According to Osho, living means remaining in continuous change—venturing into the unknown, future-oriented, courageous enough to drop the comfort of past certainties—whereas dying is stagnation: clinging to the known, revering the past, and preferring convenience over inquiry. Societies become 'alive' when they nurture curiosity and effort; they become 'dead' when they idolize yesterday’s knowledge and avoid the creative pain of growth.
Being alive is trying new things and learning, while being dead inside is just holding onto old ways because they feel safe.
From the Discourses
Passages where Osho speaks to this question — each links to the complete discourse.
Osho, in fact it is not really clear to me whether we are living or dying. Sir, as it appears to me, the society in which we live is not healthy in its true sense and is dominated by contentious issues like education, religion and science, instead of being dynamic. As I understand it, because of these various conditions we are swinging like a clock’s pendulum. Would you please suggest some educational reforms that could make our lives worth living?
If we want to create a living society, we must not make the person a part of society. We must make the person a complete, free unit in himself—a unit in itself. And society will be the interrelationship of such individuals. Understand this well. Until yesterday, society was important, and individuals were its parts. That is the sign of a dead society: society important, individuals parts. The sign of a living society will be: individuals are important, and society is only their interrelationship. Society will be the interrelationship among living individuals. The individual will not be a part; the individual will be an independent unit. And society will be the relationship among independent units. Until now, the individual was not an independent unit; society was the independent entity, and the individual its part. The individual had to live as society determined. The hallmark of a living society will be that…
Osho, the life I am living, and the way I am living—Is this what life is?
He didn’t listen. He came just now, greatly repentant—didn’t become chief minister, and is no longer even a minister. He said, Now tell me meditation. I said: Now come again—when the chance to become chief minister arises once more in your life. People want meditation free—without giving up anything. And meditation is the most precious thing in life. There is no gem greater than it. Even if you give up everything for it—you have lost nothing. Take to meditation, Madhukar! Your very name is sweet—Madhukar, honeybee! Within, the true flower is in bloom. Come inside. Hum its song there. There is the real nectar. Whoever has drunk it is satisfied forever. If to the blossoming mangoes the maddened bees do not come, how am I to know that springtime has arrived? Granted, the sky seems open now and washed, wide-spread, blue upon blue, the frost-burned lawn turns yellow-green again on…
Osho, we don’t know how to keep the ritual of your gathering; we don’t know how to smear ourselves with the ash of our own body. O Osho, you who teach the way to die, listen: we don’t know how to die before we die.
If you learn the art of dying, each morning you will find you are a child again. Butterflies call again; the dew speaks again; pearls are scattered all around once more; moon and stars turn mysterious. What does childhood mean? Innocence—no self-consciousness yet. Whoever learns to die every day wins the taste and doorway to childhood day after day. The delight that was in self-forgetfulness—where is it? We came to our senses, and we saw. You ask, “Before death we cannot die.” If you die only when you are killed—what art is that! Everyone dies when they are killed—dogs and cats, men and women. If you die only when death slays you, what will be your mastery? What will be your worth? That mighty Bhima, of whom it is told There dwelt the strength of sixty thousand elephants— He could not lift a single piece of wood off his chest…
Osho, how should life be lived, and what is its purpose?
Enter life—stay awake and experiment; try waking and observe; try sleeping and observe; try eating; try lying and truth-telling; try anger and forgiveness; try love and enmity—taste all. In all of it, wherever depth increases, where peace increases, where joy increases, where a glimpse of the divine comes—recognize that as the rule forming for your life. And do not make even that rule so rigid that there is no possibility of change tomorrow. No one knows what life will bring tomorrow. The straight path may suddenly need a turn. What was pleasurable may become painful. Keep an opening for tomorrow. Hence the second thing: discover life’s rules from within. And also: do not consider your discovered rule absolute. Do not regard it as perfect. It must have the flexibility to change tomorrow. Life flowers fully only in one who can change each moment. But we are “consistent” people. We insist:…
Beloved Osho, you have recently said that most of humanity is vegetating, not living. Please explain to us the art of living so that death may become also a celebration.
In India the real brahmin, the real knower, has called himself dwij, twice born. Why twice born? What happened to the first birth? What is the need of the second birth? And what is he going to gain in the second birth? In the second birth he is going to gain what was available in the first birth but the society, the parents, the people surrounding him crushed it, destroyed it. Every child is being stuffed with knowledge. His simplicity has to be somehow removed, because simplicity is not going to help him in this competitive world. His simplicity will look to the world as if he is a simpleton; his innocence will be exploited in every possible way. Afraid of the society, afraid of the world we have created ourselves, we try to make every child be clever, cunning, knowledgeable -- to be in the category of the powerful,…