According to Osho, not only sometimes but ideally every day one would rest—yet there’s a catch: life makes you the “principal,” so you still have to show up. He uses humor to reveal a balance: honor the body’s need for ease while meeting your responsibilities cheerfully, without grumbling.
Rest is good, but you still need to do your job—so smile and go.
From the Discourses
Passages where Osho speaks to this question — each links to the complete discourse.
Question: OSHO, DON 'T YOU FEEL SOMETIMES JUST TO TAKE A DAY OFF AND REST? NOT ONLY sometimes but every day! But there is a problem... It was the first day of the term and Mrs. Jones marched into her son's bedroom determined to get him to school on time. She shook him by the shoulder and said, "Good morning. Thomas, time to go to school! Up you get -- we don't want to be late, do we?" Thomas pulled the sheets over his head and refused to get up. "Come on, Tommy, you have to get your books ready. Don't be silly!" "No, I'm not going! I won't go there ever again. I hate the place!" "Well, Tommy," said his mother sternly, "it's no use arguing about it, you just have to go." "Give me three good reasons why I should!" muttered Tommy from under the bedcover.
The man laughed, he said "I have a strategy: on whatsoever comes to me, on whatsoever files come to me I simply write 'Refer to Mr John.'" He said "My god! -- I am John! Why do you write 'Refer to Mr John'?" He said "I think that in this big office there is bound to be somebody of the name of John, so I simply write 'refer'; then the file moves; then I don't know where it goes and what happens to it." In the offices people are just reading newspapers, smoking, and then there are so many coffee breaks and tea breaks. In fact there is no work break at all. Amidst all other breaks the whole day is broken. And a dream for the coming day of... And on that day you will see how crazy they go.
Osho, on the first day you explained that “non-ability” is a precious word in Taoist vision and carries great spiritual value. In that context it seems that tamasic and lazy people already possess the quality of non-ability, yet their spiritual growth is not visible. What is your view on this?
What Lao Tzu calls “non-ability” is the name of the deepest ability. It is not laziness; it is the ultimate state of rest. Nor is it tamas; it is a most incandescent state of energy. Understand the difference clearly. The confusion is natural, because if someone is sitting inactive it appears to us that he is lazy. But all who sit inactive are not lazy. The one we call lazy does not truly sit empty; the work of the mind goes on. Perhaps the lazy man does nothing with his body, but with the mind he is fully busy. Where those who are bodily active are running, he too runs with his desires and cravings. In the mind there is no difference. He seems lazy to us because he is not running as we are. But he too is running. If laziness becomes absolute—what Lao Tzu calls non-doing—then laziness itself…
Do you never get tired of talking? Why do you talk regularly every morning? Don't you feel like going for a holiday sometimes ?
I AM NOT A CHRISTIAN GOD. The Christian God created the world in six days and the seventh day He rested; hence, the Sunday is the holiday. 'Holiday' means the holy day, God's day of rest. In the East we have never known any God resting. The very idea is stupid: God and resting? Rest is needed if what you are doing is not of your heart; then you get tired. When it is out of your heart and out of your love, you don't get tired; in fact, you get nourished by it. Talking to you, I feel nourished. After talking to you I feel more energy than ever -- because it is my love. I enjoy it! It is not work. You can get tired if you are working. If you are playing, how can you get tired? Nobody has ever heard that people get tired by playing.…
As a child, sundays have been something very special to me. Now, since a few days, I wake up every morning and go out, see the sun shining through the trees, hear the birds singing and get this feeling, 'ah, another sunday.' I put on my best clothes and have sunday for the whole day. What is happening to me?
Don't make a problem out of it. There are two types of values in life. One is intrinsic value. You sing a song -- it has an intrinsic value, it is the means and it is the end also. Or you sing a song in the marketplace to earn a little money. That money is not intrinsic to the song, that money is an outside value. And if you are singing your song only for the money, the activity is no longer holy, it is profane. If you are singing your song for the happiness that it brings to you.... Maybe as a by-product it brings money also, but that is irrelevant. If it brings, it is good, if it does not bring, that too is good -- but your activity has an inner glow to it, it is intrinsically valuable in itself. If you are happy that you could…