According to Osho, the fruits of past actions do not pass into the next birth; what continues are samskaras—the dry traces of what we did and endured. Like water reusing an old channel, these impressions form tendencies and the path of least resistance in a new life, shaping character and likely reactions unless one consciously clears a new pathway.
Your next life doesn’t carry rewards or punishments, but it keeps the grooves of habit that make you repeat things unless you make a new path.
From the Discourses
Passages where Osho speaks to this question — each links to the complete discourse.
So then the karma did carry over into the next birth, didn’t it?
You haven’t understood my meaning. You will go into another birth, and you are made of what you have done and what you have undergone. It is essential to understand this. Consider this: I spill water in this room—knock over a glass of water. The water flows, makes a path, and goes out through the door. Then the water is completely gone. The sun comes, everything dries; only a dry line remains. There is no water now, but the route the water took remains. You spill another glass of water. Now, out of a thousand possibilities for this second water, nine hundred and ninety-nine are that it will take the same path, because that is the path of least resistance; there isn’t much struggle there. To make another path, you would have to clear the dust, remove the debris; only then could the water carve a new way. Since a…
Osho, when we are reborn, where is the accounting kept? What remains?
We are all bundles of habits. If you want to change these habits, resolve is needed. And the beginning of resolve is this: that it dawns on you that they can be changed. If you think they cannot be changed, your resolve will die completely. A German Jew, Frankl, during the last world war was imprisoned in a great camp. He has written—he has written very astonishing things—in his memoirs. Because he is a psychologist, he kept observing what was happening. December was approaching; the festival days were near. All the prisoners hoped that at least around Christmas there would be release; that around Christmas Hitler would show mercy and people would be freed. Frankl writes: until Christmas, however many tortures the prisoners were given, no one died. People remained ill, but there was a hope—Christmas is approaching. With that hope, there was strength in their life-breath. He writes: the…
12. Whether fulfilled in the present or the future, karmic experiences have their roots in the five afflictions. 13. As long as the roots remain, karma is fulfilled in rebirth through class, span of life, and types of experiences.
14. VIRTUE BRINGS PLEASURE; VICE BRINGS PAIN. That is the whole method of prati-prasav: how to move from the effect to the cause, how to go backwards and find the cause, from where it is coming up. Whatsoever happens to you -- you feel sad, just close your eyes and watch your sadness. Follow where it leads, go deeper into it. Soon you will come to the cause. Maybe you will have to travel long, because this whole life is involved; and not only this life, but many other lives are involved. You will find many wounds in you which hurt, and because of those wounds you feel sad; they are sad. Those wounds have not gone dry yet; they are alive. The method of prati-prasav, the method of going back to the source, from the effect to the cause, will heal them. How does it heal? Why does it…
Osho, Mahipal-ji asks about karma: this evolution that is happening—the animals and birds moving toward the human realm—is it simply the result of a spontaneous, automatic evolution that runs by itself, or does their conscious effort also participate in it?
As I said: when a new consciousness develops, new bodies must be assumed. When a conscious society’s numbers increase, new planets and satellites must be colonized. Scientists cannot explain how life first appeared on Earth; they can describe evolution, but evolution presupposes something that evolves. Where did life come from? If the fish became human, where did the fish come from? If plant became fish, where did life enter the plant? Life must come from somewhere. Similarly, when a mother becomes fit to conceive, a soul enters her. When a planet or satellite becomes fit for life, life migrates there from other planets. The first germs always transmigrate; there is no other way. From another planet—perhaps one where life is nearing its end—the seed comes. You also asked whether the efforts of Buddhas and Mahaviras—or I, or anyone—ever actually help beings to evolve. It has happened many times. Our view…
Whatever self‑introduction you give—if you look closely you will find you always introduce your karma; you never give any news of your being. You cannot. You have no news of it. You only know what you do. You know your doings—what you have done and what you can do. The certificates you carry only report what you can do; they do not report what you are. If you say, “I am a sadhu,” it means you do sadhuta. If someone says, “I am a thief,” it means he steals. One’s karma is saintliness, the other’s karma is theft. But what is being? What is within you? Before you were born from your mother’s womb, what was saint or thief, engineer or doctor? Had someone asked you in the womb, “Who are you?” you would have been in trouble—because then you were neither engineer nor doctor, you had done no business.