According to Osho, to live dangerously is to choose the unknown over comfortable security, embracing risk not only physically but psychologically and, ultimately, spiritually. Life flowers only in insecurity; safety breeds stagnation and a 'comfortable grave.' Risk awakens presence—here-and-now intensity—and freedom from social respectability. True religion is the supreme risk: stepping beyond the point of no return into transformative aliveness.
It means bravely stepping into the unknown—in life, heart, and spirit—instead of hiding in safe routines, because that’s how you feel truly alive now.
From the Discourses
Passages where Osho speaks to this question — each links to the complete discourse.
What does it mean to live dangerously?
If you enjoy many more things for their own sake, you will be more alive. Of course, your life will always be in a risk, danger. But that's how life has to be. Risk is part of it. In fact the better part of it is risk, the best part of it is risk. The most beautiful part of it is risk. It is every moment a risk. You may not be aware. You breathe in, you breathe out. There is risk. Even breathing out, who knows whether the breath will come back or not? It is not certain, there is no guarantee. But there are a few people whose whole religion is security. Even if they talk about god, they talk about god as the supreme security. If they think about god, they think only because they are afraid. If they go to pray and meditate, they are going…
Osho, what do you mean by "live in danger"? Should man not be careful for the future? Please explain it.
The second care that can be taken is to live in the present as totally as possible, because it is out of the present that future grows. And you never bother about the present; you think only of the future. You constantly think of the future. Either you think of the past or you think of the future, and both are foolish. Live in the present. That's what I mean when I say live dangerously. I have come across a story. Somebody like you must have invented it because there is no reference about it anywhere -- neither in Christian sources nor in non-Christian sources. Two women are crying and weeping under Jesus' cross. One says to the other, "I would give everything to be able to take the nail out of his hand!" After a few minutes, the other replies, "Yes, me too! I would give everything to he…
Beloved Osho, you have forgotten to include one of your maxims in the requests. The maxim is: live dangerously. Would you like to speak on this?
He said, "That's perfectly okay. You can kill me, but you cannot kill my spirit...." But remember, by spirit he does not mean soul. By spirit he means his courage, his devotion to truth, his way of life. You cannot change that. "... You can kill me. And about death I am not worried at all, because there are only two alternatives. Either I will simply die, so there is no problem then. When I am not, what problem can there be? So either I simply die, then there is no problem, or I don't die and my soul goes on living. Then at least I will have the satisfaction that I was not a coward, that I stuck to my truth, that you could kill me, but you could not bend me." He died joyously. The death scene of Socrates is something beautiful in the whole history of man.…
Nietzsche kept a signboard on his table. Only two words were written on it. Whenever anyone asked him what was the essence of his life, he would point out to that signboard on which was written "Live dangerously." The reality is that it is in living dangerously that life is felt. Living a protected life, one never experiences life. That is why those who live in graves live very safe. There is no danger. The life of a pond is a life of avoiding all dangers, but it stinks, becomes dirty and dries up. India has been living a secured life for centuries; has created its own cocoon and lives within it. We do not want to enter the expanses of this world and we do not want to travel to the moon and stars. We are bound to our homes.
Osho, yesterday you said that jealousy is included in respect. I have immense respect for you, but the jealousy inherent in it keeps poisoning it, and I feel guilt and pain. Does reverence transcend this poison-laced respect?
It needs a little explaining—it's a delicate point. Whenever you respect someone, you do so because you see in that person something you do not have. You respect because you glimpse in the other something you would also like to possess. A beggar respects an emperor because he, too, longs to be an emperor. So on the one hand he respects, and inside he also envies. Because he is not yet an emperor but wants to be. You have attained what he wants to attain. He respects you as skillful, successful: “I stand far back in the line; you have gone ahead to where I should have been.” So you are powerful, clever, intelligent, strong—he respects you. But inside a fire of jealousy also burns—if he gets the chance, he would like to be in your place and push you aside. And if the beggar gets that chance, he will…