According to Osho, the essential message is: know yourself through direct experience and see that your true nature is divine. Drop the veil of duality—there is only One; servant and God are a playful split of the same being. Recognizing your original face unlocks boundless power, heals sorrow, and reveals that love is the essence, and the remedy lies within you.
Discover who you truly are and you’ll see you and God aren’t two—love and every remedy are already inside you.
From the Discourses
Passages where Osho speaks to this question — each links to the complete discourse.
Question: First question: Osho, what message do you want to give to the world? Most people have broken the veena of their life this very way. Those who sit in your temples and ashrams—whom you call saints and sages—are such corpses, their veenas broken. No melody rises from them—gloomy, without celebration, no music, no fragrance. And these sick, deranged people are making others sick and deranged. What they learned, they teach. Thus humanity is caught in a deep disease. I want to offer you a religion that teaches you the art of placing your fingers upon the veena; that teaches you friendship with the veena; that helps you hear the subtle, subtle notes hidden in its strings; that makes you so skillful that one day the raga Deepak arises—that even extinguished lamps light up, such music is born. What the divine has given you cannot be useless.
That which brings us together sets us apart
For them there is no short-cut. And all that is great belongs to that category. Only small things can be attained quickly. Coffee can be instant -- -- love cannot be. Instant love cannot be love. Instant simply means you are not even ready to pay the little patience for it. One should learn to be patient -- to be ready to wait with open doors, with a welcoming heart, but not in a hurry, not demanding, not forcing things. And the miracle, the paradox, is that the less you force things, the more quickly they happen. The more you force them, the longer it takes. Because meditation has to be learned -- and meditation only means stilling of the mind, the silencing of the mind -- you cannot be in a hurry. If you are in a hurry your mind will remain in a turmoil. You will be jumping…
Jesus says, "Seek and ye shall find." But where to seek? People have been seeking in every sacred place; they are going to Jerusalem or to Mecca or to Kashi or to Tibet. That is not going to help. Wherever you go, you are wasting your time. One has to go within. The kingdom of God is within you. Meditation is the whole art of transforming the gestalt; the consciousness that goes outwards starts turning in. And then one becomes aware of millions of gifts; then small things, very small and ordinary things, have tremendous significance. Just a dewdrop slipping from the lotus leaf into the lake is enough to fill one with wonder and awe. It is poetry, pure poetry! It is music, it is dance, it is a finger pointing to the moon.
Question: HE DOESN'T KNOW HIS OWN SELF: HOW SHOULD HE KNOW THE SELF OF ANOTHER? HE KNOWS ONLY HIS HANDS AND FEET, HOW SHOULD HE KNOW ABOUT GOD? THIS IS BEYOND THE SAGE'S GRASP: YOU MUST BE A FOOL IF YOU THINK THAT YOU KNOW IT. WHEN YOU CAN EXPOUND ON THIS, YOU WILL KNOW THE PURE ESSENCE OF FAITH; TILL THEN, WHAT HAVE FAITH AND YOU IN COMMON? IT IS BETTER TO BE SILENT THAN TO TALK NONSENSE LIKE ONE OF THE LEARNED; FAITH IS NOT WOVEN INTO EVERY GARMENT. YOU WERE MADE FOR WORK: A ROBE OF HONOR AWAITS YOU. HOW IS IT THAT YOU ARE SATISFIED WITH MERE RAGS? HOW WILL YOU EVER HAVE RICHES IF YOU ARE IDLE SIXTY DAYS A MONTH? KNOWING WHAT YOU KNOW, BE SERENE ALSO, LIKE A MOUNTAIN; AND DO NOT BE DISTRESSED BY MISFORTUNE.
Osho, only one question is arising in the heart, and that too for the first time: Who are you, what are you, where are you? May there be a complete recognition of myself so that we become one. Let “you” no longer be you, let “I” no longer be I. Let us lose ourselves in each other. And until recognition happens, how can we become one? And it seems proper that only then should I come to your court. Only then will there be joy in coming.
Do not deceive your mind like this. Man continually discovers new tricks to avoid. If you plan to go to the gate of the Divine only after you have known yourself—then what need will remain to go to that gate at all? And drop this arrogance that you will arrive only after knowing yourself, with some worthiness, with some qualification. It is precisely your obsession with merit and worthiness that has led you astray. “I will become something first, then go.” How can I go naked, just as I am? I will go equipped. Will you not go to God’s court as you are? Will you stage a production there too? Once there were thrones of one kind; now you have invented a new throne—“I will go only as a self-realized one.” “Only then will it be fun.” Will you not be able to stand before God helpless, destitute? Will…