According to Osho, regression means moving backward into childish immaturity by reacting against rigid social rationalism—swinging to the opposite extreme and denying reason. It is the destructive revenge of the anarchic side, repeating society’s earlier mistake of denying the irrational. Growth has no fixed image to conform to; it requires integrating reason with the irrational so the whole being matures, rather than becoming a mere social mask.
It means acting like kids because we reject either thinking or our wild side, instead of growing up by using both together.
From the Discourses
Passages where Osho speaks to this question — each links to the complete discourse.
When you talk about people regressing, do you mean regressing in comparison to some image that has been created by the society of what is socially acceptable?
Not an image. Something different. When I say they are behaving like children, I mean they are not growing. They are regressing, moving backward. I do not have any image of what they should conform to. I have a concept of growth, not an image to be followed. I do not want people to become adjusted to a particular image at all. What I am saying is only that they are regressing back to the past and not growing toward the future. I have no image of how I want the tree to grow -- but it must grow; it must not regress. It is a question of growth or regression, not of any image. Secondly, when I say they are regressing, I mean they are reacting against a too rational society. Their reaction goes to the other extreme. It contains the same fallacy. Reason must be absorbed, not left…
Reaction appears to be like a rebellion, but it is not. It is a pseudo-rebellion, a false coin, a counterfeit, and it can never be satisfying. Again and again you will feel that you have been against the society, but you have not been able to get rid of it. It is said of Mulla Nasrudin, that from his very childhood he was thought to be a difficult child; they called him contrary. If you say to him 'Sit down' he will not sit down. If you want him to sit down, tell him to stand -- and immediately he will sit down. Contrary. One day he was crossing a small stream with his father. On his donkey they had loaded bags of sugar, which were leaning too much to the right and there was fear that they might fall into the river.
Lao tzu says: who knows that he does not know is the highest; who pretends to know what he does not know is sickminded. And who recognizes sickmindedness as sickmindedness, is not sickminded. The sage is not sickminded. Because he recognizes sickmindedness as sickmindedness, therefore he is not sickminded.
So remember, a healthy person uses the formality layer; then it is a lubricant, it is beautiful. An unhealthy person makes it his whole life; smiles -- does not mean it, laughs -- does not mean it. If somebody is dead -- he becomes sad, cries-, even tears flow down; all false! He does not mean it. He never means anything. He is just continuously on show, continuously on display. His whole life is just an exhibition. He cannot enjoy it, because he cannot move withinwards. Formality is not a relationship. It can help, it can hinder. A healthy person uses it to go deeper. An unhealthy person becomes stuck in it. You can see those people all around, smiling in Lions Clubs, Rotary Clubs. Chicken shit people. Always well-dressed, groomed, looking perfectly okay -- and absolutely wrong. Completely ill. Utterly unhealthy. But just SHOWING. This becomes a fixed pattern…
What is repression?
But repression makes you false. It is not by repression that anger, sex, greed are destroyed, no. They are there -- just the labels are changed. They go into the unconscious, they start working from there: they go underground. And, of course, when they are underground, they are more powerful. The whole psychoanalytic movement tries to bring what is underground to the surface. Once is becomes conscious, you can be freed of it. A Frenchman was staying in England, and a friend asked him how he was getting on. He said he was doing very well, except for one thing. 'When I go to a party, the hostess, she does not tell me where is the 'pissoir"...' 'Ah, Georges, you mean she does not tell you where the toilet is? That's just our English prudery. Actually, she will say "Do you want to wash your hands?" and that means the…
Is it not harmful to an individual and also to society to live without the barriers of norms? If so, then why do you preach that your sannyasins should live as they like? Mind always goes the wrong way if not restricted.
And who is going to restrict the mind? The mind of the society? Who is going to restrict the mind? The mind of the dead people, the dead moralists, the dead priests? Who is going to restrict the mind? You? Who are you except the mind? The first thing to be understood: up to now humanity has lived under a curse, and the curse is that we have never been allowed to trust our nature. We have always been told, "Trust your nature and you will go wrong." Mistrust, restrict, control. Don't go according to your feel. We have been told that human nature is somehow basically evil. This is stupid, this is foolish and poisonous. Human nature is not evil. Human nature is divine. And if the evil has arisen, it has arisen because of restrictions. Now let me explain it to you. You never see animals going to…