According to Osho, tears during meditation or discourse mean your heart has opened and begun truly listening; you’re participating and coming very close. His words are only capsules—the real medicine is a wordless silence and love transmitted beyond language. Tears show your heartbeat and breath are attuning with him, symbolic like flowers. Rejoice and allow the energy to enter; don’t worry about the words.
If you start crying, it means your heart is opening and catching the love behind the words—and that’s a good sign.
From the Discourses
Passages where Osho speaks to this question — each links to the complete discourse.
I don't understand what you say, Osho, but while sitting alone or in discourse something happens to me and tears start coming out of my eyes. What is this all, oh my master?
SO YOU HAVE STARTED LISTENING TO ME. Shivananda, that's the way to listen to me -- through tears. That's the way to listen to me -- through love, through the heart. Pulsate with me. Let my words be drowned into your tears. You will not be at a loss, because what I am saying is not important. Far more important is some other energy that goes surrounding those words that reach you. Don't pay too much attention to the words. If your heart is open, the energy will be released into the heart. My words are just carriers, they are containers. The content is utterly different. The content is diametrically opposite. The container is the word, but the content is a wordless silence. It is my love. The word is just a capsule. The capsule is not the medicine; the medicine is inside it. Forget about the capsule. Drink me…
Osho, when I listen to you, every word sinks to the depths of my heart and stirs me. But when I read you, it remains a mental game. Please tell me why this happens.
It’s plain. The arithmetic is simple. When you read, only you are there; I am not. What you read is nothing but you. It becomes a game of the mind. When you listen to me, then sometimes—knowingly or unknowingly—I also slip into you. You seldom give such a chance, but now and then a lapse happens on your side. Unaware, you leave the door a little open—and I come in. So when you are hearing me, it’s a different matter. That is why truth has always been spoken, not written. It cannot be written. Even speaking it is very difficult, yet it can still be said—at least a little can be said, a little news can be given. Because in speaking, many elements are involved that are lost in writing. When you read a book, the book is dead. A book cannot create an atmosphere around you. A book has…
Beloved Osho, during your first discourse on the mahagita many people were weeping streams of tears. What does this mean? Are those who were crying weak hearted or is it the power of your voice? Please throw some light on this.
Everywhere in the world it has always been like this. Politicians only have lust for power, they are not concerned with order or revolt. Yes, when they are not keeping order, when the power is not in their hands, then they say everything is wrong; then a revolution is needed. And as soon as they come to power, revolution isn't needed any more because the work of the revolution is complete. Its work was this -- to bring him to power -- the job is done. Then whoever mentions revolution is an enemy. And those that speak of revolution also have nothing to do with it. It is an amazing thing to watch -- it is happening every day, and still man does not become alert. All revolutionaries become counter-revolutionary when they come to power. And all ousted politicians become revolutionaries as soon as they step down from office. Political…
Osho, why does love for the Lord make one mad?
People ask me: Where is the heart? One day a young man asked, “Where exactly in the body is the heart located?” I said to him, “Your head is inside you; you are inside the heart.” The heart is not inside you. Do not mistake these lungs, pumping air, for the heart—they are only an apparatus for purifying air. You are within the heart. The heart is bigger than you. The head is smaller than you. The web of thoughts that spreads inside the head—that is yours, your private world. It is not the world of truth; it is the world of falsity, the world of dreams. The moment your energy slips out of the noose of the head— the moment you step outside the head—the courtyard of the Vast opens: the courtyard of your heart. It is as vast as the sky. Within you lies a sky as immense…
Osho, just hearing your voice, my tears start to pour. Then why does a prayer not arise such that only the prayer remains and I do not? Why does the world still entice just as much and call me toward itself? Are these tears merely crocodile tears?
What you said that day— as if those words were not words: they were trees, they were dwellings, they were persons. Sometimes beneath them, sometimes within them, sometimes clasping them, I live. And even if I turn away from them for a while, their shade comes and touches me morning and evening. What you said that day— as if those were not words, they were trees, dwellings, persons. What I am saying to you is not mere saying. I am not telling a tale; I am speaking the anguish of your life. And I am indicating the way to go beyond the anguish of your life. And beyond your life’s anguish there is a treasure; I am reminding you of it. My words are an invocation, a call—to take you on the journey to the Vast, if you consent to move. If tears have begun to come, it means your…