According to Osho, when a teaching is followed totally, it becomes a living guidance that leads you step by step to well-being; but the moment ego picks and chooses, you lose everything and return to despair. His 'Now you decide' means: test it in life, trust wholly, or bear the predictable consequences of half-heartedness.
Follow the inner guidance completely and life works; ignore it or mix in stubbornness and you get hurt.
From the Discourses
Passages where Osho speaks to this question — each links to the complete discourse.
Osho, when one tries to steer one’s life in a particular direction, the call of the other directions becomes a distraction. But is it possible to let one’s life flow in all its directions—and then, in a state free of distraction, is there not a danger that life will fall apart?
The very moment you want to concentrate, you have made a wound. You must have noticed: if there is a wound on your foot, the whole day everything bumps into it. A child climbs right onto that foot. You are amazed: all these years, all his life, he never climbed on my foot, and today he climbed! You pass through a doorway and it bumps into you. Things fall. They fell every day, and that child climbed many times—but you never noticed it, because there was no wound. Today there is a wound—so you notice. It is not that seeing your wound the whole world is falling on your foot. No one knows of your wound. When you sit to be concentrated and you make an effort—that very effort creates a wound. Now the smallest things start obstructing you. You must have noticed: the moment you sit to meditate, an…
Osho, you said... then you will find that the devotee is God. The question arises: if one devotee prefers to be God and another wants to remain only a devotee, then which of the two is superior?
The one who wants to be God will not be able to be. And the one who wants to remain a devotee will become God. The question of superior or inferior does not arise, because only one of the two will happen. The one who does not want to be will be. The one who wants to be will be deprived. That very wanting is of the ego. But the matter is a little delicate. Sometimes humility too belongs to the ego. Beware that your humility may not be of the ego. Perhaps you are saying, “No, I don’t want to be,” because you know that those who refuse are the ones who attain. Then you are clever. Then your humility is adulterous. Your humility is not pure, not sacred, not virginal—it is like a prostitute. The one who wants to be God, whose ego says, “I must become God,”…
Osho, how should life be lived, and what is its purpose?
Enter life—stay awake and experiment; try waking and observe; try sleeping and observe; try eating; try lying and truth-telling; try anger and forgiveness; try love and enmity—taste all. In all of it, wherever depth increases, where peace increases, where joy increases, where a glimpse of the divine comes—recognize that as the rule forming for your life. And do not make even that rule so rigid that there is no possibility of change tomorrow. No one knows what life will bring tomorrow. The straight path may suddenly need a turn. What was pleasurable may become painful. Keep an opening for tomorrow. Hence the second thing: discover life’s rules from within. And also: do not consider your discovered rule absolute. Do not regard it as perfect. It must have the flexibility to change tomorrow. Life flowers fully only in one who can change each moment. But we are “consistent” people. We insist:…
Beloved Osho, you have talked to us about total surrender to the master, but often our minds come up with reasons for not following the instructions literally. We say things like: the master can't know that the situation has changed; or, the master doesn't realize what the practical conditions are in the west. Should we follow everything the master says to the letter, or are there times when we should use our own discretion?
Still they go on listening to Krishnamurti. For years together they go again and again. If no help is possible, why do you go again and again to Krishnamurti? If nobody can guide you, what is the point of listening to him again and again? It is pointless. And even this attitude, that you have to travel the path alone, is not discovered by you -- it has been revealed to you by Krishnamurti. Deep down he has become your master, but you go on saying that you don't follow. This is a deception. The same deception can happen from the reverse side. You come to me, you think you have surrendered, and still you go on choosing. If I say something that suits you -- that means it suits your ego -- you follow it. If I say something which doesn't suit your ego, you start rationalizing: This may…
Osho, even after listening to you with great eagerness for so many days, I find myself exactly where I was! Then what can I hope for?
When you listen to me and it sounds good, feels dear, stirs eagerness—this is not enough. It is necessary, because after it something more can happen; but it is not sufficient. It is only primary. Take the second step. Move from thought to experience. Do not stop at thought. Otherwise you will go on thinking, go on thinking, and be finished. Whoever ends in thinking has not known life. An incomparable treasure was at hand, and he let it slip through his fingers. Even though the method lay with him, he did not use it. One night Mulla Nasruddin came home distraught, sweating, shaken. He hurried in and bolted the door. His wife asked, “Why are you so frightened? What happened? Where are you coming from?” He said, “I was returning from the shop. A thug met me. He snatched my glasses, took the fountain pen from my pocket, took…