According to Osho, whenever there is force at the back—whether social pressure or self-pushing—action may occur, but it arises from fear and tension, not intelligence. Compulsion creates inner resistance, splits your energy, and falsifies growth. Real transformation and love are non-coercive; in relaxed awareness, energy flows on its own and action becomes natural, graceful, and true.
Pushing from behind makes you stiff and fake; relaxing and watching lets the right move happen by itself.
From the Discourses
Passages where Osho speaks to this question — each links to the complete discourse.
Beloved Osho, why am I forcing situations according to my will, instead of accepting them and letting them just happen? I have a feeling that my body makes me aware of it, reacting with high fever.
Devam Navyo, the upbringing of man is so poisonous, so crippling, that it destroys all that is significant and valuable in you and replaces it with cruelty, violence, a desire to dominate. The whole of society from all sides supports this destruction of your innocence; it is favorable to them. Forcing anything simply means you are forcing against yourself. This creates the schizophrenia, the split personality which is fighting with itself. This is the most ugly and destructive device which has been used by the vested interests for thousands of years. They found a simple clue for how to destroy the individual. The individual is a danger -- a danger against exploitation, a danger against slavery, a danger against any kind of enforcement. An individual would die rather than submit. Individuality has a dignity.... But man has been taken away from his individuality by a simple device. Put the individual…
Now begins the last section of patanjali's sutras, kaivalya pada. 1. The powers are revealed at birth, or acquired through drugs, repeating sacred words, austerities, or samadhi
2. THE TRANSFORMATION FROM ONE CLASS, SPECIES, OR KIND, INTO ANOTHER, IS BY THE OVERFLOW OF NATURAL TENDENCIES OF POTENTIALITIES. 3. THE INCIDENTAL CAUSE DOES NOT STIR THE NATURAL TENDENCIES INTO ACTIVITY; IT MERELY REMOVES THE OBSTACELS -- LIKE A FARMER IRRIGATING A FIELD: HE REMOVES THE OBSTACLES, AND THEN THE WATER FLOWS FREELY BY ITSELF. 4. ARTIFICIALLY CREATED MINDS PROCEED FROM EGOISM ALONE. 5. THOUGH THE ACTIVITIES OF THE MANY ARTIFICIAL MINDS VARY, THE ONE ORIGINAL MIND CONTROLS THEM ALL. That's why I insist for dynamic methods: they will melt your blocks. If you are angry, scream, yell. There is no need to yell and scream at anybody; just a pillow will do. Beat the pillow, jump on it, kill the pillow -- there is no need to kill anybody. Just the idea that you are killing the pillow is enough. Just getting into the rage, into the anger,…
Osho, what I mean is, control slips away. So the right approach is to let it be, is that so?
I understand, I understand. It’s not a question of good or bad. Care about whatever gives you more peace and momentum; because it will be different for everyone. It will be different for everyone. Some people can rest only after they have run and fallen. Some people can rest right now. But very few people—very few. To go straight into silence is difficult; it is possible for a few. For most people, first the running is necessary, the tension is necessary. In the end the meaning is the same, the purpose is the same. Shakti sadhana brings tension.
The theory that we have to push, force and kick ourselves -- is.this true? I hate fighting myself.
Look at the question. I go on saying to you that truth is not somewhere else, it is here. You have not to struggle your way towards it. It is through the struggle that you are missing it. You are not to push the river. By pushing the river you will never reach anywhere. You will simply get tired and exhausted. By pushing the river you are only creating the possibility of your utter failure. You cannot fight with the river. The river is huge -- life's river, the river of existence, is so huge -- and you are so tiny. You are just a ripple in the ocean -- a ripple trying to fight with the ocean, trying to direct the ocean, trying to achieve a private goal. It is simply ridiculous. And all struggle makes you ridiculous; all struggle makes you tired, exhausted, dull, sad, miserable. But one…
Beloved Osho, how can one get out of the trap the mind creates of never being quite blissful in the moment, and being patient, letting the grass grow by itself. I'm always wanting to move faster, to push the river, and missing the beauty of it taking me in its own time. Would you please comment?
So each individual will have different things happening out of the same understanding. If pushing is your nature, then there is nothing wrong in it. Enjoy it, push as much as you can -- but with a song and with a dance, and without being worried that you are pushing. This is you. This is your grass, and it grows this way. There are grasses and grasses. Just one thing has to be remembered, that anything that you are doing is joyfully done, rejoicingly done -- that's enough. Different people will be doing different things, and the world needs that different people should do different things. It is the richness of the world, that all are not alike, and should not be alike. But on one point they should meet; and that is the cosmic center of being relaxed. In Japan they have developed strange things for meditative purposes... Japan…