According to Osho, right and wrong aren’t fixed commandments but depend on your state of consciousness. Life constantly changes; rules become dead. The decisive factor is awareness: any act done consciously is right, any act done unconsciously is wrong. Ethics shifts from outer behavior to inner being—cultivate presence, clarity, and responsibility instead of obeying inherited “don’ts.”
Do things with full awareness; that’s right—acting on autopilot is wrong.
From the Discourses
Passages where Osho speaks to this question — each links to the complete discourse.
Beloved Osho, you have said that when the self surrenders, the whole existence then protects. Then why was the fakir who could see the formless everywhere, or who could feel the presence of godliness everywhere, murdered by the english soldiers?
It appears like murder to you, but not to him. You see it as murder because you are under illusion. He saw only the divine in that spear; he saw that the death was a meeting with the divine. Existence protected him in the sense that even death did not seem like death to him. Death became the door of the ultimate bliss. To you it seems that he died, he was finished. When the Ganges flows into the sea, to you it seems that it is finished. But ask the Ganges: it will say, "I have disappeared and thus become the sea." The Ganges will say, "The fear of annihilation was there before but now it has disappeared. Before this I was very narrow, bounded by the two banks. I could have been finished. I was limited so I could have died. But now I have become unlimited, now…
Is there such a thing as right or wrong?
Akam, there is no such thing as right or wrong, because something may be right this moment and it may not be right the next moment. Something may be wrong today and may not be wrong tomorrow. Right and wrong are not fixed entities, they are not labels that you can put on things, "This is right" and "This is wrong." But this has been done up to now. Right and wrong have been decided by people. And because people have decided right and wrong, they have misguided the whole humanity. Manu decides in one way: what he thinks is right becomes right for millions and millions of Hindus for thousands of years. It is so stupid, it is unbelievable! How can people go on following Manu for five thousand years? Everything else has changed. If Manu comes back he will not be able to recognize the world at all;…
Osho, what do you want man to do? What is right and wrong according to you? Is there something like sin and its punishment too?
Perhaps I am the only person here, on this whole earth, who is objecting that this is befooling people. This is creating a camouflage, a bogus spiritual jargon. If God has any sense, any intelligence at all, He should find some better way to bring the best out in people. This does not seem to be very intelligent. If this is what God is doing then where is the devil? And what will the devil do? God has taken his job too; the devil is unemployed. And people applauded her; she is a great saint. And what present has she brought to them? -- a small statue of Mother Mary. A great help: "Pray to Mother Mary, and don't take it as a tragedy and don't complain that it is the fault or carelessness of certain officers concerned; no, that is not good." Of course if those people were not…
Question: BELOVED OSHO, OFTENTIMES HAVE I HEARD YOU SPEAK OF ONE WHO COMMITS A WRONG AS THOUGH HE WERE NOT ONE OF YOU BUT A STRANGER UNTO YOU AND AN INTRUDER UPON YOUR WORLD. BUT I SAY THAT EVEN AS THE HOLY AND THE RIGHTEOUS CANNOT RISE BEYOND THE HIGHEST WHICH IS IN EACH ONE OF YOU, SO THE WICKED AND THE WEAK CANNOT FALL LOWER THAN THE LOWEST WHICH IS IN YOU ALSO. AND AS A SINGLE LEAF TURNS NOT YELLOW BUT WITH THE SILENT KNOWLEDGE OF THE WHOLE TREE, SO THE WRONGDOER CANNOT DO WRONG WITHOUT THE HIDDEN WILL OF YOU ALL. LIKE A PROCESSION YOU WALK TOGETHER TOWARDS YOUR GOD-SELF. YOU ARE THE WAY AND THE WAYFARERS. AND WHEN ONE OF YOU FALLS DOWN HE FALLS FOR THOSE BEHIND HIM, A CAUTION AGAINST THE STUMBLING STONE.
Beloved master, you spoke today about not doing wrong. What is right and what is wrong?
He said, "You are a cunning fellow! I tried my best: if I am conscious, I cannot steal; if I steal I am unconscious. I can steal only when I am unconscious. When I am conscious the whole thing seems so stupid, so meaningless. What am I doing? For what? Tomorrow I may die. And why do I go on accumulating wealth? I have more than I need; even for generations it is enough. It looks so meaningless that I stop immediately. For seven days I have entered into houses and come out empty-handed. And to be conscious is so beautiful. I have tasted it for the first time, and it is just a small taste -- now I can conceive how much you must be enjoying, how much you must be celebrating. Now I know that you are the real king -- naked, but you are the real king.…