According to Osho, 'crazy' only makes sense in relation to the mind: to be crazy is to go out of your mind. In the state of no-mind—pure awareness—there is nothing to go out of, so the label 'crazy' cannot apply. Madness and sanity are mind-bound; transcend the mind, and you move beyond both.
Crazy means leaving your mind; if you rest in clear awareness with no mind to leave, ‘crazy’ doesn’t apply.
From the Discourses
Passages where Osho speaks to this question — each links to the complete discourse.
Question: BELOVED OSHO, WHAT IS MADNESS? There are two possibilities: Madness literally means going out of the mind; hence the two possibilities. You can go out of the mind either below the mind or above the mind. Ordinarily, people go below the mind because it needs no effort, you don't have to do anything. Any shock can shatter the stability of your mind: somebody you loved died, your business has gone bankrupt -- the shock is so much that you cannot keep your normality. You fall below the mind, your behavior becomes irrational. But you go beyond the misery -- if you had remained in the normal mind the shock would have created immense misery. It is a natural way to avoid the shock. It simply pulls you down; now you don't know what has happened.
Osho, when a person goes mad, what is his state?
Yes—when a person goes mad, only memory is left of the man. He has no awareness of his own self at all; only memory remains. You will be surprised: from the day he becomes mad, he retains no memory of anything after that day. All the memories from before remain. If a person went mad this morning, whatever he talks about will be from before this morning; he will say nothing of after this morning. No memory of what happens after this morning is being formed. Now only the memories from before this morning are there; he will keep repeating them. He will speak them, babble them, go on with the same things. He has completely lost awareness. And from the very moment he lost awareness, the memories up to that moment will go on repeating. That is why he appears mad to us: he will always be incongruent, out…
Question: BELOVED MASTER, YOUR IDEAS SEEM TO BE CRAZY! Yes, you are right: my ideas ARE crazy because they are not MY ideas. If they were mine then there was a possibility I would have made them logical -- it is not very difficult. I can deny those parts which look illogical, and insist on the logical. I can remain consistent; I can make a very clean-cut philosophy. That is not difficult -- in fact, that will be very easy. But I am not interested in consistency. I am not interested at all in logic, I am interested in truth. And if truth is crazy, I am crazy. If truth is mad, I am mad.
Beloved Osho, a few years ago I asked you a question, with great fear and trembling: "Osho, is it inevitable that I will go crazy?" and now, beloved Osho, at last it has finally happened: I have gone crazy. Thank you, Osho, thank you.
There are all types of people here at different stages of craziness. But don't be satisfied. Rejoice! -- but remember that there are still crazier states. A moment comes when you start talking with the trees, playing with the stones, arguing with the ocean... because your very idea of being separate has disappeared. Now this whole existence is one organic unity. And it is not that when you talk to a tree it does not respond to you; if you are crazy enough, there is a dialogue. Perhaps one time you have to speak from your side; another time you have to speak from the tree's side -- because the tree cannot speak, but you can understand what it wants to say. Just remember the basic criteria -- that your happiness, your blissfulness should go on growing; your intelligence, your clarity should go on growing; your love should go on…
You are crazy! And you are driving me crazy.
The first part of the statement is absolutely true, I am crazy, but the second is not true yet. I may be driving you crazy, but you are not being driven, because you are much too sane -- that's your trouble. A little more insane, and things will be different. You are much too fixed in the so-called sanity. You have to be unhinged from it. Look. Jesus looked crazy to people when he was alive. Buddha looked crazy. They were crazy in the sense that they denied the sanity of the society. It is simply craziness to leave a kingdom and escape from it -- everybody is going towards the palace and Buddha is leaving. Crazy. And he drove many people crazy. That has always been the work of a Buddha -- to drive people crazy -- because the society has made you so much sane that in your…