Quiet your mind like a still lake, and people’s insides show up clearly without you doing anything.
From the Discourses
Passages where Osho speaks to this question — each links to the complete discourse.
How do you know the inner world of a person? Because I have always felt that the moment you see somebody, instantly his whole life is revealed to you. This is my own experience too.
There is not much mystery in it, it is very simple. If YOU are a mirror, if you are silent, if there is no turmoil within you, if there is no thought process and traffic of the mind inside you, the other is simply reflected. It is not a great secret. If you go to the lake and there are no ripples and waves on the lake, you are reflected in the lake, the moon and the stars are reflected in the lake. The lake knows no art; it is not an art anyway, it is a simple phenomenon. I am sitting here silently, with no traffic of the mind. You come in front of me, the mirror reflects you. The lake of my consciousness reflects you: I see you, all and all, from one end to another end, in your totality. But this knowing is not knowledge, this knowing…
When thought objects vanish, the thinking subject vanishes, as when the mind vanishes, objects vanish. Things are objects because of the subject; the mind is such because of things. Understand the relativity of these two and the basic reality: the unity of emptiness. In this emptiness the two are indistinguishable and each contains in itself the whole world. If you do not discriminate between coarse and fine you will not be tempted to prejudice and opinion.
Give love, and the begging bowl is there, your love has disappeared. Give your whole life, and the begging bowl is there, looking at you with complaining eyes. "You have not given anything. I am still empty." And the only proof that you have given is if the begging bowl is full -- and it is never full. Of course, the logic is clear: you have not given. You have achieved many many things -- they have all disappeared in the begging bowl. The mind is a self-destructive process. Before the mind disappears you will remain a beggar. Whatsoever you can gain will be in vain; you will remain empty. And if you dissolve this mind, through emptiness you become filled for the first time. You are no more, but you have become the whole. If you are, you will remain a beggar. If you are not, you become the…
They asked firmani, "how did you know that such and such a man was vicious? You refused to converse deeply with him while he was here, although everyone said that he was a saint." firmani said, "if a stranger comes to ordinary men and says, 'light is made by weaving. I wove all the light there is and was,' what do they realize?" they answered, " they realize that what he says is untrue." firmani said, "similarly, when a vicious individual enters the company of a man of knowledge, it is not difficult to judge his condition, regardless of what people imagine or say."
... And the tune is the real thing. It happens almost every day -- somebody says yes, but his whole being is saying no. Whom to believe? His words, or his whole being? And sometimes the opposite case also happens: somebody says, "No Osho, no," but his whole being is saying yes. Even the way he says no is so full of love that it doesn't mean no, it doesn't mean a negative. And sometimes you say, "Yes, okay, yes," but your yes is dull, dead; it really means no. You did not want to say yes, you are saying it under pressure. It is meaningless. And my mirror goes on reflecting your totality, and I have to decide from there. The conductor of a freight train sitting in the cupola of his caboose one day observed a tramp crawling up over a box car. "Say," he said to the…