According to Osho, lust and prayer are two ends of the same ladder: lust is pure, neutral life‑energy—the seed groping in the dark—while prayer is that same energy winged and directed to the Divine. Nothing is to be condemned; transform, don’t repress. Invest desire in God, see the sacred in everyone—even enemies—and lust ripens into love, devotion, and continuous remembrance.
Lust is your raw energy; when you aim it toward loving God and seeing God in everyone, it becomes prayer.
From the Discourses
Passages where Osho speaks to this question — each links to the complete discourse.
Question: The third question: Osho, what is lust and what is prayer? In my vision, they are the two ends of the same ladder—like seed and tree, like egg and hen. One day lust grows wings and becomes prayer. Lust is prayer in the process of being born. Lust is groping in the dark for the way to become prayer. Lust is the wandering, the search for the path, the quest for the door. Therefore I have no condemnation of lust. In fact, I have no condemnation at all—of anything. In me there is a total acceptance, because I see: when everything is accepted by God, to reject anything is to reject God. I have heard this: The Sufi fakir Bayazid was very troubled by a neighbor. For a whole year that man lived next door and was a great nuisance.
In this same context, someone has asked: Osho, what is your view regarding lust?
Lust is energy, and whoever fights with the energy of lust will be destroyed. Lust is to be transformed, not fought with. Sex, when transformed, becomes brahmacharya. Sex is not the opposite of brahmacharya. Brahmacharya is the transformed state of sex itself. In this world no energies are destroyed—only transformation happens. In this world nothing is destroyed; only transformation happens. Energies are never annihilated. The very energy of hatred, when transformed, becomes love. The very energy of cruelty, when transformed, becomes kindness and compassion. What you are calling lust—those very urges, when transformed, become forces that move life toward truth. After all, you must have seen: just now, on my way here, I passed a place where flowers were blooming. You must have seen a garbage heap where filth lies piled up. From that filth a stench arises, a bad odor spreads; anyone passing by holds his nose. But if…
A friend has asked, Osho, in bhakti-yoga you have given love a fundamental place. I don’t know whether we ordinary people are familiar with love or only with lust! What is the difference between the two? And can lust become love?
It is worth asking, and worth understanding. Because we take lust to be love. And lust is not love; it can become love. In lust there is the possibility of love. But lust itself is not love; it is only a seed. If rightly used, it can sprout—but a seed is not a tree. So the one who becomes satisfied with lust, or concludes, “This is the end,” will never even come to know what love is. Lust can become love. Lust means attraction between two bodies—between bodies. Love means attraction between two minds. And devotion means attraction between two souls. They are all attractions, but on three planes. When one body is drawn to another body, that is kama, sex. When one mind is drawn to another mind, that is prem, love. And when one soul is drawn to another soul, that is bhakti, devotion. We live on the…
Osho, yesterday you said that when anger is watched consciously, it dissolves. But why is it that when sexual desire arises, even in awareness its intensity persists? Why is it so?
There is no entanglement in the breath. If you try to practice on anger… Anger is not happening every moment; it happens sometimes. And when it happens, it happens with such intensity that you are already going deep into it; so much is at stake in those moments that you may think, “We will look into awareness later; first let’s settle this now.” Lust is very deep, because existence has made it so deep; life depends on it. If lust were so easy that you decided and were freed, perhaps you would not even have been born—because many before you would have become free, and the possibility of your being would have been almost nil. But your parents, and their parents, did not become free; therefore you are. You too will not get free so easily, because your children are also to be—they are waiting: “Do not run away midway.”…
Osho, by your grace I can see the sky; I also have experiences of light, and I can become one with the inner flow. But when lust seizes me, I want to be as immersed in that as in meditation. Please tell me, what is this state of mine?
First thing: be a witness to lust as well. Do not become its controller. Do not try to bring it under control by force; remain a witness to it too. Just as you are a witness to everything else, be a witness to lust as well. It is difficult, because for centuries you have been taught that lust is sin. That notion of sin has settled in the mind. In this world there is no sin at all—only the Divine. Drop that notion. In this world the One alone is, pervading all forms—that One is the Divine. In the smallest of the small, the same; in the vastest of the vast, the same! In the low, the same; in the high, the same! In lust, the same; and in samadhi, the same. Here there is nothing that is “sin.” This does not mean I am saying you should remain stuck…