According to Osho, releasement is always instantaneous: in a flash, the past is cut, the old self falls away, and a new, unrelated being is born. No method can produce it; methods only build trust, self-acceptance, and clear repressed energies so you’ll allow it. With trust, it happens herenow—sudden, discontinuous, like lightning—beyond karma, effort, or gradual modification.
If you truly trust, the change happens in an instant—your old you drops and a fresh you appears—no techniques needed.
From the Discourses
Passages where Osho speaks to this question — each links to the complete discourse.
Why are methods needed when releasement can happen instantly, herenow? I am so tired of trips. How many more must I try only to find? They don't work either? I know the problem is in me and I know there is no problem. So now what?
Seeing the failure of Krishnamurti, I have invented methods. I am saying essentially the same thing, because the message cannot be different. But I had to invent methods so that they can destroy your mistrust. Methods will help you to become unblocked; they will help you to become more flowing, they will help you to be less frozen -- they will melt you, they will warm up the process of your being. Releasement is going to happen instantly, any moment it is going to happen. But if you are ready, it can happen this very moment -- not even a single moment more do you have to wait. WHY ARE METHODS NEEDED WHEN RELEASEMENT CAN HAPPEN INSTANTLY, HERENOW? Because of you, not because of me. From my side I am very much puzzled why it is not happening to you. It should happen, why is it not happening? Why do…
Beloved master, you say that enlightenment can happen any moment. To me it feels like a very slow process of learning and becoming aware of the unconscious parts of my being. Do you have something to say about this?
Enlightenment is not something like an achievement; one cannot achieve it. One has to disappear for it to happen. It is a happening and it happens only in the absence of the ego. And whenever you are doing something the ego becomes more and more strengthened. The ego is a doer, and enlightenment happens in a state of nondoing. It is simply the realization of who you are; it is not a question of achievement. You are already it! Just an awakening, just a turning in! Seeing the point, Buddha relaxed; he dropped all his methods. That is the only use of methods: you get tired of them, you feel utterly bored with them. One day out of sheer boredom you drop all the methods. That evening he dropped his whole spiritual search. He had dropped all worldly search six years before, but it is the same search whether you…
Osho, yesterday you said that jealousy is included in respect. I have immense respect for you, but the jealousy inherent in it keeps poisoning it, and I feel guilt and pain. Does reverence transcend this poison-laced respect?
It needs a little explaining—it's a delicate point. Whenever you respect someone, you do so because you see in that person something you do not have. You respect because you glimpse in the other something you would also like to possess. A beggar respects an emperor because he, too, longs to be an emperor. So on the one hand he respects, and inside he also envies. Because he is not yet an emperor but wants to be. You have attained what he wants to attain. He respects you as skillful, successful: “I stand far back in the line; you have gone ahead to where I should have been.” So you are powerful, clever, intelligent, strong—he respects you. But inside a fire of jealousy also burns—if he gets the chance, he would like to be in your place and push you aside. And if the beggar gets that chance, he will…
Considering the example of sensual instinct, kindly explain what are the practical ways to encounter the unconscious mind, and how can one know that one has become free from it?
This is how concentration works. So through concentration you can never encounter the unconscious. You can encounter the unconscious only with meditation -- and this is the difference between concentration and meditation. Meditation means your mind working not as a torch but like a flame: everything is enlightened around it -- everything. It is not narrowed down, the light is diffused. It is not moving in one direction -- it is moving in all directions simultaneously so the whole is enlightened. How to do it? I said Sufis use dance as an active meditation and then they can encounter the unconscious. Zen monks in Japan use absurd problems to encounter it. You face some problem which cannot be solved -- which cannot be solved at all! Howsoever you try, the problem is such that it cannot be solved. They call such problems "koans" -- absurd problems. For example, they will…
Question: BELOVED OSHO, RELEASE ONE DAY KU SHAN APPROACHED HSUEH FENG. FENG KNEW HIS CIRCUMSTANCES WERE RIPE, SO HE SUDDENLY GOT UP, HELD HIM TIGHT, AND SAID, "WHAT IS IT?" OPENING UP, KU SHAN WAS COMPLETELY ENLIGHTENED -- HE EVEN FORGOT HIS COMPREHENDING MIND AND JUST RAISED HIS HAND AND WAVED, NOTHING MORE. FENG SAID, "WILL YOU EXPRESS SOME PRINCIPLE?" HAVING LEFT THE FIFTH PATRIARCH'S PLACE, HUI NENG TRAVELED SOUTH FOR TWO MONTHS, AND HAD REACHED THE TA YU RANGE. HE WAS PURSUED BY THE MONK HUI MING, WHO WAS ORIGINALLY A GENERAL, ACCOMPANIED BY SEVERAL HUNDRED MEN, WHO WANTED TO SEIZE THE ROBE AND BOWL (EMBLEMATIC OF SUCCESSION TO THE PATRIARCHS). MING WAS THE FIRST TO OVERTAKE HIM. THE SIXTH PATRIARCH THREW DOWN THE ROBE AND BOWL ON A ROCK AND SAID, "THIS ROBE SIGNIFIES FAITH: HOW CAN IT BE TAKEN BY FORCE?