According to Osho, Freud’s words are irrelevant as doctrine; he cites or even misquotes Freud not to inform but to transform. He rejects scholarly fidelity and uses any name, theory, or quote as a hammer to shatter attachment to knowledge, words, and identities like 'Freudian.' The end is awakening, not accuracy; means are valid if they catalyze consciousness.
Don’t cling to what Freud said—Osho uses such quotes only to wake you up, not to teach psychology.
From the Discourses
Passages where Osho speaks to this question — each links to the complete discourse.
Osho, as I read your books and hear your discourses you seem to misquote and take out of context the words of sigmund freud. What is your point, Osho? I don't understand the trickery involved.
In a small southern Louisiana country town, the teacher of the one-room school was giving the lesson of the day on American history. Asking questions to 'dis little girl and 'dat little boy and 'dis little boy and 'dat little girl, she came to 'dis little boy named Beaudreaux, and she says, "Beaudreaux, who signed the Declaration of Independence -- uh?" Without batting an eye, Beaudreaux says, "Teacha, me -- I don't know. And that ain't all, I don't give a damn to know!" Upset with Beaudreaux's reply, the teacher instructed him to bring his father to school with him the next day. When Beaudreaux's father arrived the next day, the teacher asked him to sit at the back of the room and just observe. Continuing with the history lesson of the previous day, the teacher proceeded asking questions to 'dis little girl and 'dat little boy and 'dis little…
Osho, what is the relationship between meditation and patience?
If you sit to meditate to remove mental restlessness, you will keep looking back again and again: “Has it gone yet?” And the irony is that when you begin to meditate, restlessness will increase. Because what has been repressed will start surfacing; catharsis will begin. The rubbish you have kept hidden within and never allowed to express—meditation will break open those doors too. It will clean the house. Dust piled up for years, for births, will rise again; there will be gusts and storms. For a while even the little peace you had will be lost. Then you will panic: “I came for peace, and even what I had is gone.” Without patience, you could even become unhinged, because meditation brings such a great storm. The disease is not from a day or two; it’s from lifetimes. Meditation will break through all the layers to reach your innermost core. In…
Osho, of that which is indescribable—by speaking of it, why would a Shandilya place a stone before humanity?
And if the choice is between God and these wandering ones—let no injustice be done to these wanderers. That is why Shandilya speaks. That is why Buddha had to speak. It is their great compassion. They have not placed stones in your way; they have given the key to turn those stones into steps. And at least do not be unjust to Shandilya by making such a charge. For Shandilya is not telling you to drop affection; he is saying, purify affection—stone becomes a step. Shandilya is not telling you to drop love; he is saying, love can become a step—purify it, it becomes devotion, and you will rise. Shandilya is not telling you to renounce the world; he is saying, do not hate the world—otherwise that very hatred will become the obstacle. Shandilya does not preach dispassion-as-aversion, asceticism, grim austerity—he is opening the doors of the temple of love.…
Osho, the psychologist Sigmund Freud spoke of the death-drive, Thanatos. Yesterday you spoke of jiveshana, Eros. Do you call Freud’s notion a spiritual aberration of the modern age? Kindly explain.
The third discovery is India’s. It is this: we are neither life nor death; these two are our legs. Duality appears such only when we fail to see the third. If the third becomes visible… synthesis. Understand it so: the notion of Eros, the life-drive, is the thesis. Then Thanatos, the death-drive, is the antithesis. If only the two remain, there will only be conflict; resolution becomes difficult. Had Freud lived a little longer—he did not—or in some next birth searched further, the synthesis, the dialogue, might have happened too: the final harmony, when he would have grasped the witness. He was on the right path; the destination was still incomplete, but the way was not wrong. The goal had not yet arrived; the journey was unfinished, but the direction was right. From life he had reached death; now only one move remained: to transcend both life and death. Astavakra…
Osho, I don't accept your criticism of sigmund freud. Do you accept a sannyasin who sometimes says no to what you say? I am not less neurotic than freud, but I think that I can become creative only if I learn to accept the neurotic part of myself. What do you say to this?
WHO HAS CRITICIZED SIGMUND FREUD? I was simply stating a few facts! To state a fact is not a criticism. If I call a blind man a blind man, I may be rude but I am not criticizing. I may be blunt, I may not be polite, but I am not criticizing. Freud was neurotic, and there are a thousand and one facts supporting this. Just look into Freud's biographies and you will come across those facts yourself. He was a homosexual. He wrote such stupid homosexual letters to a man that later on he asked the man again and again to destroy those letters, because when he became famous he was afraid that some day or other those letters would come to public notice. The major part of those letters was destroyed, but a few somehow survived. His whole life he was condemning homosexuality, and he had deep homosexual…