According to Osho, the 'prisons' you call home are your own conditioned mind: the hypnotic self-images, consoling religious beliefs, and denials that build a superficial personality and make you feel exceptional or already free. This unconscious conditioning keeps you ignorant of your actuality. Liberation begins when you first recognize you are in prison; in fact, that you are the prison, and refuse the comforting hypnosis of borrowed beliefs.
You’re stuck by the make-believe stories and comforting beliefs in your head; freedom starts when you admit you’re the one building the cage.
From the Discourses
Passages where Osho speaks to this question — each links to the complete discourse.
Beloved Osho, george gurdjieff has said: "you are in prison. If you wish to get out of prison, the first thing you must do is realize that you are in prison. If you think you are free, you can't escape." what are the prisons that I call "home"?
Religions have created all kinds of crimes in the mind of man, just by prohibiting them. They have also created ideas which prevent man from any search. They say, "Believe" -- and belief is cheap. You don't have to do anything. Gurdjieff had to go to such extents that he started saying to people, "You don't have souls. It is a wrong idea, implanted within you by religions, that everybody has a soul." He had to say such a thing just to wake you up to search whether it is true or not; otherwise, everybody was perfectly asleep. What is the need to search? You already have it; God is within you! So do other things which, if you don't do, you will not get -- become a president, prime minister, become the richest man in the world, conquer the world -- because these things will not happen on their…
Question: BELOVED OSHO, THEN A MASON CAME FORTH AND SAID, SPEAK TO US OF HOUSES. AND HE ANSWERED AND SAID: BUILD OF YOUR IMAGININGS A BOWER IN THE WILDERNESS ERE YOU BUILD A HOUSE WITHIN THE CITY WALLS. FOR EVEN AS YOU HAVE HOMECOMINGS IN YOUR TWILIGHT, SO HAS THE WANDERER IN YOU, THE EVER-DISTANT AND ALONE. YOUR HOUSE IS YOUR LARGER BODY. IT GROWS IN THE SUN AND SLEEPS IN THE STILLNESS OF NIGHT; AND IT IS NOT DREAMLESS. DOES NOT YOUR HOUSE DREAM? AND DREAMING, LEAVE THE CITY FOR GROVE OR HILLTOP? WOULD THAT I COULD GATHER YOUR HOUSES INTO MY HAND, AND LIKE A SOWER SCATTER THEM IN FOREST AND MEADOW. WOULD THE VALLEYS WERE YOUR STREETS, AND THE GREEN PATHS YOUR ALLEYS, THAT YOU MIGHT SEEK ONE ANOTHER THROUGH VINEYARDS, AND COME WITH THE FRAGRANCE OF THE EARTH IN YOUR GARMENTS.
Question: BELOVED OSHO, RYUGE WAS ASKED BY A MONK, "WHAT IS THE MEANING OF BODHIDHARMA COMING FROM THE WEST?" RYUGE SAID, "WAIT TILL THE STONE TURTLE SPEAKS WORDS OF EXPLANATION AND I WILL TELL YOU." THE MONK SAID, "THE STONE TURTLE HAS SPOKEN!" RYUGE SAID, "WHAT DID IT SAY TO YOU?" THE MONK WAS SILENT. ONE OF DAIBAI'S MONKS ASKED HIS MASTER THE SAME QUESTION, TO WHICH DAIBAI REPLIED, "HIS COMING HAS NO MEANING." THE MONK BROUGHT THIS QUESTION UP TO ENKAN, WHO SAID, "TWO DEAD MEN IN ONE COFFIN." GENSHA, HEARING OF THIS, SAID, "ENKAN IS A CLEVER CHAP." THE SAME QUESTION -- THE MEANING OF BODHIDHARMA COMING FROM THE WEST -- WAS BROUGHT TO SEKITO, OR "STONEHEAD", AS HE WAS ALSO KNOWN. "GO AND ASK THE OUTSIDE POST OF THE HALL!" HE EXCLAIMED. THE MONK SAID, "I DON'T KNOW WHAT YOU MEAN." "NOR DO I," SAID SEKITO.
Osho, what is the definition of God?
Words are very small. If you say God is light, then what of darkness? The scriptures have said that God is light. Suppose we accept this as a definition—then what about darkness? Where will darkness go? Darkness is too; in fact it is far more than light. Light sometimes is and sometimes is not; darkness is always, eternal. Where will you place darkness? If you say God is light, darkness is left out. If you say God is darkness, then light is left out. If you say God is both darkness and light, a contradiction arises: they cannot be together. Try to have both darkness and light in the same room. If you bring in light, darkness disappears; if you preserve darkness, you cannot have light. Then how can both be together? That becomes an impossibility. So you cannot say “both” either. Then the fourth device is to say: it…
I would like to become true, but what is it and how is it? I feel in a devil-circle, in a prison. I would like to come out, but how?
Listen to me! I don't say you have to become gods -- I declare you are gods. Then there is no question of any ego arising, there is no space left. You are not to go to heaven -- you are already there. Just have a good look around... you are already there! It is a nowness, paradise is a nowness. It is a function of the present moment. The ego thrives when you have goals and ideals. And there are a thousand and one problems with the ego. On the one hand it feels very good to have great ideals; on the other hand it makes you feel guilty, continuously feel guilty, because you are always falling short. Those ideals are impossible; you cannot attain them. There is no way to attain them, so you are always falling short. So on one hand the ego thrives; on another hand…