According to Osho, reality is encountered only in your own awakened seeing—the silence of samadhi—where questions dissolve into living understanding. Illusion is secondhand: borrowed questions, ready-made answers, and mind-made projections that you cling to or follow blindly. Use answers as arrows, not milestones; move from imitation to presence. Ask from your own life, cultivate awareness, and the real reveals itself.
Reality is what you see clearly in inner quiet; illusion is what you copy or believe without seeing.
From the Discourses
Passages where Osho speaks to this question — each links to the complete discourse.
What is not illusion?
But the whole emphasis -- always remember -- is on the mirror that reflects. Don't become too attached to that which is reflected. You look in the mirror; your image looks so real, but it is unreal. Don't get too obsessed with the image. The image is unreal in the mirror and the person who is standing before the mirror is also unreal. Only one thing is real: the consciousness that knows 'I am standing before the mirror', the consciousness which knows that the mirror is reflecting the one who is standing. That transcendental consciousness is reality, and through that descends the benediction, SATCHITANAND; through that one becomes true, conscious and blissful. Why do we call the world illusory? Let me remind you again: by 'illusory' we don't mean unreal, we mean temporarily real, only for the time being real. Why do we call the outer world unreal? Because it…
Beloved Osho, sitting silently, suddenly, softly, slowly, soundlessly, peacefully, something peeled off which I could see was my illusion for a better world and good people. Beloved Osho, can you say something about the difference between a vision and an illusion?
The difference between a vision and an illusion is very delicate and fragile, but the difference is very big. The dream is a mind phenomenon; it happens in your mind. It happens because you repress, and whatever is repressed comes up in the night when the conscious represser is asleep. Then the unconscious releases itself in dreams. Dream is the language of the unconscious. Through the dream, the unconscious is doing many things: one is catharsis, second is giving messages to the conscious. If you don't hear, the same dream will be repeated again. It has happened in very rare cases that a dream was repeated almost every night for years. And it happened to a very intelligent, great creator -- Leo Tolstoy. He used to have a dream -- which was a nightmare, although there was no violence, no torture -- but the set-up of the dream was such…
Question: BELOVED OSHO, ILLUSION SPEAKING OF "EMPTY ILLUSION," IT IS ILLUSION WHEN CREATED, AND ILLUSION WHEN EXPERIENCED TOO; IT'S ILLUSION WHEN YOU'RE KNOWING AND AWARE, AND ILLUSION WHEN YOU'RE LOST IN DELUSION TOO. PAST, PRESENT, AND FUTURE ARE ALL ILLUSIONS. TODAY, IF WE REALIZE OUR WRONG, WE TAKE AN ILLUSORY MEDICINE TO CURE AN EQUALLY ILLUSORY DISEASE. WHEN THE DISEASE IS CURED, THE MEDICINE IS REMOVED, AND WE ARE THE SAME PERSON AS BEFORE. IF YOU THINK THAT THERE IS SOMEONE ELSE OR SOME SPECIAL DOCTRINE, THEN THIS IS THE VIEW OF A MISGUIDED OUTSIDER. IN THE INSTANT OF MAITREYA'S FINGER-SNAP, SUDHANA WAS EVEN ABLE TO FORGET THE MEDITATIVE STATES FOSTERED IN HIM BY ALL HIS TEACHERS: HOW MUCH MORE SO THE BEGINNINGLESS HABIT ENERGY OF EMPTY FALSEHOOD AND EVIL DEEDS!
Beloved Osho, I cannot distinguish between imagination and reality. Can I assume that I do not know reality yet, so why not enjoy watching the whole movie without trying to distinguish? Or, is it necessary to be aware of the difference between imagination and reality?
There is no question of making any distinction between imagination and reality. Imagination is that which disappears if you become aware of it, alert to it. Reality is that which becomes more real if you become aware of it, alert to it. You cannot distinguish between the two, because both are never present simultaneously. And you need not worry about it. All that you have to do is simply be watchful. Whatever passes through your experience -- thoughts, feelings -- don't let it go unwatched, and the unreal will disappear on its own accord. It cannot face the watching eyes; only the real will remain. So for the watcher, there is only the real. For the sleeper, there is only the unreal. And they never meet, so the question of distinction does not arise. It is not that you can put reality on one side and imagination on the other…
Beloved Osho, if everything in life I see, I feel, I touch, is illusion, what kind of relationship do I have with you?
Who has said to you that everything that you touch and you see and you feel is an illusion? Just hit your head on a pillar and then you will know it is not illusory. And if any saint says so, just bring him close to a pillar and tell him, "hit your head." Even the people who have been talking their whole lives -- the Vedantins who are the most fascinated with the idea of the world being illusory -- just watch them: they don't pass through the walls, they always go through the doors. One shankaracharya was staying in the same temple where I was staying, and he was very insistent that everything is illusory. And he used to have a walking stick -- it was lying just by his side. I took the walking stick in my hands and I said, "I will hit you on the…