Stop just thinking and start living the insight now—then you wake up inside.
From the Discourses
Passages where Osho speaks to this question — each links to the complete discourse.
Do positive thoughts bring happenings too? -- like wishing for enlightenment.
Because from the positive where you will move? -- you know only two possibilities: positive or negative. If you drop the positive, you move to the negative. That's why negative has to be dropped first so there is nothing to move to the negative. Otherwise, if you drop the positive, immediately the negative enters. If you are not happy, then what you will be? -- unhappy! If you are not silent, what you will be? -- a chatterbox! Hence, drop the negative first so one alternative is closed -- you cannot move that way. Otherwise energy has a routine movement from positive to negative, from negative to positive. If the negative exists, there is every possibility the moment you drop the positive you will become the negative. When you are not happy, you will be unhappy. You don't know that there is a third possibility also. That third possibility opens…
"last night you said that one should always see life in its positive dimensions and one should not give emphasis to the negative. Is this not a choice? And is this not against encountering the total reality -- that which is?"
It is a choice, but one who is negative cannot take a jump towards choicelessness. If he can take it, it is good, but it is impossible. From the negative, it is impossible to take a jump towards choicelessness because the negative mind means that you can see only the ugly, you can see only death, you can see only misery. You cannot see any positive elements in life. And, remember, it is difficult to lose misery. It may look very strange when I say this, but it is difficult to take a jump from misery; it is easier to take a jump from happiness. It is easier to take a jump when you are happy because with happiness courage comes, with happiness the possibility of a higher bliss opens, with happiness the whole world looks like a home. With misery the world is like a hell, and there is…
Beloved Osho, in america, many people -- from meditators to managers -- are using a technique called "positive thinking." they are trying to change destructive thoughts and conditionings about themselves, others, and existence, into positive ones, and in this way hope to be more successful on the level of their lives that they are concerned with. Picturing their minds as a cage, I wonder whether this technique is just like painting the cage golden. Osho, is the technique of positive thinking helpful for awakening? Or does it dull the awareness of being imprisoned and the desire to become free?
He found out that this was Napoleon Hill, a great writer, and his new book was just published. "He will be very happy to be introduced to you." So Henry Ford went to him. The publisher introduced Napoleon Hill, saying, "He has written this book, THINK AND GROW RICH." Henry Ford looked at the cover, at the title, and asked Napoleon Hill, "Have you come in your own car, or in a public bus?" It seemed so irrelevant, but when Henry Ford was asking, Napoleon Hill had to say, "Yes, I have come in a public bus." Henry Ford returned the book and told him, "When you have thought enough about a beautiful car and it appears in your porch, then bring this book to me. I am Henry Ford -- I don't need this book. I know you cannot grow rich by thinking. You can cheat poor people by…
Osho, that was about interpretation. What is your positive philosophy of life?
In fact, in fact, you have asked a very good question. As I see it, religion is a negative philosophy of life. Religion simply does not have a positive philosophy. In truth, the religious mind is a negative mind. What do I mean? Imagine a man in chains who says, “I want to break these chains and be free.” Someone asks him, “What is the positive meaning of your freedom? What do you mean by positive freedom?” He will say, “If my chains are broken—if all the chains fall away—I will be free.” But that is a negative statement. Freedom, in its essence, has no positive content. Freedom means the absence of bondage. And religion is liberation—the search for absolute freedom, where we are utterly free: no limits, no bonds, no obstacles. So religion is basically negative: wherever there is bondage, break it. I hold that orthodoxy is a bondage;…
Are there no horrible noises if we listen from the center of the body? What about the screeching city noises that have been a source of irritation to us all of our lives: can we turn these into positive sound?
It depends on your mind. If you are positive, then everything becomes positive. If you are negative, then everything turns negative, everything turns sour. So please remember this -not only about noises, but about everything in life. If you feel that something negative exists around you, go and find the cause within. It is you. You must be expecting something, you must be desiring something, you must be making some conditions. Existence cannot be forced to go according to you; it flows in its own way. If you can flow with it, you will be positive. If you fight with it, you will become negative and the whole cosmos around you will turn negative. It is just like a person who is trying to float upstream: then the stream is negative. If you are trying to float upstream in a river, then the river will seem negative and you will…