According to Osho, spreading light means embodying love—the inner, wickless flame—and letting it overflow through humble, egoless being. Drop the idea of being great; become small, become loving, and you become the message. Then share in simple ways: sow small joys, offer tiny supports, and give unstintingly. Love multiplies; the more you give, the more returns, greening the whole environment.
Be loving without ego, and your small kindnesses will brighten the world and fill you up too.
From the Discourses
Passages where Osho speaks to this question — each links to the complete discourse.
Question: Final question: Osho, your message? Roshanlal! Spread light; that is my message. Become luminous yourself, and illumine others! Light your own lamp; share your flame with the lamps that have gone out! Spread the living— one single word is more than enough to be meaningful. That living word will not only quicken you, it will pour life around you; it will turn the withered whole environment green again. That word is “love.” Go within, deeper than your own depth; then bring up the pearl of this living word, and open the lip-sealed shell— the pearl of “love” will emerge, whose radiance is greater than the sun. No doubt your own idea of yourself as someone great becomes an obstacle to receiving and spreading this living word.
Osho, I want to bring light to the world. And you have also said this is your message. How should I begin this great work?
Jagdish! Have you found the light? Have you become illumined? If you had become illumined, you wouldn’t ask this question. Because one who is illumined doesn’t have to ask how to show light. Light begins to pour from him. When a lamp is lit, the lamp does not ask, “Now how should I light up the room?” The lamp is lit—there is light. The lamp is lit—light begins to fall on people’s paths. The lamp is lit—and even those wandering in distant darkness begin to see. Someone lost in a far-off forest can also see the lamp in someone’s hut. Once the lamp is lit, light flows of its own nature. You simply do not ask. Your lamp has not yet been lit. Yes, you want the pleasure of showing light! And such a delusion arises because your so‑called sadhus and saints keep telling you: Serve! Work for people’s welfare!…
Each human being has to be an Adam, an Eve, again and again. Drop the past as it it never existed, always start from ABC, fresh, from scratch. And you will have a beautiful life, you will have an adventurous life. You will have an ecstatic quality in your life. (Ralf's new name meant bliss and wisdom. They are necessarily related, Osho explained.) Bliss and wisdom are two sides of the same coin -- become blissful and you will be wise. But the so-called religions have been teaching you just the opposite; they teach you guilt -- and how can a guilty person be blissful? He is bound to be sad, he is bound to be serious. This is a great calamity that has happened to humanity. That's why your saints look so sad, with such long faces. They cannot laugh, they cannot rejoice, they cannot dance, they cannot sing.
And only when one is full of light.... The first child of light is love. And love contains all that is beautiful, all that is divine: compassion, prayer, creativity, grace. They all follow love, you need not think about them, they are by-products, consequences of love. But love itself happens only through light. All meditation techniques are devices to bring you out of your sleep, to help you wake up. OSHO (to Aige) : Your heart starts pulsating in a different rhythm. The whole world remains the same but your eyes are no more the same; hence you start seeing things which you have never seen before and you stop seeing things which you have always been seeing. So in a sense the world remains the same and in another sense it is no more the same, because when the seer changes, the seen changes.
Osho, what is your essential message? The same as has always been the message of all the buddhas: Appa Deepo Bhava! Be your own lamp! Be your own helmsman! Do not lean on another’s shoulder. Only if you eat yourself will your hunger be satisfied. Only if you drink yourself will your thirst be quenched. Only when you know truth yourself—and only then—will the veena of contentment sound within you. The truth I have known is of no use to you.
I cannot give you truth. I can only kindle within you the longing to realize it. I cannot give you truth, but I can create in you such a fire for truth that you become a moth, ready to burn and be consumed in its flame. Who says my boat has no boatman? Today I myself am the boatman of this boat! I do not accept the ocean’s beguiling, cajoling, rainbow-hued waves’ invitation. Today I have accepted the ocean’s challenge—these countless, fierce, untamed waves! Today the oar rests in my steady hands. Let the waves fling the boat up to the sky, or drag it with them down to the abyss— they will not be able to swallow it! Their defeat is certain— the serpent-like, monstrous waves will be leashed by the cord of the heart’s faith! Bearing it upon their own heads, the waves themselves will carry this boat…