According to Osho, the essence of his teaching is dissolution: let the ego die—real “suicide”—through any single path that resonates (prayer, meditation, bhajan, kirtan, satsang). Methods differ; the root is self-annihilation in awareness. Killing the body changes nothing; ending the ego ends return. Choose one method and do it totally; avoid excessive planning—total surrender is enough.
Pick one sincere practice and give yourself up in it until your ego melts away—that’s the whole teaching.
From the Discourses
Passages where Osho speaks to this question — each links to the complete discourse.
Osho, forgive me; I made many mistakes in understanding you. Many times doubt pursued me. Again I ask forgiveness. You have propounded many paths. May I ask what is the essential thread, the essence, of your teaching?
Dissolve! By whatever pretext you dissolve, it doesn’t matter—just dissolve! In prayer, in worship, in bhajan, in kirtan, in meditation, in satsang—dissolve. The methods are different. Someone drinks poison and kills himself. Someone shoots himself. Someone hangs himself with a rope. Someone jumps into a river. Someone lies down on the railway tracks. The methods are different, but suicide is one. In the same way, all these methods are different, but at the root there is self-annihilation. Dissolve! Let the ego come to an end. This is the real “suicide” I am teaching you. By destroying the body, nothing much is destroyed; you will come back again—and into the same kind of body, because your consciousness has not changed. It was due to a particular configuration of consciousness that you took this body. If the pattern of consciousness hasn’t changed, you will return to the same sort of body, choose…
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 fundamental teaching to your sannyasins?
Truth is a transmission beyond words. Words move from one mind to the other mind. What I am saying to you is from one mind to another mind. What is not said is far more important. Listen to my silences the pauses in between. Listen to the gaps. When you are in tune with me, in deep harmony with me, when there is no fight going on between you and me -- no resistance, no conflict no argument... And there is no need of any argument because I am not trying to convince you of anything, I am not trying to persuade you to become followers, to become imitators. My effort is totally different: it is that of communion, not of communication. When two hearts are beating together in rhythm, in a kind of synchronicity, when they are dancing together hand in hand, in a deep loving embrace, then something…
Osho, what is the definition of God?
Words are very small. If you say God is light, then what of darkness? The scriptures have said that God is light. Suppose we accept this as a definition—then what about darkness? Where will darkness go? Darkness is too; in fact it is far more than light. Light sometimes is and sometimes is not; darkness is always, eternal. Where will you place darkness? If you say God is light, darkness is left out. If you say God is darkness, then light is left out. If you say God is both darkness and light, a contradiction arises: they cannot be together. Try to have both darkness and light in the same room. If you bring in light, darkness disappears; if you preserve darkness, you cannot have light. Then how can both be together? That becomes an impossibility. So you cannot say “both” either. Then the fourth device is to say: it…
It can be reduced to a very simple maxim: to watch your thoughts is meditation, because through your watching your thoughts, they start disappearing, evaporating. When your watchfulness becomes really intense, thoughts disappear, and in that thoughtless consciousness you hit upon your innermost core... and the explosion. That explosion is wisdom. That explosion makes one a Christ or a Buddha. And my whole effort here is not to make you a Christian but a Christ, not to make you a Buddhist but a Buddha. Why become a Christian? -- because that is knowledge. Why not become Christ? -- that is wisdom. Why become a Buddhist? -- that is knowledge. Become a Buddha -- that is wisdom. Why settle for secondary things? Why not go to the primary source which is within yourself? Why settle for borrowed things, old and rotten?