According to Osho, samsara is the dreamlike story the mind spins - desire, fantasy and fear - so convincing we act on it and suffer. Like the tramp who 'moves over' in a fantasy and falls into the Thames, we live asleep in projections. Awakening, seeing through the story with awareness, ends the hypnotic spell and frees us from unnecessary misery.
Samsara is like dreaming you're in a warm mansion while you're really on a cold riverbank - if you believe the dream and roll over, you splash into the water.
From the Discourses
Passages where Osho speaks to this question — each links to the complete discourse.
Therefore the sages of the East called this long journey of life avagamana—coming and going—called it samsara. Samsara means: the wheel—in which the same spokes return, and the cycle keeps revolving. As long as you feel you are living something new, not even the idea of slipping out of this wheel will arise. The moment your realization deepens that nothing is new, the same is being repeated, boredom will arise. And that boredom becomes the first leaning toward the spiritual. Hence Buddha and Mahavira kept telling their disciples: remember your past lives. And they found meditative ways by which the memory of past lives becomes alert. Mahavira calls it jati-smaran—remembrance of births. Search into your past lives. And when your memory awakens you will be very surprised: what you are doing today you have done a hundred thousand times.
Whatever self‑introduction you give—if you look closely you will find you always introduce your karma; you never give any news of your being. You cannot. You have no news of it. You only know what you do. You know your doings—what you have done and what you can do. The certificates you carry only report what you can do; they do not report what you are. If you say, “I am a sadhu,” it means you do sadhuta. If someone says, “I am a thief,” it means he steals. One’s karma is saintliness, the other’s karma is theft. But what is being? What is within you? Before you were born from your mother’s womb, what was saint or thief, engineer or doctor? Had someone asked you in the womb, “Who are you?” you would have been in trouble—because then you were neither engineer nor doctor, you had done no business.
Osho, Mahavira’s prior-life state was a state of moksha, and you say that from moksha there is no return. Then how did he return? Please clarify.
In a rush he kissed the maid and said to the wife, “Take care of the children!” The wife protested. He said, “Then let me correct it,” kissed the wife and told the maid, “Take care of the children.” “Sometimes I slip,” he said. So do we all—we keep remembering: this is my father, my wife, my son. If we forget, others remind us: “I am your father.” We must remember our roles; the more dutifully one plays, the more “conscientious” he is. I do not say, “Do not play.” Life is for playing—and it is delightful. Only do not forget one thing—even if you forget everything else—do not forget that it is a play, and that inwardly there is a point in you that forever stands outside. Swami Ram went to America. He had a strange habit; people were puzzled—he always spoke in the third person. He would say,…
During samadhi, the objects of the experiences are not separate from the soul, hence they are not experienced. But these glorified experiences of the seeker who has come out of samadhi are inferred through recollections of the mind.
IN THIS BEGINNINGLESS WORLD, MILLIONS AND MILLIONS OF KARMA, ACTION-IMPRESSIONS, ARE ACCUMULATED. THEY ARE ALL DESTROYED BY THIS SAMADHI AND PURE DHARMA, THE SELF-NATURE, GROWS. THE KNOWERS OF YOGA CALL IT DHARMAMEGHA -- THE RAINCLOUD OF DHARMA -- SAMADHI, BECAUSE IT SHOWERS A THOUSAND NECTAR-STREAMS OF DHARMA, THE SELF-NATURE, LIKE A RAINCLOUD. IN THIS SAMADHI, THE NETWORK OF DESIRES DISSOLVES COMPLETELY AND THE THICKETS OF ACCUMULATED KARMA CALLED VIRTUE AND SIN ARE ALL UPROOTED AT THEIR VERY SOURCE. AT FIRST, THIS BOUNDLESS STATEMENT -- TATTVAMASI, THAT ART THOU -- BEING TRUE, IS ONLY REALIZED INDIRECTLY; THEN THE DIRECT KNOWLEDGE, LIKE A MYROBALAN FRUIT KEPT ON ONE'S OWN PALM, IS BORN. Dharmamegha is a lovely word. Clouds we have seen. When Ashadh, the first month of monsoon comes, clouds gather in the sky. But we are not aware of the whole phenomenon. Those clouds gather in the sky in Ashadh, and…
Osho, if the mind is dreamlike, then whatever is done through the mind will also be dreamlike, won’t it! Then is sadhana also dreamlike, and sannyas too?
Exactly so. Sadhana is a dream, and sannyas too. But there are differences between dream and dream. A thorn gets lodged in your foot; you use another thorn to remove the first. The second is also a thorn—remember that. One thorn is already stuck, so you take it out with another. Don’t imagine the second thorn is not a thorn—otherwise you’ll make a great mistake. And when the first thorn is out, what do you do? You throw away both thorns. You don’t wrap up the second thorn and put it in a safe, you don’t worship it. The world is a thorn. Sannyas is also a thorn. With one thorn you remove the other. Then both are useless. In the ultimate state, even sannyas is not. That Brahmin who asked Buddha, “Are you a deva, a gandharva, a human being?” forgot one thing; he should have asked, “Are you…