According to Osho, to ‘follow your feelings’ is not license for drift or fantasy; it is spontaneity plus awareness. Mature feeling is threaded by a silent inner direction—like flowers strung on one invisible thread—so your responses vary yet cohere. Use this test: if an impulse cannot exist in clear awareness, drop it; if awareness deepens it, trust it and move.
Listen to your heart but keep your eyes wide open—if you can stay fully awake while doing it, it’s right; if wakefulness gets in the way, don’t do it.
From the Discourses
Passages where Osho speaks to this question — each links to the complete discourse.
You tell me to follow my feelings, and when I finally dare to and am feeling much freer and simpler and happier, you say I am immature. What does it mean?
That is the whole definition of the right and the wrong. The wrong is that which cannot be done with awareness, for which unawareness is a must. The right is that which can be done only with awareness, for which unawareness has to be dropped; otherwise it cannot be done. Awareness is a must. The right is that for which awareness is a must, the wrong is that for which unawareness is a must. That is my definition of sin and virtue. And YOU are to decide; the responsibility is yours. It happened: A worried woman went to see her doctor and told him that her husband appeared to have no virility, and had no interest in her whatsoever. He gave her a prescription, saying "These will help him. Next time you and your husband are having a quiet meal together, just slip a couple of these pills into his…
[A sannyasin says he feels divided between following his feelings and making more effort.] You simply follow your feelings. And who has said to you that it is easy to follow the feelings? It is the most difficult thing in the world, otherwise so many people would have been following their feelings; nobody follows. Priests have been teaching people that it is very easy to follow your feelings -- it is not. I never see a person who has been following his feelings! If it were really easy you would come across many more people who follow their feelings; you don't come across them. Rarely it happens that a person is feeling-oriented and fully in tune with his feelings and his heart. People try to fight -- that is easier.
Beloved Osho, a therapist once told me that we can get stuck in our feelings just as much as in the mind and that feelings too have to be dropped or gone beyond. I often wonder about this, as my feelings are usually my guide in life and also, I feel things very intensely. Would you please comment?
Anand Trinda, it is a significant question you have asked: "A therapist once told me that we can get stuck in our feelings just as much as in the mind and that feelings too have to be dropped or gone beyond. I often wonder about this as my feelings are usually my guide in life and I feel things very intensely." There are three centers from which all your actions come: the head, the heart, and the being. The head is the most superficial. It has to think about things -- even if you fall in love the head thinks about it, am I really in love? And if it decides that yes, it seems you are in love, the head is going to propose to the woman, "I think I am in love with you." But thinking is base. Man functions from the head. It has its utilities --…
I[A sannyasin says: I find that when you tell me to do something... I guess it's a cop-out because I won't do what you say because I feel I should do the opposite of what you say because that seems to be more to the heart of my problem. It seems to work sometimes.] Sometimes it can be like that. If you feel good doing the opposite, do the opposite. The whole point is to remember what brings the feeling of blessedness to you. One should continuously go on checking inside to see whether it is bringing a well-being, whether you are feeling healthier, whether it is bringing a harmony. If it is, it is good. Then don't worry -- just follow it.
Feel: my thought, I-ness, internal organs -- me.
BEFORE DESIRE AND BEFORE KNOWING, HOW CAN I SAY I AM? CONSIDER. DISSOLVE IN THE BEAUTY. If you feel the presence of thoughts, the crowd, you can feel this also -- that they are not yours. The crowd has come to you, it has gathered around you, but it doesn't belong to you. And if this can be felt -- that no thought is mine -- only then you can throw the mind. If they are yours, you will defend them. And the very feeling that `this thought is mine' is the attachment. Then I give it roots in myself. Then I become the soil and the thought can remain rooted in me. If anything that I can see is not mine is uprooted, then I am not attached to it. The feeling of `mine' creates attachment. You can fight for your thoughts, you can even become a martyr for…