According to Osho, ‘negative’ and ‘negativity’ in the commune do not mean doubt or questioning; they mean a fixed, addictive habit of seeing only the dark side—despair that cannot recognize beauty or possibility, turning every silver lining into a black cloud. Questions are welcomed as positive enquiry to dissolve barriers, lighten you, and enable communion, clarity, and growth.
Negativity means always choosing the gloomy view, while real questions help you understand better and connect more.
From the Discourses
Passages where Osho speaks to this question — each links to the complete discourse.
Beloved Osho, the words "negative" and "negativity" are often used in this commune. What do they really mean? They seem to refer to any doubt or question about the organization of the commune.
No, they don't mean what you are thinking. They don't mean that any questioning, any doubt, is negativity. I am teaching you doubting, questioning. How can my commune call you negative? Negative, negativity have a totally different meaning. There are people who can only see the dark side; they are addicted to seeing the dark side. These addicted people are negative people. It is impossible for them to see the lighted side of anything. Doubt, question, but don't become a negative being. A negative being cannot see anything right. A negative person cannot see anything beautiful; everything is dark, ugly, hopeless. A negative person is always in despair. Doubt is not despair, it is enquiry. Questioning is man's birthright. Question as much as you can. Doubt, and don't repress it, bring it forth. Doubt and questioning are positive qualities. You are saying, "I want to understand more clearly before I…
Question: Osho, in what we discussed the other day, the central question that arose for us—and about which we want to learn from you—is this: the influence of “nihilism” that we seem to find in Buddhism and Jainism… Perhaps the interpretation of shunya can be made as positive as one likes, yet the very word, through usage, creates a general interpretation in people’s minds. You can’t give everyone a new formula for an old word; but perhaps a more proper word could be used. From this perspective it appears—many people feel this too—that “shunya is the only word which can describe your approach to truth.” Or is there some other term, path, or way of speaking so that the general public does not get the impression that you have a tendency toward negativism? So there is no misunderstanding. Who knows? Yesterday there was love; today, perhaps there may not be!
Beloved Osho, can you say something about doubt and negativity? What is the difference?
In Soviet Russia man has been reduced to a mechanism. You can kill -- nothing is killed, because there was nobody in the first place. It is just like a clock functioning. It moves, it shows you the time; that does not mean that there is somebody inside. You can take the clock apart and you will not find anything. I have heard.... Once Mulla Nasruddin's clock stopped. It was an old clock, and some day everything has to stop. He opened the clock and found there a fly, dead. He said, "Now I know the clock is dead -- this is the clock's soul!" He was just going to bury the clock in the garden when his wife caught hold of him. She said, "What are you doing? Have you gone mad? Clocks are not buried, graves are not made for them!" Nasruddin said, "Those people have never known…
"last night you said that one should always see life in its positive dimensions and one should not give emphasis to the negative. Is this not a choice? And is this not against encountering the total reality -- that which is?"
It is a choice, but one who is negative cannot take a jump towards choicelessness. If he can take it, it is good, but it is impossible. From the negative, it is impossible to take a jump towards choicelessness because the negative mind means that you can see only the ugly, you can see only death, you can see only misery. You cannot see any positive elements in life. And, remember, it is difficult to lose misery. It may look very strange when I say this, but it is difficult to take a jump from misery; it is easier to take a jump from happiness. It is easier to take a jump when you are happy because with happiness courage comes, with happiness the possibility of a higher bliss opens, with happiness the whole world looks like a home. With misery the world is like a hell, and there is…
Question: at first sight, sannyas appears to be something that limits one's activities. Why does one have to change one's clothes to red? Why should one have to change his appearance, since sannyas is something that is within rather than without?
Gurdjieff used to say a very meaningful thing: that as you are now, you have no soul. He was both right and wrong. You have a soul, but you do not know about it. You are the outside, and so clothes are very meaningful. Because of clothes a person becomes beautiful and because of clothes a person becomes ugly. Because of clothes he becomes respected; because of clothes he is not respected. A judge has to wear certain clothes -- a supreme court justice has to use a particular robe -- and no one asks why. With that robe he is a supreme court justice; without that robe he is no one. This is how man is. When I look at a man he is more his clothes than his mind. And this is as it should be, because we belong to the body, we are identified with the body.…