According to Osho, repression means living against your own nature—doing what you never wanted, being who you are not. It is self-destruction, a slow suicide that poisons vitality and blocks the higher by denying the lower. Instead, express yourself: trust body, heart, intelligence, and spontaneity. Through natural expression—creativity, joy, even sexual energy—the lotus of consciousness grows and the divine is revealed.
Repression is when you hide your real self and feelings, which slowly hurts you; be natural and express your joy to truly grow.
From the Discourses
Passages where Osho speaks to this question — each links to the complete discourse.
What is repression?
Repression is to live a life that you were not meant to live. Repression is to do things which you never wanted to do. Repression is to be the fellow that you are not: Repression is a way to destroy yourself. Repression is suicide -- very slow of course, but a very certain, slow poisoning. Expression is life; repression is suicide. This is the Tantra message: Don't live a repressed life, otherwise you live not at all. Live a life of expression, creativity, joy. Live the way God wanted you to live; live the natural way. And don't be afraid of the priests. Listen to your instincts, listen to your body, listen to your heart, listen to your intelligence. Depend on yourself, go wherever your spontaneity takes you, and you will never be at a loss. And going spontaneously with your natural life, one day you are bound to arrive…
Question: OSHO, WHY HAVE ALL THE RELIGIONS USED REPRESSION AS A BASIC STRATEGY? To make you free from the concept of original sin... To make you free from the very idea that you and nature are separate... To make you free from any kind of repression. With all this freedom you will be able to learn expression of your natural being, whatsoever it is. There is no need to feel ashamed. The universe wants you to be this way, that's why you are this way. The universe needs you this way, otherwise it would have created somebody else, not you. So not being yourself is the only irreligious thing according to me. Be yourself with no conditions, no strings attached -- just be yourself and you are religious, because you are healthy, you are whole.
Osho, could you say something about what is going on in Delhi?
I’ll tell a little story. When Lanka’s former ruler Ravana was on his deathbed, Rama sent Lakshman to learn statecraft from him—saying, “Son, we may have won, but we have no experience of running the administration here; go and ask him how to run things.” Lakshman went there and said to Ravana, “You are dying now—tell us how to govern here.” Ravana said, “Half the politics I handled, half Kumbhakarna did. Had you gotten in touch with Kumbhakarna as well?” Lakshman said, “Yes—he said: eat to your heart’s content and then sprawl on the sofa with your eyes closed. This is the best method.” “Tell me,” Ravana asked, “are you going to unleash dictatorship, or will you run things by democracy? Which method will be suitable?” “What will go down well with the people?” “Nothing,” said Ravana. “When you impose dictatorship, the people will yearn for democracy; and when you…
Another friend has asked in this connection: you say that revolution can only be nonviolent. But he says that revolution is always violent; a nonviolent revolution never happens.
In Russia, those who gained power were good men; before a revolution, everyone looks good. After power comes into hand, then it is revealed who is truly good and who is not. There is even the possibility that Stalin poisoned Lenin. And there is the possibility that one by one, all who had led the revolution were eliminated. Trotsky was killed in Mexico. Those who made the revolution were picked off by Stalin, one after another—because now the game of power had begun. In India, many fine, innocent-looking people made revolution with Gandhi—white as freshly washed garments they appeared. But once power came into their hands, we saw they had changed; they proved to be different men. Only their clothes were white; within, they were not. What happened the moment power was in their grasp? The real man inside showed himself. As long as there is no power, the real…
Osho, when more of the existential happens in a person than can be absorbed and digested at one time, is it not then wise to repress until trust and innocence grow? My body is in had shape because of repression but it feels as though I have bought much, needed time.
REPRESS and resist, how out of repression and resistance can trust and innocence grow? You will be making it more and more impossible. Innocence means a state of total nudity, of utter non-repressiveness. Repressed persons become complex, they cannot become innocent. Everything in them becomes crippled, paralyzed, devious. They start becoming split; in fact they become many, not just two They have one door to show themselves to the world and another door, a back door, through which they live. They say something, they do something -- and they think something else. They are always in a chaos, they cannot be innocent. Innocence does not need repression, it needs spontaneity, it needs naturalness. Whatsoever you repress will become your problem. If you repress anger, anger will become your problem. Then in everything anger will be hiding. In fact, if there is too much repressed anger you will be angry twenty-four…