According to Osho, the felt 'deep hollowness' is like a black hole; accidents or outer events might break the bed or make you fall, but they'd only throw you into an even bigger hole. When that void suddenly disappears, it signifies the Master's working—conscious energy dissolving the inner emptiness, not circumstance. True healing comes from awakened presence, not random shocks.
Feeling very empty is like a hole inside you; only real, loving awareness can make it vanish—not accidents or quick fixes.
From the Discourses
Passages where Osho speaks to this question — each links to the complete discourse.
Question: LUNG SHU SAID TO THE PHYSICIAN WEN CHIH: 'YOUR CRAFT IS SUBTLE. I HAVE AN ILLNESS, CAN YOU CURE IT?' 'YOU HAVE ONLY TO COMMAND. TELL ME THE SYMPTOMS OF YOUR ILLNESS.' 'I DO NOT THINK IT AN HONOUR IF THE WHOLE DISTRICT PRAISES ME NOR A DISGRACE IF THE WHOLE STATE REVILES ME; I HAVE NO JOY WHEN I WIN, NO ANXIETY WHEN I LOSE; I LOOK IN THE SAME WAY AT LIFE AND DEATH, RICHES AND POVERTY, OTHER MEN AND PIGS, MYSELF AND OTHER MEN; I DWELL IN MY OWN HOUSE AS THOUGH LODGING IN AN INN, AND LOOK AT MY OWN NEIGHBOURHOOD AS THOUGH IT WERE A FOREIGN AND BARBAROUS COUNTRY. 'HAVING ALL THESE AILMENTS, TITLES AND REWARDS CANNOT INDUCE ME, PUNISHMENTS AND FINES CANNOT AWE ME, PROSPERITY AND DECLINE, BENEFIT AND HARM CANNOT CHANGE ME, JOY AND SORROW CANNOT INFLUENCE ME.
Osho, you said that awareness created centering and crystallization, but I personally feel that awareness brings a feeling of deep void within me. Please explain the relationship between centering and inner void.
As man is, he is without a center -- without a real, authentic center. He has a center, so to speak, but the center is false. He only thinks he has a center. The ego is a false center. You feel that it is there, but it is not. If you go to find it, you will not find it at all. Bodhidharma reached China 1100 years after Buddha. He was a Buddha himself. The Emperor Wu came to receive Bodhidharma. When no one was there, he asked Bodhidharma, "I am very, very disturbed. My mind is never at ease. What can I do? Tell me. Make my mind at peace, at ease. I am in deep conflict; an inner struggle continues -- so do something." Bodhidharma said, "I can do something. Come early in the morning at four o'clock, but remember to bring your self." The Emperor felt: "Either…
[See 'the cypress in the courtyard', friday june 4th, where Osho talks about mastery of emotions and recounts an incident in the life of bennett, one of gurdjieff's disciples.] [A sannyasin says she gets an empty feeling in her stomach which she has always associated with fear. It happens after meditation. Osho checks her energy.] Mm... it has nothing to do with fear. You may be afraid of it but it has nothing to do with fear. It is the emptiness that comes when you start meditating. Allow this emptiness to be there more and more and don't try to fill it with anything. Love the very feeling of emptiness, and out of this emptiness something will arise, something will descend into it. You are becoming a womb ready to receive something, hence the emptiness. So don't be worried about it. Feel happy and grateful about it.
Osho, inside me there seems to be a kind of stunned stillness, a hush. It feels empty, as if a void has spread over everything. And at the same time, the assault of good and bad thoughts keeps overpowering me. What should I do? I feel as if I’ve gone a bit mad. I find myself very helpless, alone, and insecure. I am afraid.
It is Saroj’s question. This happens. It is natural. Because the moment we turn within, we become alone. That is why people are afraid to go inside. Outside there are others; inside there is no one. Inside it is you, and only you. Outside are countless people, bustle and stir; inside, silence. Outside there is so much fullness; inside, the void. And for lifetimes we have lived outside—lived in relationships, with others, in the crowd and the marketplace, the house and household—thousands of occupations! So when you begin to move within, you suddenly start to feel: all that is left far behind, and into this inner space not even your nearest and dearest can come. This is your utterly solitary space. It is so private that you cannot invite even your lover into it. Here there is only you—simply you. In the beginning this great stillness, this hush, this emptiness…
And that is where people become awakened: awakened to the truth of existence, awakened to the truth of their own being. That's where one becomes a Buddha. The Buddha simply means the one who is no more asleep, who is no more dreaming, who is fully awake. [A sannyasin, leaving, says: I'm still afraid of the emptiness, Osho. I fill it with food and drinks.] Simply accept it. It is nothing wrong -- it is the door to the ultimate. But the door has to be empty otherwise how will you enter? You cannot enter through a wall From far away the door looks empty and dark, and you are unnecessarily frightened. Come closer to it, accept it Emptiness is not emptiness but the beginning of fullness, but you have to take a plunge into it, and you can take the plunge only when you accept.