What happens when I think without changing my conduct?

It has been asked: It has been asked, Osho, you tell us to think—yet what will come from thinking alone? As I keep thinking, I get drowned in thoughts themselves, and my conduct does not change. My conduct remains exactly the same. So please tell me, how is conduct to be changed?

Commonly it is said, “What value is there in thought? The real value is in conduct.” This is utterly false and futile. It is false and futile because conduct, deep down, is nothing but the expression of thought. Where there is no seed of thought, there can be no plant of conduct. Yes, it is possible to throw a false conduct over oneself from the outside. But false conduct has no value whatsoever, except that it deceives others and destroys one’s own life. The question asked is: “What will happen by thought alone?” This is why I ask, and why the question arises—if I were to pray to you, I would say: as yet no thought has been born in you. You are taking others’ thoughts to be your own. Hence the problem of trying to bring thought and conduct into harmony. If the thought were truly yours, it would…

Osho, I know what is right, yet I cannot do it. And you say that with knowledge alone—mere knowledge—behavior changes. This does not make sense to me!

A book cannot be a Guru—even if it contains the words of Gurus. However beautiful the book, it cannot be Guru. A book cannot awaken you; it is asleep itself. A book cannot make you alive; it is dead itself. The book may be filled with priceless sayings; it may cry from within, “Arise, awake!”—but if you are snoring beside it, what will happen? You will keep snoring; the book will keep shouting—but you will not hear. A living person is needed—someone who can shake you, jolt you, splash water on your face, prise open your eyes with his hands and say, “Get up! Wake up!” Someone who can shatter your dreams. A book cannot do this. Through meditation, the inner vision slowly begins to open. And when, with meditation, the Master’s word is heard, you recognize instantly what the diamond is. The fist closes in that very moment. Conduct…

Osho, what is the fundamental anguish of human life?

There is only one anguish: that a human being cannot become what he was born to be. There is only one anguish: that the seed remains a seed and does not bloom like a flower; that it cannot scatter its fragrance to the infinite winds; cannot converse with the moon and stars; cannot offer its colors to the sky; cannot be expressed. If the poem within the poet cannot be revealed—anguish. If the painter cannot paint—anguish. If the dancer cannot dance—if chains lie on his feet—anguish. Anguish means only this: that what we are meant to be—our innate nature and destiny—does not come to fruition, and we are forced to be something else. Then anguish is born. Then melancholy gathers over life. And all those countless people you see burdened with sorrow, living in a kind of hell—the reason is only this: each has come carrying the seed of becoming…

The face at the shop and the face in the temple—they cannot be the same; somewhere the change occurred. Where did the shopkeeper recede and the seeker arrive? Where did the man at the shop go and the one who enters the temple come? Is it where you take off your shoes? Not necessarily. In fact, shoes are removed there to say, please change your face here; now the place has come where your old way will not do—leave the shoes here. Where it is written, “Please leave shoes here,” beneath it there should be another board: “Please leave faces here.” Many carry their faces inside. If someone went in wearing shoes there would be less impurity than taking in his old face; but no one notices. So I say: when you change faces, be aware of when it happens. There will be great fun.

A friend has asked: Osho, if in the mother’s womb man and woman create the opportunity for a soul to be born, does that mean souls are separate and there is no all-pervading Soul? He also asked: I have said many times that truth is one, God is one, the soul is one—then don’t these two statements seem contradictory, opposed?

These two statements are not opposed. The Divine is one; in truth the soul is one. But bodies are of two kinds. One is what we call the gross body, which we can see; the other is the subtle body, which we cannot see. When death happens, the gross body falls away, but the subtle body does not die. The soul abides within two bodies, a subtle body and a gross body. At death the gross body drops. This body made of earth and water, of bone, flesh and marrow, falls. What remains is an extremely subtle body—of thoughts, subtle sensations, subtle vibrations, subtle filaments. That filament-woven body begins the journey again with the soul and takes birth anew by entering a new gross body. When a new soul enters a mother’s womb, it means the subtle body has entered. At ordinary death only the gross body falls, not the…