According to Osho, the desire to help is still desire—identical in nature to wanting wealth or power. Any desire projects into the future, breeding anxiety, ambition, and ego, often exploiting others under noble names. A buddha helps without desire; compassion flows spontaneously, like a flower’s fragrance. First kindle inner light through meditation; then help happens naturally through presence, not as a self-serving project.
Wanting to help is still wanting; real help comes when you become peaceful inside and kindness just happens by itself.
From the Discourses
Passages where Osho speaks to this question — each links to the complete discourse.
Beloved master, will you please talk about the desire to help people, its differences and similarities to other forms of desire?
Veet Aikagro, desire is desire; there is no difference at all. Whether you want to help people or you want to harm people, the nature of desire remains the same. A buddha does not desire to help people. He helps people, but there is no desire in it; it is spontaneous. It is just the fragrance of a flower that has bloomed. The flower is not desiring that the fragrance should be released, should reach to the winds, to people. Whether it reaches or not is not the concern of the flower at all. If it reaches, that is accidental; if it does not reach, that too is accidental. The flower is spontaneously releasing its fragrance. The sun rises: there is no desire to wake up people, no desire to open the flowers, no desire to help the birds to sing. It all happens on its own accord. A buddha…
If one has no desire for one's own enlightenment, but only for that of others -- does one have a problem?
The disciple thinks the Master has helped, the Master knows that he has done nothing. The disciple thinks much has been done to him -- and he is right also because much has happened to him, but his understanding is not clear because he thinks, How can something happen if it has not been done? That is the problem for the disciple. He thinks, The Master is doing so much for me. Because the disciple cannot understand how things can happen, such great things, without anybody doing them: I am not doing them so the Master must be doing them to me. The Master is also not doing. The disciple is opening himself to the Master and the Master is available, that's all. He is a catalytic agent -- his presence DOES. And the disciple feels tremendously grateful -- and his gratefulness has meaning because alone he could not achieve…
Osho, you have said that in liberated souls compassion remains, and that compassion is the subtlest form of desire. In desire there is always conflict, always two—two mutually opposed. In that case, what is the opposing element of compassion that still remains in liberated souls?
First, not that compassion is a subtle form of desire; compassion is desire’s ultimate form. There is a difference. By “ultimate form” I mean the bridge between desire and desirelessness. If you wish, you can call compassion the final form of desire, or you can call it the first form of desirelessness. It is the link in-between where desire ends and desirelessness begins. Compassion is not a subtle form of desire. If it were, there would be duality in compassion too. Desire is always dual. No one can be free of duality within desire. Therefore there is suffering in desire, because wherever there is duality, there is suffering. So however pleasurable desire may seem, its painful counterpart will always be standing right behind it; it cannot be avoided. Thus every desire, at a certain limit, turns into its opposite. The opposite of each desire is present instantaneously; it is never…
[NOTE: This is an unedited tape transcript of an unpublished darshan diary, which has been scanned and cleaned up. It is for reference purposes only.] One can help others only if one has come to realize one's ultimate nature; otherwise oneself remains in darkness. He cannot help anybody. He can wish to but his wishes will remain unfulfilled. He can intend to but all his intentions will be just an utterly futile exercise. He will not help others, on the contrary he will harm them. It is not a question of good wishes, it is a question of being fully alert, conscious. When you are conscious you cannot harm even if you want to; it is impossible. And the same is true if you are unconscious; you cannot help even if you want to. The unconscious mind goes on harming because it is unconscious.
Question: wasn't buddha's desire for realization a desire?
Mind is desiring. The mind cannot do anything without desire. You cannot transcend the mind through desiring, because the mind is the desiring. So the mind has to desire even that which is found only when there is no desire. But begin with the wall. Know desire, and you will stumble upon the door. Even Buddha had to begin with a desire, but no one told him -- the fact was not known to him -- that the door opens only when there is no desire. As I understand it, struggling with desire is the disease. Giving up the struggle is the freedom. That is the only real death: when you just give up. If you can just lie down and die with no struggle to live, without even an indication of struggle, that death can become a realization. If you just lie down and accept -- with no movement…