According to Osho, existentialist thought stops at despair and death’s meaninglessness; it lacks the 'next door'—the spiritual vision and method to transcend. Patanjali provides this missing link: sannyas and yoga, a scientific path beyond the visible to the deathless, transforming anguish into inquiry, meditation, and realization of the innermost being.
Existentialists say life ends in emptiness; Patanjali brings the key—a practice to go inside and find what doesn’t die.
From the Discourses
Passages where Osho speaks to this question — each links to the complete discourse.
Many of the existentialist thinkers of the west -- sartre, camus etc. -- have come to realize the frustration, hopelessness and meaninglessness of life, but they have not known the ecstasy of a patanjali. Why? What is missing? What would patanjali have to say to the west at this point?
I don't know what Patanjali would have said to the West. How can I know? Patanjali is Patanjali; I am not Patanjali. But this is what I would like to say: the West has come to a point where either suicide or a spiritual revolution will happen. These are the only two alternatives. I'm not saying this only about individual people, individual persons. This is so for the West as a whole. Either the West will commit suicide through atomic war for which it is preparing, or there will be a spiritual awakening. And there is not very much time left. Within this century, in just twenty five years more, the West will either commit suicide or the West will know the greatest spiritual awakening that has ever happened in the history of man. Much is at stake. People come to me and they say, 'You go on giving sannyas…
Beloved Osho, you have often used the word "existentialism," and you have referred to yourself as an existentialist. Please define these words.
And once a man has tasted a meditative state, then there is no problem for him. He knows the secret key, he knows the alchemy of transformation. He can go on moving deeper and deeper into the present -- it is infinite. You can never come to the borderline where it ends. And your joy goes on growing, your laughter goes on becoming more and more crystal clear and more and more innocent. Now you are not laughing because somebody has told you a joke; there is no cause to your laughter, it is simply bubbling inside you, uncaused. Now you cannot resist singing. All prayers are bogus, unless the song comes from your heart for no reason at all. Perhaps just as flowers blossom in the trees, songs blossom in the meditative man. Soon you will be dancing. And the crowd will think you certainly mad. But one who…
You said last night that total despair, frustration and hopelessness is the beginning ground for yoga. This gives yoga a pessimistic look. Is this pessimistic state really necessary to begin the path of yoga? Does an optimist also begin with the path of yoga?
It is neither. It is not pessimistic, it is not optimistic, because pessimism and optimism are two aspects of the same coin. A pessimist means one who was optimist in the past; an optimist means one who will be pessimist in the future. All optimism leads to pessimism, because every hope leads to hopelessness. If you are still hoping, then yoga is not for you. The desire is there; hope is there; the samsar is there, the world is there. Your desire is the world, your hope is the bondage, because hope will not allow you to be in the present. It will go on forcing you towards the future; it will not allow you to be centered. It will pull and push, but it will not allow you to remain in a restful moment, in a state of stillness. It will not allow you So when I say total…
Osho, the Gita begins with Vishada-Yoga and ends with Moksha-Sannyasa-Yoga. In life, does despair ultimately lead one to Moksha-Sannyasa?
Certainly. But the despair must be total. A little bit of despair won’t do. If it’s only partial, you’ll find some consolation or other, raise some tent of hope, and the despair will hide inside it. Only when despair is complete—when the whole of life is at stake, when it feels like life-or-death—does the journey from despair to liberation begin. Despair is the primary stage. The awareness of suffering is the first step. Buddha spoke of four noble truths—just four—in which all the scriptures are contained. The first truth is the awareness of suffering: that life is suffering. The second truth is that one can be free from suffering; then hope arises. If freedom were not possible, you would drown in despair and go mad. It is from the Buddhas that hope is born—that yes, it is possible to be free of suffering. There are such people; we have seen…
Osho, does the awareness of life’s futility itself become the starting point of meaning in life?
People only keep saying: childhood was like heaven. If someone presses you to prove it, you will not be able to prove what heaven there was. If a logical person asks, “Prove it—what was heaven in childhood?” you will not be able to prove it. It has become like the experience of deep sleep now. Only a memory remains. You yourself are not fully sure it happened, it is almost forgotten. What does not fit with the structure of your present life gradually slips into oblivion. Slowly you remember only that which matches your mind’s frame; the mismatched we drop. The mismatched is hard to remember. Somewhere within you there is such an experience. In some deep moment of love, if you ever loved and the mind fell still—in a vision of beauty, or gazing at the sky on a moonlit night, and the mind fell silent—you have known a…