can misuse it, right? Even misuse is not possible—if you use full understanding. As far as sex has been understood, misuse is not possible. Misuse is impossible. Then not just sex—by that argument you can’t misuse anything! If we extend that very argument, you can’t misuse anything! No, no—you can misuse many things. Why not sex? Because the entire arrangement…