According to Osho, even in chemistry, physics, or medicine there’s no need for “positive values.” Science thrives on right doubt, hypothesis, and continual testing; its so‑called positives are provisional, not final truths. A true science teacher invites verification, not belief. Science flourished where negation broke dogma; it accepts all truths as approximate and revisable, keeping inquiry open and humble.
Science doesn’t need fixed “good” rules—it works by doubting, testing, and changing ideas when new evidence appears.
From the Discourses
Passages where Osho speaks to this question — each links to the complete discourse.
But Osho, as I understand it, there are certain subjects like chemistry, physics, or medicine where positive values are essential. What are your views about that?
Einstein was doing an experiment. He had failed seven hundred times, yet every morning he came into the laboratory laughing, ready to begin again. The young assistant with him was exhausted. “Is this old man mad? Seven hundred failures—and again he starts fresh!” The youth was tired; he said, “We should drop this now. How many times have we been defeated?” Einstein said, “Defeated? You’re crazy—each time we have won.” “Where have we won? Every experiment has failed.” Einstein answered, “In seven hundred directions we have searched, and we now know truth is not there. We have succeeded seven hundred times. Truth is being endlessly eliminated into nearness. Suppose truth will reveal itself on the seven hundred and fifteenth attempt; then fourteen more eliminations are needed. Then only that will remain; it cannot escape. Where will it go? We have searched seven hundred paths and found it absent. That much…
Osho, that was about interpretation. What is your positive philosophy of life?
In fact, in fact, you have asked a very good question. As I see it, religion is a negative philosophy of life. Religion simply does not have a positive philosophy. In truth, the religious mind is a negative mind. What do I mean? Imagine a man in chains who says, “I want to break these chains and be free.” Someone asks him, “What is the positive meaning of your freedom? What do you mean by positive freedom?” He will say, “If my chains are broken—if all the chains fall away—I will be free.” But that is a negative statement. Freedom, in its essence, has no positive content. Freedom means the absence of bondage. And religion is liberation—the search for absolute freedom, where we are utterly free: no limits, no bonds, no obstacles. So religion is basically negative: wherever there is bondage, break it. I hold that orthodoxy is a bondage;…
Beloved Osho, I have heard you say that scientists are only now discovering things that people in the east knew five thousand years ago. How did we come to go backwards?
It is so strange and unbelievable that Hindus have worshiped one great sexologist, the first in the world, Maharishi Vatsyayana, who has written a book KAMASUTRAS, which means "Aphorisms on sex." It is the first obscene and pornographic book, with ugly drawings -- it is pictorial; photography was not in existence; otherwise it would have been like PLAYBOY. Sketches ... and he propounds eighty-four postures for intercourse. Now many idiots must have been trying them and wasting their whole life -- eighty-four postures! And a few are such that it is better if you join the gym and do some gymnastics rather than doing those postures. You will break your neck or your wife's neck. You will not believe that there is a posture -- the woman is standing on her head and the man is making love to her. And this man, Vatsyayana, is respected in India as a…
Beloved Osho, the scientific vision of objective reality and the subjective experience of existence seem to be two completely separate and unbridgeable dimensions. Is this because of the nature of things, or is it only an illusion of our mind?
The scientific approach to existence and the religious approach have been in the past separate and unbridgeable. The reason was the insistence of old religions on superstitions, belief systems, denial of inquiry and doubt. In fact, there is nothing unbridgeable between science and religion, and there is no separation either. But religion insisted on belief -- science cannot accept that. Belief is covering up your ignorance. It never reveals to you the truth; it only gives you certain dogmas, creeds, and you can create an illusion of knowledge through them. But that knowledge is nothing but a delusion. Anything based on belief is bogus. Because religions insisted continuously on belief, and the basic method of science is doubt, the separation happened. And it became unbridgeable. It is unbridgeable if religion does not arise and face the challenge of doubt. The whole responsibility of the religions has been to keep these…
Osho, that is what is being taught. Yes, that is being taught. That very thing is being taught, and it is precisely because of that teaching that such a corrupted world has come into being, and such corrupted human beings have been produced—because of that teaching.
What is the fruit of these five thousand years of such teaching? The people we see all around us—this very world of ours. This world has been born of that “education,” hasn’t it? So where has five thousand years of all this teaching brought you? Day by day you fall lower, and you will go on falling. The mistake is at the very foundation. The mistake is at the very foundation. There is no need for reverence, no need for belief. What is needed is inquiry, what is needed is courage. One must search, one must dare. All that—reverence, belief—are symptoms of weakness. That is why the more a community leans on faith, the more it falls behind. Look. Any community that has relied on belief has lagged. Because the very question of taking the next step does not arise. If you are sitting in a bullock cart and you…