According to Osho, mysticism is the lived realization that life’s essence is unknowable—more poetry than logic—where the seeker dissolves into the sought. It affirms three realms: the known, the unknown, and the unknowable, which can be experienced but never objectified. Mysticism is communion, not cognition: a nonverbal sharing of being—through silence, dance, or love—where distances vanish and presence transmits presence.
Mysticism means you can’t truly “know” life like a fact; you feel and become it—like a drop merging into the ocean.
From the Discourses
Passages where Osho speaks to this question — each links to the complete discourse.
Osho, what is mysticism?
Mysticism is the experience that life is not logic, that life is poetry; that life is not syllogism, that life is a song. Mysticism is the declaration that life can never really be known; it is essentially unknowable. Science divides existence into two categories: the known and the unknown. The known was unknown one day; it has become known. The unknown is unknown today; tomorrow, or the day after tomorrow, it will also become known. Science believes that sooner or later a point of understanding will arrive when there will be only one category: the known, all will have been known. The unknown is slowly being reduced to the known. Mysticism is the declaration that life consists of three categories: one, the known; another, the unknown; and the third, and the most important, is the unknowable -- which has not been known and which will never be known. And that…
Question: OSHO, WHAT PLACE HAS MYSTICISM IN YOUR RELIGION? The child is afraid to be alone, but he has to learn to be alone, to sleep alone. Soon he will be going to a boarding school, he has to learn to stand on his own. He cannot go on clinging to his mother's frock -- for how long? She finds a good reason for saying, "If he starts feeling the presence of Jesus or God and goes to sleep...." The child will also feel at ease, less afraid. Nothing has changed -- it is the same room, he is alone, the darkness is there -- but now there is a little comfort, that Jesus is looking after him, that God is looking after him, that God is everywhere. His own mother says so, his father says so, his teacher says so, his priest says so; everybody cannot be wrong.
What is a mystic?
I don't know, Purna, and nobody else knows either. That's why a mystic is called a mystic. Something indefinable, something very elusive, something that cannot be grasped, that cannot be comprehended. Not that it is something special -- it is very ordinary. That makes the mystery ten thousandfold. A mystic is in a state of natural being. He is the most ordinary man, he has renounced all extraordinary desires. All desires are basically to become extraordinary, to become somebody. A mystic is one who IS and who has no desire to become anybody else. A mystic is a state of utter contentment, a state of no movement. He is not going anywhere, he has no goals, not motives. He simply is. He has stopped all desires to know; rather, he has started living. There are people who go on searching for knowledge, They are anti-mystic; their whole effort is how…
Question: BELOVED OSHO, WHAT IS THE MYSTIC CONCEPTION OF ULTIMATE REALITY? The search for paradise is the search for your childhood again. Of course your body will no more be a child's, but your consciousness can be as pure as the consciousness of the child. This is the whole secret of the mystical path: to make you a child again, innocent, unpolluted by any knowledge, not knowing anything, still aware of everything that surrounds you, with a deep wonder and a sense of a mystery that cannot be demystified. This is something of fundamental importance to understand. The scientist is trying to demystify existence. His whole effort is to make everything known. The very word science means knowledge. The work of the mystic is exactly the opposite of the work of a scientist.
Question: BELOVED OSHO, WHAT IS THE TRANSCENDENTAL? And existence is a mystery. It is not something that you have to solve. It is not a problem, nor is it a puzzle; there is no solution to it. No philosophy can demystify it. You can experience it, you can enjoy it, you can dance it, you can live it, but you cannot know it. The young mother is skeptically examining the new educational toy. "Isn't it rather complicated for a young boy?" she asks the assistant. "It is the very latest idea," replies the girl. "It is designed to adjust the child to live in today's world. Any way he tries to put it together is wrong." But this small anecdote is true about existence. Any way you want to explain it, your explanation is wrong. Those who know it do not try to explain it.