According to Osho, self-reliance means: be your own helmsman and light; no teacher can hand you truth—ignite your own longing and row with your own hands. Trust the divinity within; the seeker and the sought are one. Face challenges boldly; the very waves become your carriers. Drop crutches, awaken your innate mastery, and realize your infinite potential.
Don’t wait for someone to give you truth—trust your inner light, steer your own boat, and turn problems into steps to grow.
From the Discourses
Passages where Osho speaks to this question — each links to the complete discourse.
Osho, what is the proof of God’s existence?
And you still ask for proof? There have been people who offered proofs, and all their proofs are futile. No proof works. All the proofs for God so far are not worth a penny. Someone says: everything that is made must have a maker; such a vast world—surely it must have a maker. But that proof commits suicide; the moment it meets an atheist, it goes lame. The atheist says: If every made thing must have a maker, if God is needed to make the world, then who made God? With that he tightens the noose around your neck. Who made God? You protest: No, no one made God. Then the atheist says: If God can be without being made, why can’t the world be without being made? The argument collapses; it falls flat. You say: just as the potter makes the pot, so that Great Potter made this world.…
Osho, Buddha has said: Be a light unto yourself. Then is there no need for any support at all in the search for truth?
If only you had listened to gurus like Buddha, there would have been no reason for slavery in this land. If only you had learned individuality, privacy of being; if only you had learned: I have to be myself; I am not a copy of anyone; and I have to be my own lamp—then you would have stood firm in the outer world as well. This disgrace would not have happened—that a nation of forty crores becomes the slave of a handful! Anyone comes and the country becomes enslaved! Surely a deep imprint of slavery was stamped on the soul of this land. Who stamped it? Who poured this poison into your blood? Who made your soul toxic? Who taught you methods for remaining in darkness? Your so‑called gurus. They were not gurus. Gurus are people like Buddha, who say: Appo deepo bhava—be a light unto yourself. Only in aloneness…
Osho, you said... then you will find that the devotee is God. The question arises: if one devotee prefers to be God and another wants to remain only a devotee, then which of the two is superior?
The one who wants to be God will not be able to be. And the one who wants to remain a devotee will become God. The question of superior or inferior does not arise, because only one of the two will happen. The one who does not want to be will be. The one who wants to be will be deprived. That very wanting is of the ego. But the matter is a little delicate. Sometimes humility too belongs to the ego. Beware that your humility may not be of the ego. Perhaps you are saying, “No, I don’t want to be,” because you know that those who refuse are the ones who attain. Then you are clever. Then your humility is adulterous. Your humility is not pure, not sacred, not virginal—it is like a prostitute. The one who wants to be God, whose ego says, “I must become God,”…
Osho, what is the fundamental anguish of human life?
There is only one anguish: that a human being cannot become what he was born to be. There is only one anguish: that the seed remains a seed and does not bloom like a flower; that it cannot scatter its fragrance to the infinite winds; cannot converse with the moon and stars; cannot offer its colors to the sky; cannot be expressed. If the poem within the poet cannot be revealed—anguish. If the painter cannot paint—anguish. If the dancer cannot dance—if chains lie on his feet—anguish. Anguish means only this: that what we are meant to be—our innate nature and destiny—does not come to fruition, and we are forced to be something else. Then anguish is born. Then melancholy gathers over life. And all those countless people you see burdened with sorrow, living in a kind of hell—the reason is only this: each has come carrying the seed of becoming…
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…