According to Osho, the Western mind is analytic, scientific and outward-looking—mastering matter and ensuring basic needs (food) as a first step toward the divine—while the Eastern mind is intuitive, inward and mystical. Both are essential. Real wisdom is not a 50–50 mix but a living dialogue that bridges head and heart, outer prosperity and inner knowing.
The West uses the head to build a good life; the East uses the heart to find itself—use both together.
From the Discourses
Passages where Osho speaks to this question — each links to the complete discourse.
Osho, what will happen if the eastern mind meets with the western mind?
The officer-in-charge took pity on him and he said, 'I can understand your difficulty, but now only one thing can be done. That too is not regular, but for you I will make a concession. You can choose either the indian hell or the german hell.' 'But what is the difference?' the man asked. 'In the german hell,' explained the officer-in-charge, 'you spend half your time eating all the food you want, listening to music and disporting yourself with girls. in the other half of the time you are pinioned to the wall and beaten mercilessly. Your nails and teeth are pulled out and boiling oil is poured over you.' 'And in the indian hell?' 'In the indian hell you spend half your time eating all the food you want, listening to music and disporting yourself with girls. In the other half of the time you are pinioned to the…
Beloved master, the western mind is so oriented toward analysis, the left hemisphere of the brain -- the eastern mind just the opposite, the intuitive right hemisphere. The west is fascinated by the east and the east by the west. Equal amounts of both -- is this the harmony of wisdom and the transcendence of opposites?
Prem Dhanesh, the transcendence of opposites is not a quantitative phenomenon, it is a qualitative revolution. It is not a question of equal amounts of both; that will be a very materialistic solution. Quantity means matter. Equal amounts of both will give you only an appearance of synthesis but not a real synthesis -- a dead synthesis, not alive, not breathing, not with a heart beating. The real synthesis is a dialogue: not equal amounts of both, but a loving relationship, an I/thou relationship. It is a question of bridging the opposites, not putting them together in one place. Both are important, immensely important. Neither analysis can be discarded nor intuition. Discard analysis and you become outwardly poor, starved, unhealthy. And when one is outwardly poor, starved, unhealthy, how can he go inwards? It is impossible. The outward poverty prevents the inward journey. You are so obsessed with food, clothes,…
So organized religions are a curtain to us. They will have to go in order for us to see the sky.
Yes. They cover the window, they are obstacles. WILL THE WESTERN MIND HAVE TO EXPAND AS THE EASTERN MIND HAS? The Western mind can succeed as far as science is concerned, but it cannot succeed in religious consciousness. Whenever a religious mind is born, even in the West, it is Eastern. In Eckhart, in Boehme, the very quality of the mind is Eastern. And whenever a scientific mind is born in the East, it is bound to be Western. East and West are not geographical. West means the Aristotelian, and East means the non-Aristotelian. West means equilibrium, and East means no equilibrium. West means the rational and East means the irrational. Tertullian was one of the most Eastern minds in the West. He said, "I believe in God because it is impossible to believe. I believe in God because it is absurd." This is the basic Eastern attitude: because it…
The eastern mysticism is almost ten thousand years old. And it is not a question of one man saying it or one country saying it; different countries, different races, different times, and they had no exchange of ideas, have reached to the same conclusion. You can not simply go on ignoring it. Half of the humanity -- and perhaps the best half because it became civilized long before the West, it became cultured long before the West, it has lived all the glories that West thinks he is attaining now.... Looking at its literature, looking at its sculpture, looking at its music, its poetry, you have to think about that the people who have created such sculpture, the people who have created such great poetry, such great painting, such great music, should not be ignored out of hand.
Osho, last night you said that the mind cannot do two things together -- that is, thinking and witnessing. It seems then that witnessing is a mental faculty and an act of the mind. Is it so? Please explain. Is there anything like partial witnessing and total witnessing?
WITNESSING is not a mental activity; thinking is a mental activity. Rather, it would be better to say that thinking is mind. When the mind is not, when the mind is absent, when the mind has disappeared, only then do you have witnessing. It is something behind the mind. Zen Buddhism uses mind in two ways: the ordinary mind means thinking; then Mind with a capital "M" means the Mind behind thinking. Consciousness is behind the mind; consciousness comes through the mind. If mind is in a state of thinking, it becomes opaque, non-transparent, just like a clouded sky -- you cannot see the sky. When the clouds are not, you can see the sky. When thinking is not there, then you can feel the witnessing. It is the pure sky behind. So when I said that you cannot do two things, I meant either you can think or you…