According to Osho, the sole eternal value is life itself—the Divine, an unnameable, spontaneous aliveness that expands, intensifies, and illuminates. All other values—truth, nonviolence, compassion, celibacy, etc.—are temporal, context-bound adornments taught by society; they shift with time and need. When life’s value is realized, those moral forms arise naturally and become secondary expressions rather than prescriptive rules.
Eternal value means honoring living aliveness itself; all other moral rules are changeable tools that should naturally flow from that reverence.
From the Discourses
Passages where Osho speaks to this question — each links to the complete discourse.
Osho, it is said that some values are based on time and place, and some values are eternal. Would you kindly shed some light on this?
This is not the prayer of the mosque’s sacred courtyard; This is the salat of love’s alley. No awareness of petition in prostration, no conditions of etiquette in prayer. Those who are standing, are standing in the realm of awe; Those who have bowed, remain bowed in prayer. This is not the prayer of the mosque’s sacred courtyard. The value of the supreme life I speak of is not the namaz recited in the mosque, not the worship performed in the temple. This is the salat of love’s alley— the prayer of the lane of love. There is a namaz recited in the mosque: it has its manners, its method, order, rules and regulations. And there is a namaz recited in love’s alley: it has no scripture. It is free. It is spontaneous. No awareness of petition in prostration, no condition of etiquette in prayer— that formula of prayer offered…
Question: Second question: Osho, do life-values also transform with time? Satyanand, Whatever is born in time is bound to be transformed. Life-values too are products of time. What was right in the days of the Vedic seers is not right today. What is right today may not be right tomorrow. It is essential to keep watching with awareness every day so that when the current of time changes, we change too. But we live in yesterday, while existence is always now. We live in the past, and existence is in the present; the harmony breaks. From this, great suffering arises; from this, hell is created—because we go on missing. If there is no relationship with the present, there cannot be a relationship with God either, because the present is God. And we live in the past. Our notions belong to the past.
Osho, what is the first experience of samadhi like?
You will know only when it happens. It cannot be said; at most a few hints can be given. It is as if, in the dark, a lamp is suddenly lit. Or as if a dying patient, right at the edge of death, suddenly finds a medicine that works; life’s wave, life’s thrill spreads again—so it is. As if a corpse becomes alive—such is the first experience of samadhi. It is the taste of nectar. The experience of the ultimate music. But it will be only when it happens; and only then will you understand. You will not understand by my saying it. It is as with love. How can anyone explain it? To someone who has never loved, never known love, no matter how many explanations you offer—he will hear it all and still ask, “I haven’t understood; please explain a little more.” It is like explaining light to…
When I came here I was tense. People looked unfriendly, not open. Now all that has changed; everyone is beautiful. I have had similar experiences before, but they have always faded away. I hope it is now wisdom and will not fade, but if ear it may be knowledge and I will lose it.
You tell me, " When I came here I was tense. People looked unfriendly, not open. Now all that has changed...." Nothing has changed; only you have changed. The people are the same -- you can ask them. They were tense because you were tense. They were unfriendly because you were not friendly. Nothing has changed. People have not changed; they have not suddenly become friendly. You have changed. You have opened, you have relaxed. You are no longer asking that they should be friendly; rather, you have started to be friendly yourself. And suddenly you see they are friendly. Whatsoever you are you will always find. And whatsoever you find, remember, it is you. It is nobody else. This happens to everybody who comes here. In the beginning he comes with great expectations, as if the whole ashram will dance because he has come, and they will celebrate and…
Osho, on the one hand Doolandas sings of life’s transience, and on the other, after drinking the nectar of love he plunges into carefree ecstasy where time becomes infinite! Please explain this paradox to us.
Narendra! A moment too is a fragment of the eternal—just as the drop belongs to the ocean, the atom to the vast. In a single small leaf the sap of the whole tree is flowing. In a tiny flower the entire existence has poured its beauty, its color, its fragrance—its all. The great poet Tennyson has said: if we could fully understand even a single flower, we would understand the whole of existence. For what appears small from the outside is, by unending pathways, joined to the whole. This flower would have no fragrance if it were not of the earth. It would have no colors if it were not linked with the sun. It would have no life if the breath of air did not move through it. The deeper you inquire, the more you will find the flower has already disappeared; little by little, the whole cosmos has…