According to Osho, an iconoclast is a courageous destroyer of inner and outer idols—beliefs, traditions, images, and moralistic conditioning—that keep you asleep. He breaks borrowed certainties, not to leave you empty, but to clear space for direct experience: silence, witnessing, and your own buddha-nature. True rebellion smashes secondhand truths so individuality and awareness can flower.
It’s someone who bravely breaks fake ideas and rules so you can discover truth inside yourself.
From the Discourses
Passages where Osho speaks to this question — each links to the complete discourse.
Osho, all right—my first question is: doesn’t the iconoclast end up having his own image established in the popular mind—as an iconoclast?
If he is truly an iconoclast, he will try to save people even from his own image. But if he only wants to smash others’ idols and, deep down, relishes the idea that his own idol be installed, then such iconoclasts, by the back door, turn into idol‑worshipers and the initiators of idol‑worship. In my view, if the iconoclast is really an iconoclast, he will not let his own effigy be set up; he will keep up that struggle too. For his fight is not with someone’s particular idol; his fight is with the very making of idols. The moment an idol is made, it becomes opposed to truth. And the danger you point to is always there, because the statues of all the past iconoclasts have been made. Jesus is an iconoclast, and Buddha is an iconoclast. But so many images of Buddha were created that the very word…
Osho, Somewhere you have said that you are an iconoclast, a breaker of illusions. It seems to me that beyond that you are a great breaker of concepts. Would you kindly say something about this?
Sahajanand! Whether idols, delusions, or concepts—these are all different facets of the mind. With these very bricks the prison of the mind is constructed. Only by removing the bricks one by one can you enter the state of no-mind. Whatever you believe, whatever you worship—everything will have to be taken away from you. It feels harsh. It hurts. Wounds happen. The cowardly run away; only the courageous can remain with me. And it is not a question of whether your concept is right or wrong. No concept is right. Concept means wrong. Concept means: you have believed what you have not known. What you have not experienced, not encountered, not realized—you have adopted it: out of fear, out of greed, out of conditioning, out of society, out of convenience, out of consolation. Because it was taught since childhood. Because it was repeated again and again. Because it has had centuries…
Osho, how could the iconoclast Mahavira accept himself as the twenty-fourth Tirthankara of the most ancient Jina tradition? Please explain!
Within this revolutionary tradition, Mahavira is the most glorious, the most brilliant. Therefore his words are worth understanding and contemplating. He must have been uniquely revolutionary; for the Jainas have two sects—Digambara and Shvetambara. The Digambaras hold that not a single word of Mahavira remains, no scripture remains. That too is part of the revolution. They say, no scripture is Mahavira’s word. The words we have are from the Shvetambara compilations. The Digambaras have no compilations. It is astonishing that the Digambaras did not preserve! But that too belongs to their deep revolt: if you preserve words, today or tomorrow they become scripture; preserve them, and soon they become Veda. Hence the Digambaras did not preserve Mahavira’s words. It is an extraordinary rebellion against scripture. They revere Mahavira, but preserved no texts—only what was passed personally from master to disciple; they did not write it down. Therefore, for the Digambaras,…
Osho, right before our eyes you painted the images of Buddha, Mahavira, and Krishna in enchanting colors. You filled us with devotional awe for them. And now you are mercilessly dismantling those very images. Why are you doing both—creating idols and breaking them? Has the journey to the formless through these forms become impossible now, or are you forcing us to return to ourselves?
You too take your own meanings. And your meanings compelled me to change. So now I have begun to pull back the colors, because I want it to be clear that you must not fix your gaze on Buddha but on yourself. Too many garlands have already been heaped upon Krishna; too many heads have already bowed at the feet of Mahavira. But all that is the dead past. You have to recognize the principle of life within yourself. So, just as I once filled in colors, I have begun to remove them. Even while coloring, the purpose was the same. My purpose has not changed. My goal is exactly the same. But the method has changed. I colored so that you would look at yourself. If you could not, then now I am removing the colors so that the canvas becomes empty and you are forced to look at…
Osho, why are you destroying the great religious leaders and ideologies of the world?
I am not in favor of destroying anything at all. My whole approach is creative. But creation involves destruction. That is not my problem. Creation itself is not possible without destroying something. The moment you create something you are simultaneously destroying something else. But when destruction is on the way towards creation you need not be worried about it. It is not destructive, it is creative. Let me repeat: it is creative destruction. There is a possibility, in the same way, of destructive creation. What are nuclear weapons? Certainly a tremendous act of creation -- but for what? Where is it going to lead? What is going to be the outcome? -- nothing but pure destruction. So this is creation leading towards destruction. Only fools will call it creativity. And only fools can call my action destruction. So that is the first thing to be understood. It is not creation…